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By Gerard Houarner, on January 4th, 2012
Looking through clip files for an SU piece this month, I came across a July 2010 article on disruptive thinking. A quick web search led to a ton of more material on the topic, including a military field manual on Intelligence, so I thought it might make a cool kick-off for the coming year.
Like so many other innovations, “disruptive thinking” is just another way for someone with a hustle or a degree to make a living selling something old in a new package. Being creative says it all, but sounds a bit elitist. Thinking outside of the box also says it all, in a friendlier, homespun kind of way.
However you want to name the process, the idea is to look beyond the cliché, the familiar, accepted, routine way of doing things. The motivation for engaging in this difficult work is to stand apart and offer something not done before in a particular context, leading to more of whatever it is you value – money, success, deer kills, whatever – than people doing things the regular old way.
For writers, this can mean looking at the story for opportunities for characters to engage in disruptive thinking – ways to get out of a problem that surprise the reader and demonstrate an interesting aspect to their personality. You see and use this kind of thing all the time – an everyday person overcoming fears, doing things outside their comfort zone motivated by love, rage, money, madness, money problems, all the rest.
It’s the kind of stuff that keeps crime and thriller stories going, the thing that puts the edge to horror as the thinking, in and out of the box, never seems to stop what’s coming after you.
Keeping disruptive thinking handy is useful as well for business reasons. Zombie Jane Austen, whatever its eventual worth, is an example of this. Giving away books for free is another.
Like all ideas, this is a tool, not a lifestyle. A hammer can’t replace a screwdriver (unless destroying the thing requiring the screwdriver is your “disruptive thinking” solution to the problem – not always a bad idea).
However, it can be useful in the process of writing. Yes, at some point, critical thinking is required. Commitment. An acceptance of risk and failure. Feel free to support all the really well executed materials on this kind of thing with a click of a search or shopping cart button.
In the meantime, just riff on the possibilities for writing.
For instance, there is simplicity to “he said” and “she said” in a narrative flow that makes heavy use of anything else a questionable decision, so disruptive thinking in this area is risky business. On the other hand, relying on simple descriptions like “a blue car” or “a green dress” wears thin, at least at reading levels above telebubby, so the application of seat to chair and brain to tools might be recommended.
You’d think disruptive thinking comes easily to creative types – that’s why they/we are considered creative. Except, we’re usually lucky to have some charmingly chaotic aspect to our work which gets us noticed, but have trouble working that charm through all the other levels of our writing, from dialog, characterization, structure, plotting, language, and the rest.
Also, markets are not always big fans of wild blue yonder ideas or characters. Publishers want to be surprised, yes, but by the predictable, which is what they believe readers want. And, judging by best seller lists, if not politics, you can’t argue too much against publishers if you want to make money.
But that’s no reason to throw away the old “DT.”
On a basic writing level, I work on being a “disruptive thinker” in terms of dialog and character perceptions.
Any exchange between characters can become monotonous, particularly if you’re trying to deliver plot and background information while trying to avoid an “info dump” or developing a relationship, good or bad, between characters. Earnest gossiping about someone’s past or long-winded explanations of all the reasons why someone loves or hates someone else may be depressingly realistic, but will kill pacing.
These are excellent opportunities for character development – showing off personality, especially those character strengths and flaws that will show up later in the plot, while hopefully engaging the reader by having more than one thing happening at a time. Fixing a flat, preparing a meal, cleaning a weapon, shopping (and all the side conversations and distractions that can occur while performing these tasks) can break things up while the smoke and mirrors aspect of the action should actually become relevant in the future, as well as demonstrate characters handling situations in their own style.
I find humor in these situations a good way to relieve boredom and predictability, as well cut down on a lot of unnecessary details, at least for myself, if not for anyone else. In particular, the humor from misunderstanding and miscommunication can derail an earnest conversation which has already provided the reader with enough info to figure out that A is in love, or really hates, B.
Watching antic early Marx Brothers exchanges, or even Abbott and Costello, can be an excellent source of inspiration. Being or know a smartass is also helpful. Listening to children can be very rewarding in picking up ways to derail predictable conversations. Picking up and inserting random snatches of conversation from radio, TV, or passersby in public places are also recommended. Real life non-sequiturs from work or family life…priceless.
How a character perceives and reacts to what’s going on or what’s being said can also serve as an opportunity not only to demonstrate what that character is about, but startle and further engage the reader – the zombie lurching toward said character can suddenly be reminiscent of Uncle Harry and his war-wounded bad leg, or the pile-driver lurching suddenly outside my window at this moment as it shifts position may remind someone of an ancient siege tower, just as the relentless pounding of multiple pile-drivers throughout the work-day can become enemies pounding at the gates and walls of a fortress, thus serving as an apt metaphor for somebody’s work life.
As above, a certain amount of critical thinking and restraint is needed in the application of technique, otherwise you’re going to wear people out. And, in keeping with the theme of disruptive thinking, I have to watch out for my own personal clichés. Always reaching for the same technique to disrupt a reader’s expectations – like, again from my personal arsenal, having some kind of spirit/internal projection serve as a foil to help liven things up a bit – can also require a bit of disruptive thinking.
Descriptions. When is a green dress just a green dress, and when is it hanging like a faded sheet of wallpaper freshly stripped from a pale and pot-marked wall, and when is it a cool invitation to lay down in a country field and watch the clouds drift by?
It all depends on just how bad a noir romance you’re writing, I suppose.
But, hopefully you get the idea that thinking outside the box and choosing the imagery, or the detail, that will quickly drive the item in question into the reader’s head is an exercise not only in imagery, but in tone and rhythm and language so that it can become almost haiku-like in its precision and ability to arrest attention.
Language. Phrasing. I’m not going to touch this because I’m not the one to talk about it, but how the words are dropped on the page, how each flows to the next – with invisibly serenity or with the heart-stopping ride of a bucket in a two-mile stretch of rough rapids – is another way to knock around reader expectations. Some folks have the ear to mimic the music of different accents and ways to use words – the difference between an immigrant from Israel and one from the Caribbean – and other like Kelly Link just have a different voice running through their head and the sentences that come out on the page writhe like a nest of vipers and just seem impossible to imitate.
But whatever the talent level, making the effort to be a little out of the box when it comes to language, even if it’s as small as changing sentence cadence when in the head of the vampire or the corporate lawyer, and then shifting it again when in the perspective of the vampire hunter’s traitorous assistant or the thieving chief financial officer, will make a big difference in the final product.
In editing, watch for those personal clichés – words, phrases, fall-back characterizations, pet details that get thrown in time after time – and do the DT to come up with something fresher.
And we haven’t even gotten to the big ticket items, like…
Taking a character down two different choices, in very rough draft form, and see what comes up – the expected heroic action, and the terrible mistake that further complicates the plot and botches up your outline.
Writing in an office or other quiet space if you’re a “need noise” type of writer, or in a public or family space if you’re the “need peace” type, to see what comes out (but write fast and without stopping, using environmental stimuli or whatever’s rattling around in your head.
Write in the voice of a favored or newly discovered writer (yes, I know, it’s what beginning writers do, but sometimes it does a body good to go back and try that trick again, only this time don’t do Lovecraft or Spillane or Hemingway…)
Get lost. No, really, I mean it. Bring a map or GPS to get yourself out of the mess you’re going to put yourself in, and do check the news for the area you’ve targeted to make sure there are no mutant cannibals or rips in the space/time continuum that might mess you up. But do break personal routines and habits every now and then, embrace wrong exits, restaurants out of your cultural range, foreign flicks that don’t have kung fu in them, if only for a little while.
I mentioned listening to children. Listen to them again when they watch a movie or talk about a book they read in school. Listen to people who are not diehard fans of whatever you really love to read or watch, to understand what doesn’t work, why they don’t buy into time lords or starships or monsters or even evangelicals. You probably won’t be able to change their minds, but hearing their criticisms might make you work a little harder to be more believable to wider audience.
If you’re the hyper-critical type, of course, loosen up, and if you’re the fly-by-the seat-of-your-pants type, tighten up. Throw out the outline for a minute, or use one and see what happens. Change out of your usual type of narrator or character types. I’m not saying base a whole novel on this, but in a more complex story, take a small step out of the gender/sexual orientation/religious belief/ethnic group box.
Anyway, check out disruptive thinking as a way to make yourself productively uncomfortable
By Carole Lanham, on January 2nd, 2012
What makes a book stand up and say READ ME! I’ve spent a lot of time in recent months researching different marketing strategies and to do this, I set aside my own writing and took a closer look at the books piled up on my Kindle shelves and spilling across the nightstand next to my bed. Today being the second day of a brand new year, I thought I’d share why I chose to read the books I chose to read in 2011. The rules of attraction might be different for you, but I’m still hoping I can find useful ways to use this knowledge when it comes to my own book sales. I’d love to hear what draws you to read a particular book so please share! Meanwhile, here’s what grabbed me in 2011 and why:
YOU HAD ME AT BACON
Word of mouth is number one for me. Outside of an obvious preference for titles that match up with my own personal taste, nothing makes me hungrier for a book than a scrumptious endorsement. Some opinions are more apt to sway me than others. A suggestion made by a friend who likes what I like will obviously carry more weight. Trusted online review sites are also good. I’m really loving Goodreads right now, which is nothing but a gigantic mouth passing along the word. Creating good buzz through reviews, blogs, reading groups, and advertising is key, of course. How you create that is something I’m still studying, but boy do I love my homework.
YUM, A FREE TASTE!
I’m one of those people who will buy a ten pound tub of Foie Gras if I taste an appetizer off a tray at the grocery store and it tickles my taste buds and I need a teaspoon of the stuff to make the appetizer at home. One of my favorite things about Kindle ownership is the free samples. If a sample tastes delicious, I’m all yours Baby – heart, body, and soul! If not, there are other fish in the sea and I’m moving on. That free sample from Amazon is all-important if you’re me. I’ve passed on many a book because of it – books I might have otherwise bought had I simply read the book jacket while rushing through Borders in the olden days. I try my best to grab a sample at the bookstore or library too but you’ve probably only got one or two paragraphs to snag me there. Outside of word of mouth, a savory sample is the second best way to earn my business.
BEAUTY IS ONLY SKIN DEEP
This is true, but I happen to be shallow as hell. An alluring book cover stops me in my tracks every time. I like a pretty spine and I’m not afraid to admit it. I might not end up going anywhere with you, you dazzling little thing you, but you’ve definitely caught my eye. If you talk as pretty as you look, I might jump on you right now. One word of caution though; if you’re a writer whose decided to put your own book on Amazon, please choose a book cover that will look good as a thumbnail. A cover I have to squint to see has the opposite effect. Unless you come highly recommended, a tiny, too dark, too elusive piece of cover art on Amazon is a real big turn off for me.
HAH! MADE YOU LOOK!
A clever and/or compelling book title really is tied for third place with good cover art when it comes to why I choose a book. Some titles are just more fetching than others. No, I won’t buy a book based on this alone but then again, in the vast sea of books I have to choose from, you’ve at least made me look.
A CHEAP DATE
I don’t care so much about the cost of a book, actually. I like lobster and I’m willing to pay for it. That said, when the above features line up, a nice price is appreciated. All things being equal, I will go for the better deal. If I have a Barnes & Noble gift card to spend, I want to make the most of it. In this economy, who doesn’t love a good bargain?
WHY IS SHE ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT FOOD?
Some of these things authors have control over. Some they don’t. Speaking only as a reader, this is the stuff I care about. I’m drawn to books that my trusted sources are raving about, I’m a sucker for a juicy sample, my eye is drawn by interesting book covers and/or fabulous book titles, and I’d rather buy two books for my money than one.
As a follow-up, about a year ago I wrote a post on the importance of having good cover art. Several authors with more experience than myself pointed out that it is rare for an author to have much say about the look of their own book covers. With the increased popularity of publishing one’s own book on Kindle, more people are choosing their covers now than in the past, but there is still something to be said for having professional input. When my book was published this year, I held my breath and said a fervent prayer before taking a look at the cover art the publisher sent over. I got very lucky. I loved it. If you’re in my same boat, I wish you similar good fortune! With all the work that goes into writing a novel, it’s a real blessing when the publisher finds you a cover you love.
I’d like to close this month’s post with some of the books that swept me up, either for a moment or for their entirety, in 2011. Please share your own as there are many more that deserve recognition than the ones I’ve run across lately. And yes, the last book I included on my list of Best Covers is the book cover of a dear friend. And yes, Crossroad Press happens to be the publisher. But it’s lovely cover art and it definitely made me look.
The following books appear in no particular order -
Best Titles of Books 2011
Bedtime Stories for Children You Hate by Antoinette Bergin
There But For The by Ali Smith
The Dirty Parts of the Bible: A Novel by Sam Torode
Women and Other Monsters by Bernard Schaffer
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Speed Dating With the Dead by Scott Nicholson
Blueprints for Building Better Girls by Elissa Schappell
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes by Jonathan Auxier
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer
Go the F**K to Sleep by Adam Mansbach & Ricardo Cortes
Best Book Covers 2011
The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff
Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma
Bossypants by Tina Fey
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
How the Dead Live by Derek Raymond
Unloveable by Sherry Gammon
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson
Juliet Immortal by Stacey Jay
A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
The Martyring by Thomas Sullivan (Kindle Edition)
Carole Lanham is the author of The Whisper Jar from Morrigan Books.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Whisper-Jar-ebook/dp/B0062ID33K
By David Niall Wilson, on December 31st, 2011
 So, here we are sliding into another New Year. I’m in my armchair, watching silly TV with Trish and two of the kids, three other kids spread far and wide with friends and family…and thinking about saying something profound, or moving – anything to brighten that first day of 2012 for someone reading this post. Not sure where this is leading, but here goes.
The thing that comes to me is that I’ve been blessed over the years, particularly in my writing career, with a number of truly remarkable friends. We are drinking Blue Mountain coffee tonight (expensive, but actually worth every penny). The reason is not so simple. Many years back, when I published my own magazine, I did a tribute issue to Manly Wade Wellman, a writer I’ve loved since I was young. I missed my chance to meet Manly, he passed on right before I did the issue, but through that project I met others. I met the late Karl Edward Wagner, who was an inspiration, friend, and who connected me, in turn, with others.
One of those others was Hugh B. Cave. When I met Hugh, he was already in his eighties, but still writing steadily, and with style. He sent me stories for my Wellman issue, and I ended up being so impressed I followed immediately with a Hugh B. Cave issue. Hugh was an amazing man, and one of the things he did during his long life was to run a plantation in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Now, with Hugh gone, my company Crossroad Press is publishing all of his work in digital and audio, and Trish is helping with the copy-edits. We know more, through Hugh, than we ever expected to about Blue Mountain coffee, and the system in place that formed the co-op producing the tiny amount granted to the world each year. When we saw a tiny pouch of it for $20 in the grocery store, we nabbed it. I am happy to say that, like Hugh, the coffee is strong – amazing – and lives up to the words that brought it to us.
That is what I hope for in this new year. I want the words I write to bring images and dreams and enjoyment, and when and if my readers encounter something they met first through me – like The Great Dismal Swamp – I want the reality to make them smile and remind them of what I wrote. May all who read this have a wonderful 2012…
Be well, do something amazing, take some chances – live.
If Hugh was here…that’s what he’d tell you. Also – if you happen to see Blue Mountain coffee, and it seems like an awful lot of money to spend on such a small package…take a chance. You won’t regret it.
From the tail end of 2011 …
-DNW
By Alma Alexander, on December 30th, 2011
Aaaaand here we are again. In just over 24 hours human beings will usher in yet another year, the fireworks will go off (or whatever method of celebration is locally pursued), people will laugh and scream and kiss and shout “Happy New Year”. The next day dumpsters will be full of empty champagne bottles, spent streamers, clumped confetti, old calendars. And we will have a new date to put on our checks, on our correspondence… on our lives.
It’s a time for looking back as much as for looking ahead.
That pic, up there? That’s a park in the city where I was born. Those are the earliest memories I have of Decembers, the crisp days on sun and snow, the sparkle and glow of snow under haloes of street lights and strings of holiday lights out where the sellers of cards and tinsel had their tables on the sidewals of the old city, standing behind them while their breath steamed from their lips and while they hopped up and down from one foot to the other clapping mittened hands together for warmth, the way snow crunched underfoot when I walked upon it with my small hand in that of a parent or a grandparent, hurrying hither and yon on end-of-year errands of one sort of another. Those were the days I had a bedtime, and staying up to midnight was an adventure, and New Year’s Eve was something big and magical that I was allowed to stay up for and await even when my eyelids were at half mast and I was yawning mightily – but it was NEW YEAR, and I was part of the family which had gathered together to greet it.
I lost a couple of decades of my life to living in the “wrong” hemisphere, where December was full summer, where New Year parties were barbeques on the beach, and I NEVER accepted that – some part of me, deep inside, rebelled at the wrongness of it all, because if you look at almost ANY remotely “traditional” Christmas card (yes, even those sent in Australia or South Africa) it will show you the snow and the cold legacy of my own childhood. Yes, I realise how Eurocentric this all makes me sound – but sue me, I grew up there, and to me that was the right and proper way, and I could never ever shake that. The first “Real” winter I spent back in the proper hemisphere, dressed in a manner I deemed fit for the season (sweaters and gloves and boots and scarves and woolly hats) and looking at the bare branches of winter outside, watching the first fat flakes of snow falling, I cried. I was somehow deeply, viscerally, HAPPY and all was right with the world once again.
I need these long cold nights at the turning of the year, when I lay my head on my pillow and watch the winter moon rise into the sky through my bedroom window. I need them to recharge, to think, to remember, to gather the strength for the things to come which will be sent to try me (and some will. Some always come. That is the way of the world, and ever has been).
Tomorrow night, I will rip the last leaf out of the old calendar, and we will start again. Anew. Clean slate. Fresh new January 1.
Come in, 2012. The house is warm. There will be mulled cider. There will be quiet plans made by and beside the people I love most in the world.
May the New Year come gently to all of you out there, and may it treat you well
By Richard Dansky, on December 27th, 2011
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – the net is awash in advice by, of and for writers. This is a good thing, insofar as getting information into the hands of folks who are interested in using it to become better at their craft is generally a good idea. There’s advice on writing, there’s advice on marketing, there’s advice on self-publishing, there’s advice on e-publishing, there’s advice on how one should comport one’s self when engaged in a metaphorical act of cross-species carnal knowledge between Rana pipiens and Pan troglodytes. There’s advice on writers and agents and editors and bookstore folk and podcasters and cover artists and blurb-givers.
But lost in this flood-stage river of writing advice tends to forget one important person in the equation: the reader. Sure, there’s lots of stuff out there about how you can get readers to buy your book (which is kind of important), and get them talking about your book, and get them reviewing your book on Amazon. But it feels like something’s missing from all that, the sense of the reader as reader, not customer, the notion that their role in this is to enjoy what the experience of reading. And that bothers me a bit.
I confess, I’m a big reader. I read fast, and I read often, and I spend a lot of time in airports, so I have lots of reading time. I also review books, more or less, for four publications, so there’s a pretty steady flow of reading material through Chez Dansky and its hotel room-shaped far flung outposts. In a given year, I’ll probably read about 120 books cover to cover, plus take bites out of another thirty. I love reading, love the experience of curling up with a good book (metaphorically curling, that is – the seats at LaGuardia really don’t allow for much in the way of alternative posture choices) and losing myself in it. I don’t read because I have to – the reviewing gigs follow the reading, not the other way around – I read because I genuinely enjoy it, and I genuinely hope that everyone who reads something of mine gets that same enjoyment.
One of the things I’ve done the past couple of years is track which books I’ve read in a given year via Goodreads. It’s not keeping score, it’s more a way for me to check myself to see what my reading habits are, and how they change, and if I need to stop reading so damn many graphic novels. (Answer: Yes. Yes, I do.) As the year wound down, I did a run through this year’s catalog, and thought about where I’d read them, and when, and how. And I realized there were stories to the reading, to go with the stories that I was reading, ways in which the things I’d read had resonated beyond the experience of just reading. I thought I’d share a few of them.
Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned The Seal (Joe R. Lansdale) – I bought this in an airport bookstore in St. Louis, waiting for a delayed flight to take me home to start the year. I read it in the airport, and was finished before my plane left the ground. On the flight, I read an uneven biography of Forrest J. Ackerman, and fretted over the fact that I’d dinged the cover.
A Man Called Intrepid (William Stevenson) – Read mostly in a hotel room in Paris, off the Bastille. Three weeks at the head office to start the year off, punctuated by news that two relatives I loved dearly had passed away. One of them, according to family folklore, had served in Europe, and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He was a good and generous and strong man, much loved by all who knew him. I learned of his passing while stalking back and forth in the courtyard of the Louvre one cold night, trying to uncross figurative wires and meet up with the marvelous Gio Clairval, writer and translator, and fellow friend of Bull Spec editor Samuel Montgomery-Blinn. Eventually we found one another, and had a lovely dinner over which many stories were told, and I didn’t mention that Uncle Joe had passed because, really, that would have been kind of selfish. Eventually dinner wound down, and we said good evening, and I walked myself home to my hotel. And in the evenings the rest of that trip, I’d read myself to sleep with stories of derring-do from World War II.
Journal of a UFO Investigator (David Halperin) – Read for the sake of a review and interview of the offer, for Bull Spec Magazine. The interview was at Foster’s Market in Durham, and I was lost and late getting there. I parked in the wrong lot, sprinted in, and recorded the whole thing on my new iPad, which would have been fine if I’d had any chance to test recording things on my new iPad before breaking it in at the interview. The author, David Halperin, was wonderful and generous with his time, just as the book was wonderful and generous. Later, he wrote me to say that he thought the review nailed exactly what he was trying to do with the book, and asked if I’d be kind enough to repost it to amazon. So I did.
Ice Cream: A History (Ivan P. Day) – Read on the back deck of my house with a glass of homemade lemonade as accompaniment. That didn’t happen a lot this year; 20 or so weeks on the road. The hammock went almost entirely unused.
A Mammoth Murder (Bill Crider) – Bought off a dealer’s table at World Horror Con, pretty much because the back cover copy promised a Bigfoot angle to the mystery. I read it at home in the first couple of days following the con. The Bigfoot angle was pretty much a dud, but those who seek Bigfoot are used to failure. God forbid anyone ever actually found a sasquatch; the zoologists would move in instantly, and where would all the happy cryptozoologists be then?
The John Varley Reader (John Varley) – Read in a variety of places around Visby, Sweden. Four stories were read on the beach. Two were read as I perched precariously on the old town wall. Three more in a coffee shop, waiting for something that wasn’t coffee. You get the idea. And in the end, the book stayed there, left behind at the hotel for their tiny lending library, so someone else might get a chance to read it the way I had.
A Taste for Absinthe: 65 Recipes for Classic and Contemporary Cocktails (R. Winston Guthrie) – My wife is a statistician. She is also an absinthe fiend, having become thoroughly hooked on the not-so-blithe spirit during a trip to Prague for a writing workshop with John Kessel and Wilton Barnhardt. When this book came in for review, she decided we’d be having an absinthe party so we could review the recipes scientifically, with a matrix and, err, statistical stuff. So we invited friends over, and we bought a bunch of absinthe, and we made a lot of drinks, and, well, I’m pretty sure I remembered enough of the evening to actually write the review. Were any of the drinks any good, though? You’ll have to ask her.
Mendoza in Hollywood (Kage Baker) – Kage Baker passed away in early 2010. She and I both wrote for Green Man Review, and I was asked to write an appreciation of her for the magazine in the wake of her passing. I’d read and enjoyed her work prior to that, of course. 2011 was the year I really fell in love with it, and I dove in and devoured that which I had not already read. Sometimes, we find things too late; we don’t want to read the next thing from an author who’s gone because that brings us one step closer to reading the last one. Then again, there’s still joy to be taken in the reading of what is there, and there’s a brand new copy of Empress of Mars waiting for me in my to-read pile.
Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed (Philip Plait) – Read in Toronto, in a hotel room that was hugely spacious but lacking in a desk. In the convenience store next door, I was nearly trampled by a Lady Of The Evening stampeding her way to the drink cooler; apparently she was jonesing for a strawberry-kiwi Snapple. Later, I saw her on the street, yelling into her cell phone, tottering on heels high enough to require elevators, and clutching the half-empty Snapple bottle like it was the stuff of life itself.
The Disappearing Spoon (Sam Kean)- Bought in T.F. Green International Airport after a lengthy, lengthy conversation with one of the booksellers there. It was the trip home from NECON, and any books we’d bought there were packed and tucked away. Our flight was delayed – pretty much every flight I had this year, with the exception of the prop job puddle jumper that got me to and from Visby at ungodly hours in the morning was delayed, canceled or otherwise banjaxed – so Melinda ran back to the bookstore to pick up some things we’d talked ourselves out of buying. In truth, the bookseller had helped with that. He’d been so engaging and knowledgeable – and so interested in the fact that there was a writers’ convention down the road he’d never heard of – that we focused more on him, than on the books. But he got us on the rebound, and I read the book in dribs and drabs, one gaggle of elements at a time, over the next week.
Unseen Academicals (Terry Pratchett) – Also read in Toronto, as much of the back half of my year was spent there. I bought it from a tiny, cluttered used bookshop on Yonge Street, where the shelves had long since given up the fight and the books were stacked ten high and three rows deep on the floor. I read it over meals and in cab rides, reading it with one eye to make sure that I got where I was going and didn’t end up lost in the hinterlands of Missasauga or some such. Maybe I read it slower that way. Maybe it was just a very dense book. In any case, I didn’t finish it until just before I left for home. Many books I read on the road, stay there. If it’s not something I’ll read again and I can find a good home for it on the road, there’s no reason to shlep it back. Far better to let it stay behind so someone else could discover it. This one, though, came home with me.
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: War of the Worlds (Manly Wade Wellman) – I was mocked by the lead singer of a Swedish prog-metal band for reading this visibly during his band’s set. Prog Day is a local festival, out way the heck and gone in Chapel Hill. My friend Steve Burnett introduced me to it a couple of years ago, and my modus operandi is pretty simple: pack some books, pack a chair, pack a cooler full of beverage, and go hang out. It’s what everyone else is doing, after all. It was just my luck that the lead singer of Freak Kitchen noticed me – us, really; Steve was reading, too – during his set. The book, of course, is by Chapel Hill resident Manly Wade Wellman; things come full circle when you least expect it.
To Rule The Waves (Arthur Herman) – A deliberately contrarian history of the British Navy, selected largely for its bulk and ability to be the only book I’d need on a trip over to Vienna. The reason for the trip was the inaugural STAGConf, dedicated to Storytelling and Games (see how that worked?) and held in the Museum of Natural History in Vienna. Between lectures, everyone would eat pastry, then scurry off to ogle the Venus of Willendorf. Pictures do not do her justice. She is stunning. And she put what we do – what we were all there for – in perspective. Nobody’s going to be going to museums to check out lines of dialog from Cold Fear, twenty four thousand years from now.
Girl Genius, Volume 1 (Phil and Kaja Foglio) – Part of a 6-box-of-books delivery from one of the magazines I review for. I tore them open and blasted through a good ten or so in the next two weeks. One of those weeks was spent on the road, which is when I read half of those books. The other half were all read that night. I stayed up, sitting in one of the living room chairs with my cat curled up next to me, going through one after another. After I wrapped up each book, I told myself I’d be off to bed. Then I’d pick up another book, and another, until the sun came up.
After the Apocalypse (Maureen McHugh) – This one was read traveling back and forth on the Toronto subway. The stories are mainly about everyday people finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances – we’re talking serious end-of-the-world stuff here – and acting in less-than-admirable but entirely believable ways. When you’re on a subway car surrounded by complete strangers, that sort of thing makes you think. My next subway book, for the record, was about sasquatches.
The Hollow Earth (Rudy Rucker) – Melinda brought this home from a World Fantasy Convention, years ago. I read a few pages, and put it down someplace vaguely accessible, and started reading something else. Every so often, I’d pick it up again, and read a few more pages, and then put it down again. This year, I decided to finish it. I picked it up. I sat down in a room with no other books in it. I read the rest of it without stopping for lunch, for tasty beverages, or for random acts of affection toward one of our cats (this is less optional than it sounds – none of them have been declawed, all of them have abandonment issues, and one actually managed to chase off a burglar at one point. Ignore at your peril). And when a few hours were up, I’d finished it. It was done. I’d never pick it up for a few pages and then put it back down, again. And it was OK. Not great, not a mindblowing read or an unstoppable narrative cannonball knocking me off my feet. OK. But I’m glad I finished it.
Monster Spotter’s Guide to North America (Scott Francis) – Am enjoyably disjointed mess of a book that never quite figured out what it wanted to be, but it’s full of hodags and wampus cats and sasquatches, and I’ll never say no to that. This one was a Hanukkah present from my family, much of which is down here. I’ve got an eight year old nephew, and he’s got a friend who’s suddenly decided that he’s into Bigfoot; he cornered Steve at a Christmas Eve party to ask him details of our abortive Bigfoot-hunting expedition in eastern North Carolina (Note: We didn’t find Bigfoot; we did find hippies), which thrilled him to death. Maybe one of these days I’ll sit down with him and my nephew, and we’ll go through this book, and figure out where we can find Bigfoot in suburban Raleigh. And if he asks, I’ll lend him the book, and he can read it, too. Happy new year, everyone. And happy reading.
By Robert Jones, on December 19th, 2011
This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by presenting their readers with a gift of extra detail. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.
Although they might not be obvious, there are logical reasons for things happening. Human behavior is a category wherein reasons for more and more behaviors are being discovered. Violence and impulsiveness are two critical behaviors the causes of which are being intensely studied.
A murder trial the outcome of which hinged partially on reasons for violent acts was that involving David Bradley Waldroup, Jr. According to appellate court records, in October of 2006, he was staying in a trailer home parked on Kimsey Mountain in Tennessee. His wife, Penny, arrived in a van, bringing their children for a weekend visit with Mr. Waldroup. Her friend, Leslie Bradshaw, accompanied them.
Mr. and Mrs. Waldroup had been married for some time, but were separated and seeking a divorce. Mr. Waldroup reportedly suffered from increased emotional sensitivity and an intermittent explosive disorder, and Mrs. Waldroup had asked a neighbor to notify the police if she and Ms. Bradshaw had not returned by 7:30 p.m.
Mr. Waldroup reportedly had been drinking and had been carrying a .22 caliber rifle when he walked out to greet them. After groceries and children’s belongings had been unloaded from the van, Mrs. Waldroup tried to leave. Mr. Waldroup told her they needed to talk. She said that she needed to get to work and that they could talk when she returned to pick up the children. Mr. Waldroup grabbed the van keys and threw them into nearby woods. He began to berate both women and accused Ms. Bradshaw of ruining his marriage to Mrs. Waldroup. He then shot Ms. Bradshaw multiple times, killing her.
Mrs. Waldroup began running up the mountain, but Mr. Waldroup shot her in her back, and she fell. Mr. Waldroup caught up with her and aimed the rifle at her head, but she managed to kick it away. He pulled out a pocket knife and began to cut her. Somehow, she managed to get the knife and throw it away, and they ran back down the mountain. He then picked up a shovel and began hitting her on the head with it. At this point, their dog began to growl at him, and she was able to get loose and run around the trailer. He caught her again, though, and began to strike her on the back of her head with a machete. Grabbing her hair, he dragged her over to the body of Ms. Bradshaw and began kicking and hitting it with the machete.
Mr. Waldroup then forced his wife into the trailer, where the children wrapped her arms, bleeding from multiple knife wounds, in a sheet. Unbelievably, he then decided that he wanted to have sex with her. He told the children to say goodbye to their mother because they would never see her again. She said goodbye to each child and told them that she loved them.
He took her into the bedroom, but decided she was too messy with blood to have sex and wanted her to take a shower. She refused because she didn’t want to make it easy for him to clean up the blood, but did clean up a bit at the sink before he threw her on the bed. It was then that a police car pulled up to the trailer. Mrs. Waldroup was taken to a hospital via an ambulance and a helicopter and survived. Mr. Waldroup was taken to jail. By way of a behavioral genetics study described by the following, he also managed to survive.
Prosecutors were convinced that Mr. Wardroup’s actions were intentional and premeditated, and they charged him with the felony murder of Ms. Bradshaw, which carries a death penalty. Mr. Waldroup was also charged with attempted first-degree murder of his wife.
Genetic research has indicated that, in addition to other issues, a rare mutation in a neurotransmitter metabolizing enzyme (specifically, monoamine oxidase A) links a gene to a syndrome including violence, sexual aggression and impulsivity in humans. This, in combination with a history of early traumatic life events such as child abuse and lack of parental warmth, in high-provocation situations, can significantly increase the vulnerability of males to committing impulsive and violent acts. The gene involved is often referred to as the “warrior gene.”
Mr. Waldroup was tested and found to have the warrior gene. He had also been abused as a child. Mr. Waldroup was initially charged with first degree murder, two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, and attempted first degree murder. Despite vigorous objections raised by the prosecution, the defense was allowed to present descriptions of research findings about the links between warrior genes, child abuse and violence to the jury. Mr. Waldroup was ultimately found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated kidnapping and attempted second degree murder. As a result of the reduced charges, rather than the death penalty, he received a 32-year sentence.
The described research has provided some answers, but it has raised a huge question. In view of the fact that most persons having an unfortunate genetic makeup and an abused childhood background that predisposes them to violent behavior do not commit violent acts, how should courts dispense punishments that are fair to those guilty of violent acts and to the general population. If you, the reader, were a judge overseeing a violence case as described, what sentence would you impose?
Additional Facts:
In addition to violence and impulsivity, the warrior gene has been linked to crime, alcoholism and higher amounts of credit card debt.
As is the case for a number of genotypes, statistical frequency of the warrior gene varies with ethnicity.
MRI analysis has shown that brain activities of those with the warrior gene differ from those who do not have it.
There is an even rarer form of the warrior gene that has been linked to extreme aggression and extreme violence in men.
Defenses similar to that of Mr. Waldroup have also been used in Britain and Italy.
It was believed that this was the first reported case in the United States where such evidence had been introduced in the guilt phase rather than in the sentencing phase of a trial.
It is not surprising that a correlation has also been found between the playing of violent video games and behavioral effects on the brains of young children.
By Bev Vincent, on December 17th, 2011
At every convention I’ve attended, there’s a table full of promotional items. These usually consist of postcards or bookmarks, but sometimes there are fliers or little gadgets intended to entice people into purchasing a product. Usually a book, in my experience. Everyone is clamoring for everyone else’s attention, and if you don’t have the weight of a publisher behind you, it’s a tough row to hoe. If no one has heard of you, what is to entice someone to buy your book?
I’m seeing more and more book trailers these days. However, these suffer from the same basic issue: If I haven’t heard of you before, what will entice me to click on a link and spend 1-3 minutes of my time watching an ad for your book? Sure, it has the benefit of being “free,” except my time isn’t exactly free. There’s a limited amount of it, so I’m judicious about what I spend it on, most of the time.
I started thinking about this topic because I received a familiar letter in the mail last week. A thick envelope from the agency that represents The Road to the Dark Tower, my first book. Every six months, they forward my royalty statements from Penguin. It’s thick because there’s a separate page for each type of sale. Regular sales, international sales, various kinds of eBooks. It’s all rather befuddling and could easily be condensed to a page or two, in my opinion, but the bottom line comes on the front page: Total revenue from sales for this period and the remaining balance on my advance. This time, the balance left was almost exactly the same as my revenue for the last six months. In other words, another period like this one and I’ll earn out. The book is still selling well and consistently, seven years after publication. The revenue for the past several accounting periods has been roughly the same, so I’m confident that I will earn out (± a few dollars) by early 2012.
One thing these statements reminds me of, though, is how much I make from each copy sold. For trade paperbacks, my share is about $1.25 per copy. For eBooks, it’s roughly double that. (Go eBooks!)
Let’s look at that from a different direction. Suppose I decide to give a few copies away to generate publicity. Suppose with my author discount I can get a copy of the $16 trade paperback for $8. (I don’t recall what the exact discount is, but let’s assume 50%.) That means I have to sell seven or eight physical copies or three or four eBooks to pay for every copy I give away. If that donated copy leads to a review then it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that half a dozen people reading the review might be inspired to buy a copy.
Similarly, if I buy a pack of 250 postcards with the cover image on one side and promotional copy on the other. I can get that for about $20. If I distribute them via various means (I often tuck one in with a package if I sell a used book on eBay, for example), I would need to get 8 people to buy an eBook or 16 people to buy a trade paperback to break even. Averaging that out to 12 of either variety, that’s a 5% response rate. Worth it? Hard to say. What’s the ultimate goal: to break even or to turn a profit? Or to gain readers who, through word of mouth might generate more sales? All of the above, naturally.
How much does a book trailer cost? Some of them are done on the cheap and suffer from the same issues as a lot of self-published books: low quality. The three companies offering to make book trailers that I sampled in an unscientific survey charged anywhere from $200 to $2000. I’m sure you can do the math. That means the trailer would have to generate on the order of 100-1000 sales to break even. At the upper end of that range (and I’m sure there are companies willing to charge much more than that), you’re approaching half the typical advance for a traditionally published first novel. Worth it? I’m not convinced. If you have mad graphic arts skills and can put something together for free and doesn’t look like it was made by a 12-year-old, then why not? But I’m not sure I’d shell out any money for one.
The other thing that got me thinking about the expenses of promotion was the publicity campaign behind the A&E miniseries Bag of Bones. The cable channel put a lot of money into getting the word out. There were the obvious: print ads all over the place, billboards, TV spots, a sophisticated web site. They also hired an award-winning photographer to spend a few days on the set before filming to create a series of photo essays that were posted to a companion site called Dark Score Stories in which the lives of the characters leading up to the beginning of the miniseries were profiled—a prequel of sorts. That site got a lot of fans of the King novel excited about the miniseries.
However, the part that the general public doesn’t see intrigued me. The photo essays were turned into a lavish, limited edition hardcover sent to what Klout calls “influencers.” People who might be relied upon to talk about the miniseries and generate word of mouth. (Full disclosure: I received a copy.) Then, A&E sent out screeners of the miniseries to generate advanced reviews. This wasn’t just a couple of DVDs in an envelope, though. The discs came in a wooden box roughly a foot on a side. Inside the lid of the box was a faux turntable that spun when you opened it. Digital music played. It was pretty cool. Underneath was a nice little book with promotional material and the DVDs, plus a disc of assets (PDFs and stills) to accompany reviews. It was an impressive package. Finally, the publicist arranged interviews with various members of the production. I spoke one-on-one with Mick Garris for three quarters of an hour while he was still editing the miniseries and participated in a conference call interview with one of the actors.
Did it work? Certainly there were a lot of published interviews and reviews of the miniseries in the days leading up to its premiere. Alas, the reviews were not all that glowing and in some cases were really harsh. Although the miniseries ultimately fared pretty well in the ratings, one can only wonder how much better it might have done if it hadn’t been roundly panned beforehand. Is it true that any publicity is good publicity? Hard to believe.
What’s my bottom line? As usual, I don’t think I have one. These are just things that I’ve been thinking about for the past few days as I ruminated over what I would write about this month. Food for thought, perhaps. Something to start a discussion, maybe. I don’t think there are any definitive answers about how to promote your work. But I think you should weight the costs and potential returns before sinking a lot of money into a campaign that might never pay for itself.
By Thomas Sullivan, on December 15th, 2011
 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
http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1219261326
http://twitter.com/thomassullivan
By Bill Lindblad, on December 11th, 2011
A quick item, as I’m racing the clock for a variety of reasons:
In the month since I last posted, we lost Anne McCaffrey. While not a horror author, she was an author of unusual skill and a person of abnormal kindness. I count myself lucky to have had a brief correspondence with her for a few months in the late 1990s; it was at her urging that I exchanged letters with Andre Norton, another of the best people to have populated the sf and fantasy fields. According to reports she passed quickly, relatively painlessly and amidst her family. She had also been of the opinion that she was living on extra time after having survived a near-fatal illness a decade earlier. I’m glad she had the opportunity to have those additional years, not least because it gave me a chance to meet her in person a handful of times.
She joins Charlie Grant, Jack L. Chalker, Philip Klass a.k.a. William Tenn, L.A. Banks, Andre Norton, L. Sprague de Camp, Jack Williamson and literally dozens of others I had the fortune to interact with to one degree or another before their passing. These are people who conjure distinct memories for me and I have no intention of losing that. I will be passing on stories about meeting them to my daughter when she’s old enough to understand them. (Coraline Ann Lindblad was born on 11/15/2011, for anyone interested. Very healthy, particularly her lungs. Hooray! Now I need sleep.)
There’s a great thing about passing on anecdotes about them, though: they left something behind, in the form of stories. And they’re not the only ones. Once a month I contribute book reviews to a site called The Black Glove. The reviews I do have only two criteria: they must contain at least an association to horror elements and they must be at least 20 years old. I do this because I believe that once an author is no longer around to promote themselves they are at risk of being almost forgotten, and I don’t want that to happen to people. And not everyone can win the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award.
The best part, though? I said ALMOST forgotten. No matter how minor you may think something is, if you remember it the chances are high that someone else does as well. If you’re looking for a sort of immortality, you can do worse than producing a good story for physical publication. I say physical publication because electronic formats aren’t quite the same. Try to find episodes of the first UK season of The Avengers or strips from the online comic Not Wild, Just Crazy if you don’t believe me. Physical creation has a way of lingering and being copied onto other media. But if you’ve been published, you will be remembered by someone.
I did a Youtube hunt for a few bands from the 1980s to prove my point. I selected only bands that had songs released to the college stations in the US, without ever charting on the regular stations. Michael McDermott has a total of one song that has been posted multiple times, with about 10,000 hits between all versions. Glen Burtnik averages around 5,000 hits for his songs. Even A Drop in the Grey has songs ranging from 300-5000 hits. These are not people or bands who burned up the musical world; at least in the US, they weren’t even one-hit wonders because they never had a hit to speak of. But there, in a place where the interest is measured on a itemized basis, they maintain a small level of interest, a small measure of immortality.
Everyone can’t have the career that Anne McCaffrey had. Many people will have trouble getting the career of Richard C. Meredith. But authors and artists are not forgotten, not completely. The stories they have to tell will get out there and continue to be judged and appreciated for decades to come. I hope this serves as an inspiration for people to produce the best work they can, and to get it out there for public consumption. After all, my daughter’s going to need her own set of anecdotes.
By Jeanie Franz Ransom, on December 10th, 2011
A couple of days ago, I got an email from a creative writing major who had a few questions about being a writer. I’m not sure whether this college freshman has an assignment to do or parents who want to know what she’s going to do with a creative writing major. Whatever the case, I thought it might be fun to share the questions, as well as the answers I’d like to give her.
I say “like to give her” because I’m afraid that if I’m too realistic with my advice, I’ll sound too pessimistic. And far be it from me to rain on anyone’s aspirations, especially not a young person’s.
But as anyone who has tried to make a living as a writer knows, it’s not exactly a cake walk to make ends meet, especially if you want to be a novelist. That’s why many authors have “day jobs.” Even J.K. Rowling had to hold down a second job while she wrote the first Harry Potter. It took her five years to write the book, much of it at a cafe in Edinburgh, Scotland. And while café writing may sound romantic to a college kid, the main reason Rowling wrote there was far more realistic. As a newly-single mom, if Rowling wanted to write, she had to get her baby daughter to sleep. And one surefire path to snoozedom was to walk to a café, where Rowling would park the stroller next to her and hope for the best.
So, without further ado, here are the questions, verbatim, from the creative writing major: 1) A general job description and specific responsibilities of a writer, 2) What is the job location/environment?, 3) What are some special competencies required (computer, language, etc.)?, 4) What is your typical schedule (hours per week)?, 5) Any advice for a prospective writer?
Regarding question #1, wow! Can you think of a general job description and special responsibilities of a writer? I don’t know if there is one! There are so many kinds of jobs for writers (good news, at least!), each with its own responsibilities – though I’m sure the top one on the list would be to come up with words in some form or other!
At the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, one of the best J-schools in the country, the different types of career “tracks” journalism students can take has grown from seven to eighteen in just the past couple of years as the types of jobs requiring wordsmiths have expanded from print to broadcast to digital. (That’s good news, too!)
As for question #2, the job location/environment for a writer is more varied than ever before, from working in your slippers from home to dressing in corporate attire and commuting to wherever it is your job is located. Writers can live – and work – anywhere that there is Internet access, or at least a post office.
As far as special competencies involved (question 3), computer literacy is a must, but so is language proficiency. Writers need to be able to write — and write well. They’re confident enough in their grasp of grammar to know when it’s okay to bend the rules. And although stellar spelling isn’t required to be a writer, it sure doesn’t hurt. We all know that relying on spell check to catch errors doesn’t always end well. Consulting a dictionary makes more sense, plus there’s an app for that. Probably many apps.
Besides being a writing juggernaut, anyone who wants to make it as a writer needs to be able to edit, revise, and take direction from whomever it is they’re writing for, whether it’s an editor, a creative director, or a client. The hard shell required to withstand rejection, criticism, and countless revisions comes with experience, but it’s never too early to learn that sometimes, the other person is wrong, but sometimes they’re right. Either way, if they’re the ones writing the check, you have a choice. You can bite your tongue or bite the hand that feeds you. It just depends on how hungry you are.
On to question #4, the typical schedule of a writer. Just as there is no “one size fits all” job description for a writer, there’s no typical schedule except for writers employed fulltime at some type of company. Even then, the difference between how many hours a fulltime advertising copywriter puts in a week versus a newspaper reporter can vary quite a bit, as can the hours each of them puts in from week to week.
I can only speak from my own experience, which, over the years, has ranged from fulltime gigs in advertising and magazine writing to freelance projects priced by the hour, whether for ad clients or magazine editors. I’ve worked eight-hour days, twelve-hour days, weekends and holidays. You do what it takes to get the job done, and that’s true whether you want to make a living constructing words or constructing buildings.
These days, I don’t work eight-hour days. I don’t even work some days. At least not as a writer. (That’s where that second job comes in!) But that’s my choice. I write children’s books, which don’t take very long to write, but which take forever to edit and revise. I don’t make a ton of money. But I don’t write just to make money. I write because I love it.
It’s possible to write for love and money. Sometimes it will be more for love; sometimes it will be more for the money. Sometimes you’ll hate that you love writing so much that you have to do it for the money. But when it comes right down to it, you know you’re meant to write if you can’t imagine ever doing anything else. And that, I think, is the answer to question #5.
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