Richard Steinberg

By Richard Steinberg

This month’s essay is dedicated with love and gratitude to Sgt. Bryan J. Tutten, 33, of St. Augustine, Fla., who died Dec. 25 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his position.  He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, and also, to: Pfc. Brian L. Gorham, 21, of Woodburn, Ky., who died Dec. 31  of wounds suffered in Afghanistan when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device.  He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team.

Gentlemen, find peace.

“I care deeply and passionately about sanity.  I absolutely expect it in my lawyer, my accountant, my doctor, my grocer, the man who does my rubdowns, and the woman who cleans my house.  What?  In Publishing?  You’re new to the business, aren’t you,” Robert Benchley

I was having dinner one night with Glorious Glori, Ilario the Magnificent, and His Sartorial Splendor, at a wonderful Italian restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.  Unlike many such establishments, this one was small, quiet, with incredibly good food, even better service, and atmosphere that was real and not manufactured.  That night is one of my fondest memories of that time.

After dinner and before dessert, Ilario excused himself to go to the bar and have a smoke; a habit I’m very happy to say no longer afflicts him.  Although I don’t smoke, I wanted to check out the bar and went along. And, as neither of us are in the literary business but are both addicted unto death to the literary life, our conversation quickly devolved to the publishing gossip of the day.

While we talked about which editors were moving or staying or considering selling used cars, which authors were meeting their deadlines or young lovers that were in the same class as one of their children, a significant publishing executive walked in.

Now this is where our memories of the moment differ.

Ilario remembers introducing me to Omnivorous Appetite, a brief conversation, and then we continued gossiping as we returned to our party.  I remember significant glances and double-entendres exchanged between me and that rather attractive woman.

Maybe because I would like to be that suave.

In any event, much later that night – well after we had parted from Ilario and Splendor, Glori informed me that she had lost an earring, probably in the restaurant.  And as a dutiful son (who took and still takes any excuse to walk the streets of Manhattan at night) I volunteered to walk back to the nearby restaurant and check.

When I arrived, fairly close to closing, I found the escapee earring and said publishing executive.  We struck up a conversation, and – in part at the urging of the management – I walked her to a cab.

The problem was that Omnivorous was somewhat the worse for wear.  Or for the drinks she had been throwing back all evening.  Regardless, I was uncomfortable at just putting her in a cab – Glori raised me better than that – so I decided to accompany her to her building, and then take the cab back to my hotel.

When we arrived at her place, I helped her out and began walking her inside.  And in the twenty-five feet or so between curb and door, dear beautiful, sexy, very connected in publishing Omnivorous made it very clear that if I were to dismiss the cab and accompany her upstairs, she would make it well worth my while.

And if the stories I had heard about her were even one quarter true, I knew she could do it.

What’s a young-ish author to do?

I escorted her to the door, made sure she had her keys and, heavy sigh, bid her goodnight and returned to my cab. 

Honor –mine, at least – intact.

Several years later, when I was changing publishers, Ilario suggested that Omnivorous’ publishing house would be a good fit.  The manuscript in question was a good one, the kind she liked, and I hoped that my gallantry that night might earn me some points to aid in the eventual sale.

Several days later, she rejected the manuscript.

Publishing:  It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure!

Manic Mathew is a wonderful writer who had never sold a novel to a major publisher.  He’d had three novels published by small presses; but always dreamed of having a major House release.  In 2003, he got his chance.

At a publisher’s forum in Connecticut, a well regarded editor from a multi-national publisher approached him.  The editor informed Manic that he had always liked his work, and had he ever considered moving up to a large House.

Oh, had Manic considered it.

Within three weeks a contract was agreed to.  Six months later, the manuscript was delivered.  It was a spectacularly well written allegory for the rise of fascism in South America in the Forties.  Set in a near future, it was exciting and compelling.  But it needed work.

Something Manic was unwilling to do.

You see, at the small houses he had published through previously, editorial had been limited at best.  This, however, was a world-renowned publisher and they wanted some revisions to better tailor the book to their expected market.

Manic refused; telling them that it was his experience that editors didn’t know anything about real quality, that he knew best and that should be that.

After meetings, e-mails, intercessions by agents and friends and loved ones, the publisher decided not to go to press with the novel.

What happened?  Manic took the manuscript to a small press that: “knew how to treat their writers,” and it became one of their better reviewed books of the year . . . selling 812 copies nationwide.

Publishing:  Be all that you can be!

As we get further into our exploration of the guts of writing, a specific topic demands our attention.  It’s a thing probably less discussed in writers’ forums and websites than any other.  It may not help you write better, is not likely to inspire you to press on when things seem darkest, and probably won’t help you sell your first book.

But it might help – a lot – with your second, third, and the other steps involved in maintaining a career as a novelist.

We’ll call it, with due apologies to Mr. Einstein:

The Theory of Relativity

There are three basic misconceptions that newly sold writers take with them into their first interactions with publishers.  They think the process is centered around them.  They think publishers are the enemy.  They think their career is the result of their talent.

All three statements are true, by the way.

They are also immaterial.

For a book to be a success – in a nonfinancial sense – three things have to happen.  It must be written.  It must be published.  It must be read.  The third step, being the most critical, can not be accomplished in any kind of meaningful way without symbiosis existing between the first two steps.  And often that magic requires significantly more than just everyone doing their job to the best of their abilities.

It often requires things you may have never considered as being part of “the literary process.”  Things like courtesy when you don’t feel particularly courteous, like understanding corporate politics from the perspective of the editors and/or publicists, executives, corporate biggies, and the people in the shipping department.

Things like when to take a Koala Bear to dinner and a show.

The Reluctant Carnivore is one of the gentlest souls I know.  She has a successful midlist career; crossing back and forth from Chick-lit to spy thrillers. 

A few years ago, her editor came to her to suggest that instead of setting her next novel in her native American MidWest, that she set it in Australia.  More importantly, that her heroine have a Koala Bear as a loyal and devoted pet and a plot-point in the new novel.

“But I don’t know any koalas,” she stammered out.  “I do puppies, and occasionally tropical fish, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about koalas.”

Her editor nodded sagely.  “But it would be fun to learn about them, right?”

Neither sucking up to, nor rubber stamping the publisher’s idea, but out of her respect for them, she plunged into koala research.  By the end of two months, there was little she didn’t know about koala culture.

She put together a novel treatment called:  Kalgoorlie Koala.  A romance thriller about a woman from the American Midwest who – while vacationing in Australia one summer – adopts an injured koala, and while nursing it back to health finds true romance with an Aussie game keeper.

Her editor read the treatment, and then looked up with teary eyes.  “The koala dies at the end,” she asked with deep concern.

“He does,” Carnivore replied simply.  “But still plays a major role in the sequel.”

“Really, how?”

Carnivore smiled sweetly, looked the editor right in the eye and said:  “They do a poor job of disposing of the koala’s body, so a mutant strain of a bio-toxin develops from its decaying, rotting corpse and it leaves the people of Australia dying slowly, painfully, and quite grotesquely.”

She sipped her tea and smiled.

The editor considered for a moment.  “What about dingoes?”

“I can do Australian Cattle Dogs.”

“Queensland Heelers?”

“Sure.”

The novel is due for release next year.

“I undertook to discover how many were vital parts of the publishing process for this book.  From the drivers of the trucks that delivered my books to the stores, to the women of easy virtue who delivered their touch to soothe when the words wouldn’t come.  In the end, I discovered the number was best expressed by an equation:  One writer with one vision plus one light equals dirty paper.  One writer with one vision plus a publisher filled with lights equals magic,” Howard Spring

Publishers, editors, marketing executives, booksellers, reviewers, the guy who selects which paperbacks get the best placement in your local 7/11 are not the enemy.  If you don’t succeed, they don’t succeed.  It’s pretty simple.

That’s not to say that they’re all wonderful people; as all writers are not wonderful people.  Hard to believe, I know, but true nonetheless.

I’ve known The Hamster from Hell for a lot of years.  I honestly don’t know whether or not we’re friends, but we’re certainly not enemies and are willing to alternate picking up the check when we share a meal.

On one such meal, Hamster was decrying his lot in life.  His having published nineteen novels under five or six different names, I found it a bit hard to find sympathy for him. 

Until I heard his story that day.

It seems he had been in a West Los Angeles, tragically hip, eatery the month before with some friends.  After the meal, he went to the bar to kill some time before his next appointment.  Who should walk in but Omnivorous Appetite.

They knew each other, in passing, and eventually ended up sharing a quiet table.  One drink, err . . . thing led to another (as tends to happen in bars) and later that evening Hamster ended up driving her to her hotel.  As he escorted her to her room, she suggested to him that she would make it well worth his while if he were to let the Valet park his car in overnight parking.

Never deeply afflicted by scruples – damn his eyes – Hamster agreed.  From his account to me that day, Omnivorous lived up to and beyond her reputation as a sexual dynamo, and they parted early the next morning, mutually exhausted.

Several months later, he submitted a manuscript to Omnivorous that he and his agent thought was perfect for her and her publisher.

Several days later, it was rejected.

Publishing is a collaborative effort; writer centered, sure, but collaborative nonetheless.  You must learn how to make accommodations to the process where you can without betraying your artistic integrity. 

Sometimes it can be a tricky balancing act. 

Sometimes it only takes good manners.

And sometimes, as I pointed out to The Hamster From Hell that day, it’s better to be rejected as a Literary Nobleman than to be found wanting as a literary slut.

Well, maybe not better, but certainly less embarrassing.

Believe!

By Richard Steinberg

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself,” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our Bear In Mind is deep within the world right now, creating light and words.  And as the world is deeply in need of both light and words, it’s a pleasure to fill in for her today.  I’ll see you again on the 22nd.

Abraham Pascal was a writer.

True, he was never published.  He lived his life in a world without computers, so he never blogged.  He worked sixteen hours a day for most of his life, as a type setter in a print shop, so he never had the time to do the things required to begin and nurture a career as a writer.

But Abraham was a writer.

Every day, on his one meal break, he would take bits of pieces of paper and an ever smaller pencil, and write children’s stories.  Some nights when it was too cold to sleep, he’d light a candle and scribble to keep warm.  On his day and a half off each week, he would take these stories to a home for dying children.

Spending his time with them reading – sometimes acting out – his stories for the children’s delight.

Welsh horror writer Arthur Machen encountered Pascal one day.  After hearing his story, he asked him why he spent his off time in this pursuit instead of working additional jobs like most of those around him.  Surely he could use the money?

And Pascal agreed; then sighed and said:  “But then who would bring stories to the children?”

I am a writer.  A fictioneer prowling the high seas of our too complex world seeking light, bringing light when I can, fighting to preserve the light from those who would blot it from existence.

I am a fictioneer and I have been blessed, most of my life, to be so.  And whenever I could, I worked to continue bringing the light to those still struggling in the dark.

And there are so many in that horrific dark today.

I was talking about this with The Cool Autumn Breeze the other day.  About the new direction I’m taking this space this year.  About how the deeper I got into the guts of writing, the darker and more depressing it seemed to be.

And Breeze – extra bright light of hope and faith that she is – said to me:  “Then why don’t you start off the year with something more positive?”

Coming, as it did, moments after agreeing to fill in for Bear, when I was thinking of Abraham Pascal, and knowing the story of my life better now than I did, I suddenly knew what I must say today.

Time for us all to pay some dues to the cosmos.  To once again cough up the price of admission to our humanity.

Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanza, and the Equinox have passed.  We’re exhausted.  We’re depleted.  January is traditionally the weakest month of the year for charity contributions.  It’s the coldest, darkest, most depressing moment of the year for many.

But Glorious Glori taught me that at your darkest moments, that time when you despair the most of a future, of hope or belief, it’s time to give something back.  Time to reach out to others; and by benefiting them benefit yourself.

Books.

We need books.

Old books, slightly damaged books, books that have sat unopened on your shelves for months or years.  Books your children have outgrown.  Books you didn’t like and are now taking up space.  Books you loved and have somehow acquired three or four or more copies over the years.

A child that reads advances in intellectual and social skills at five times the rate of one that does not.  A teen that reads is sixty percent less likely to have a negative encounter with the police.  A grown man or woman that reads is able to maintain and grow their most basic skill sets, to strengthen their courage to face a harsh and bitter world.

To believe in the future.

They need books, dear gentle readers; and an opportunity to provide them has come to us.

Two extraordinary people have dedicated themselves to making the world we all inhabit a more livable one.  Tina & Steve are religious Pastors, true enough.  We do not share our form of worship, but more than share our belief in the possibilities of people.  They are hard working, moral, honest, remarkable people that bring great credit to their beliefs.

And a large part of what they believe in is that people deserve a chance.

Tina & Steve work hard and strong and forthrightly to help people who have fallen on hard times start again.  Obviously, there is nothing they don’t need for this.  But right now, they need for us to invest in humanity.

Books serve to bring a sense of normalcy to the lost.  They help move the despairing into a different place that doesn’t hurt or demand in pained moments.  Books help to sharpen and retain communication skills of those trying so desperately to start again.

Books, in their way, heal.

Will you, also, heal?

We need books.  As long as they are still readable and in serviceable condition we want them.  All genres, all types, all books.  Those that can’t find a home can be sold as used to raise funds for this and other good works.  We need books.

We need you.

Because this website has occasionally been the victim of automated sales pitchers who use hacking software, I will write out the contact e-mail, instead of putting it in proper form.  When you enter it in as an e-mail just write it out in the usual:  name@email.com form.  But please go to this extra trouble and e-mail Tina & Steve at:  Hesholy at Gmail dot com

Remember to type it in the correct way, not as it’s written here.

We live in a shrinking, more pained every day, world.  We don’t know our neighbors, turn away from ugliness, and insulate ourselves (out of proper need) from the loss and abandonment of our time.  It’s January in the world; a time of cold and dormancy and a waiting for the light and the warmth.

I choose to wait no longer.

I ask you to make that choice as well.

Like Abraham Pascal.

Late in his life, Abraham had difficulty walking, difficulty holding his pen.  He became housebound and catastrophically ill.  The last time Arthur Machen saw him – to deliver ink and paper – he asked him if all his work had made a difference, if all the years of sacrifice and giving had been worth it.

Barely able to speak, his arthritic fingers clutched the pen and wrote:  The future will know.

As our future will judge us.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.  It’s not,” Dr. Seuss

One last word on this.

Heart.

It’s a big part of what separates writers from creative typists, wannabes from made-its; human beings from biological large brained hominids.

I am a professional writer.  I am a fictioneer bringing hope to the hopeless and afflicting the pain-bringers. Others here at Storytellers are other kinds of writers.  But we all, in our own ways, believe in some form of hope.

As I ask you all – my dear gentle friends – to believe as well.

In bringing hope.

I hope you will help people you may never meet, with a gift of books.  Simply, passionately, and for all time, help them to . . .

Believe!

By Richard Steinberg

This month’s column is dedicated to the sacrifices of Capt. Benjamin D. Tiffner, 31, of West Virginia; 5th Special Forces Group and Staff Sgt. Patrick F. Kutschbach, 25, of Pennsylvania; 10th Special Forces Group.

Thank you guys, stand easy.

“I’ve been struggling with this toast for several weeks. Should I strike a melancholy, time passes sort of tone? A humorous, light hearted thing? Maybe stentorian wisdom seasoned with a soupcon of slightly controlled emotion? But instead of such frippery, I decided on a taste of truth. After all these years, thank you for not killing me in my sleep,” William Dean Howells

Two years.

Thirty-one columns.

Around 75,000 words on words.

Amazing.

Together, we’ve explored plotting and characterization, evoking reactions from our readers, what it means to be a writer (as opposed to a creative typist) politically imprisoned writers, and the roots of Godzilla. Wherever possible I’ve tried to share with you what I know of the alchemy of literary creation, and certainly I have received from you both insight and inspiration.

Year One, we spent exploring the soul of the writer.

This past year, the writer’s heart.

Next month, we’ll begin a year long journey through a writer’s intestinal tract. Not a pretty picture, but hey, someone has to do it. But for right now, I want to share with you – in keeping with the day – a few of the things I’m thankful for, as a writer, as a man, as a human being.

I’m thankful . . .

. . . that I’m still alive.  It’s been a struggle the last few years.

. . . that God – or whoever’s in charge – has made it abundantly clear that they’re not quite through with me yet.

. . . that I’ve come to realize that last thing is a blessing and not a curse.

. . . that Bob & Dick, John & Katherine, Loren & Michelle, Janet & Bob2 remain close, remain stalwarts, remain rocks that I can lean on, count on, believe in, when leaning, counting, and believing become nigh on impossible.

. . . that my gift of writing is still there, still a part of me as much as my intestinal tract, still compelling me forward whether I want to go or not.

. . . that John & Susan, Miss Anne, Shirley & Jim, Sue & Joe, Cabaret Sue, Sigi & Vic, Patti & P.J., and always Stan the Man have such generosity of spirit, such well intentioned belief that it keeps me warm on the colder, dark nights of the soul.

. . . that in a time of loss and dissolution and depression I saw a child coloring, a teen helping a senior, a senior lending their wisdom to a grownup, and that I have still – rather successfully – avoided growing up myself.

. . . that I can experience Harley’s strength and power blossom, Mike’s first tentative steps into the writing pool that he will one day swim deep in, Detta & Rolf’s commitment to life, Amanda & George’s unbelievable life force and heart, Harrigan’s courage playing out every day, Sarah’s dreams coming true much to her (and only her) surprise.

. . . that America is still a place where it is the quality of your work and life, the content of your heart and the product of your actions that matters far more than anything else.

And yes, I am thankful that I still believe.

. . . that Eileen and Mike, Laura and Liz and Michelle and all of my spectacularly brilliant friends of Brilliance remain good friends and not just publishers.

. . . that critics haven’t caught on to me yet.

. . . that Sister Clare, my sister the Sister, is in the world.

. . . that I’m still alive to experience gifts from God (or whoever’s in charge) curses of talent, the greatness of possibilities, the actual sparseness of evil (however loud it may be) in the world; that I’m free to loathe some writers, worship others, to take a stand or not as my choice rather than someone else’s command.

. . . that Dave Wilson, Frank Wydra, John Rosenman, Thomas Sullivan, Justine Musk, Brian Knight, Stan Ridgley, Janet Berliner, and Richard Dansky are among my fellow collaborators here in the land of Storytellers, with so many others I don’t yet know so well, but admire so well.  Their generosity of spirit takes my breath away.

. . . that Storytellers Unplugged is read by the dissidents who risk arrest (and sometimes their lives) of the Golden Media movement around the world.  These young people risk their freedom and lives to read and circulate banned books and publications in their countries; simply so that they can make up their own minds about the relative worth of the words.

I am thankful that there is light to counter the dark.  I’m thankful that with my gifts, with the gifts of my co-Storytellers, with the gifts and aspirations of so many of you, my dear gentle readers, the light might never go out.

I am particularly thankful for Carly Simon album covers; but hey, that’s me!

There are too many more people and things for me to list here.  A failing memory and a pernicious post-project exhaustion just won’t permit me to pull everyone and everything out for the public acclaim and distinction they so deserve. And so, let me simply thank the world around me for getting me through the world around me another year.

Thank you, for making that year consistently interesting, never dull, always curious, too often painful with too many losses, even more frequently stunningly refreshing, ennobling, in its way . . . healing.

“For people who are artists, the work is the life. It defines and justifies your very existence. If you’re not actively doing a project you’re nothing in your own mind. You can’t retire from it. There is no way out. You are your work. You’re life is defined by it,” Gene Lees

I am a writer.

I am a fictioneer; sailing the seas of apostasy, torment, pain and injustice.

I am a fictioneer; reminding you to hope, to love, to care, to see, to taste, to take a stand for those things that are intrinsically right and against those things which are immutably wrong.

I am a fictioneer, a more worn than new, more sad than happy, more lost than found writer.

But then, I am a writer.

And that makes up for it all somehow.

Happy Holiday, and always in all ways . . .

Believe!