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!

By
Richard Steinberg

No cute, pithy, or intriguing quote to kick off this month’s entry. Just some names and numbers.

Nelson Alberto Aguiar Ramírez, 58
Sentence: 13 years

Osvaldo Alfonso Valdés, 38
Sentence: 18 years

Pedro Pablo Alvarez Ramos, 55
Sentence: 25 years.

Pedro Argüelles Morán, 56
Sentence: 20 years

Antonio Augusto Villareal Acosta, age not known
Sentence: 15 years

It’s good we discuss our craft here. It’s even better that through original entries and well thought out comments we engage in a spirited dialogue about what it means to be a writer, about how the industry works, about the definitions of genre, and the (relative) mental health of writers as a whole. Personally, I particularly enjoy it – and learn from it – when we kick around our personal processes and discover we’re not as alone (or weird) as we thought we were.

But this column is not about us, or publishing, or process.

Mijail Barzaga Lugo, 36
Sentence: 15 years

Oscar Elías Biscet González, 43
Sentence: 25 years

Margarito Broche Espinosa, 45
Sentence: 25 years

Marcelo Cano Rodríguez, 39
Sentence: 18 years

Manuel Vázquez Portal, 52,
Sentence: 18 years

What this column is about, is the people who believe in us; the people who go to great lengths to see that our private, often tortured, visions that we translate into words are then transported into the hands of eager readers. Not the buyers for Borders or Amazon or Barnes & Noble – although I fear one day we might be talking about them in a similar light – and not the librarians who fight sometimes successfully (and sometimes not) against narrow minds that don’t trust their neighbors to reach their own conclusions.

But rather, this column is about those stalwart, often terrified souls who risk EVERYTHING from their status to their possessions to their very life, just so their neighbors have something to read that hasn’t been sanitized, shrink-wrapped, cleansed of all meaning beyond that which their government would like to be read.

They are called the Independent Library Movement.

Ariel Miguel Sigler Amalla, 38; General Pedro Betancourt Library (Matanzas)
Sentence: 20 years

Blas Giraldo Reyes Rodríguez, 46; 20th of May Library (Sancti Spiritus)
Sentence: 25 years

Antonio Ramón Díaz Sánchez, 40
Sentence: 20 years

Alfredo Rodolfo Domínguez Batista, age not known
Sentence: 14 years

Oscar Manuel Espinosa Chepe, 63
Sentence: 20 years

The independent library movement began in Havana with a simple statement:

“Our goal is not revolution, or even the civil toppling of any political forces. All we seek is for the people to be allowed to choose what they want to read, and to be allowed to draw their own conclusions from that reading. Many great things have come from the Cuban Revolution; most exceptional among them is the rise in literacy of all Cubans from 18% to 98%. We now simply ask for the right for Cubans everywhere to use that gift of literacy from the Revolution to read what they want. And we ask the Revolution to trust its children to draw the right conclusions from that reading.”

Omar Pernet Hernández, 57; 20th of May Library II (Villa Clara)
Sentence: 25 years

Raúl Rivero Castañeda, 58; Dulce María Loynaz Library Branch II (Havana)
Sentence: 20 years

Juan Adolfo Fernández Sainz, 55
Sentence: 14 years

José Daniel Ferrer García, 33
Sentence: 25 years

Luis Enrique Ferrer García, 27
Sentence: 28 years

And at first, the Cuban government did allow that trust. What possible threat could there be from 15 paperbacks on a shelf in someone’s backroom? Castro himself is an admitted fanatical fan of Ernest Hemingway. So, as a sign that the Revolution wasn’t the harsh, overbearing, tyranny that the United States claimed it was, the Independent Library Movement was allowed to grow. Helped by the Cuban expatriate community, writer’s organizations from around the world, and individual writers, more small shelves in back rooms began to pop-up.

The Gastón Baquero Independent Library in the city of Banes.

The Félix Varela Independent Library in Las Tunas.

The José Antonio García Tablada Independent Library . . .

The Benjamin Franklin Independent Library . . .

The Martin Luther King Jr. Independent library . . .

None of them magnificent edifices of brick and mortar with sculpted lions out front and high-end cocktail fundraising parties on the weekends.

ALL OF THEM in a room in someone’s house . . . someone who had taken a tremendous risk only so their neighbors would have the right to select for themselves what they want to read.

Which of us writers has taken such a risk as these representatives of our work have?

Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona, 52; Reyes Magos Library (Pinar del Río)
Sentence: 26 years

Juan Roberto de Miranda Hernández, 57; Father Félix Varela Library (Havana)
Sentence: 20 years

Miguel Galván Gutiérrez, 39
Sentence: 26 years.

Julio César Gálvez Rodríguez, 59
Sentence: 15 years

Edel José García Díaz, 58
Sentence: 15 years

Well, sure enough, the Cuban government decided the good press they were getting wasn’t worth the freethinking they were getting, and things changed.

During four days in early 2003, the Cuban Secret Police (DGSE) made a series of raids, arresting 93 individuals that contributed to, whose works were carried in, or who ran Independent Libraries throughout the island. They claimed that these “malcontents” were in violation of Revolutionary Law #88 which promises harsh sentences for anyone guilty of, among other outrages:

“owning, distributing or reproducing subversive materials.”

Typical of these raids, were the confiscation from one man’s house of 130 books – which made up the collection of the José Antonio García Tablada Independent Library. At the Félix Várela Independent Library (set up in the kitchen of an ILM volunteer) they confiscated 162 books, 46 magazines, a box of uncataloged newspapers and paperbacks, a photo album and a package of loose photographs. They also took 25 issues of Vitral magazine (edited by the Catholic Church) and a number of issues of Pasos magazine, also edited by the church. Some of these “dangerous” books that were taken had been bought at the Havana Book Fair, sponsored by the Cuban government.

In both cases, the occupants of the house were arrested under Law 88.

José Luis García Paneque, 38; Carlos J. Finlay Library (Las Tunas)
Sentence: 24 years

Ricardo Severino González Alfonso, 53; Jorge Mañach Library (Havana)
Sentence: 20 years

Diosdado González Marrero, age not known
Sentence: 20 years

Léster González Pentón, 26
Sentence: 20 years

Alejandro González Raga, 45
Sentence: 14 years

Each received a trial . . . lasting one day, including the appellate process.

75 of the 93 were convicted . . . of wanting their neighbors to be able to choose what to read. The things endorsed by the government, or . . . Hemingway, Faulkner, Conroy, King, Stoker, Stevenson, Bombeck, or even Steinberg; since I sent copies of the Spanish Language versions of The Gemini Man to various independent libraries over the years.

75 of the 93 . . . because 18 of the detainees simply disappeared before their trials and were never seen again.

For two and a half years now, these 75 librarians and contributors to libraries have been held in the harshest of prison conditions: not being allowed to communicate with the outside world, often not being allowed to see their families, usually denied basic medical care, often tortured or harassed by prison authorities. All for the crime of making books freely available to the public.

And what happened to the roughly six thousand books that were taken in the raids?

They were burned . . . by Judicial Orders.

Library Associations from Sweden, England, Germany, Spain, Israel, most of the countries of Eastern Europe, many of the countries of South America, Africa and Asia all specifically and in detail decried this trampling of the right of free expression. It was a near universal outcry: LET THESE PEOPLE GO AND LET YOUR PEOPLE READ!

Almost, because the American Library Association remained silent on the issue; even after I contacted them for comment on this column.

Iván Hernández Carrillo, 32; Juan Gualberto Gómez Library II (Matanzas)
Sentence: 25 years

Jorge Luis González Tanquero, 32
Sentence: 20 years

Leonel Grave de Peralta Almenares, age not known
Sentence: 20 years

Normando Hernández González, 33
Sentence: 25 years

Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, 37
Sentence: 20 years

The American Library Association’s official position (www.ala.org/ala/iro/iroactivities/alacubanlibraries.htm) amounts to this:

They take no specific position other than saying they support the IFLA’s (International Federation of Library Associations) general goals . . . despite the fact that the IFLA specifically and dramatically begged Castro to free these librarians and writers, and the ALA has not.

They “remain committed to intellectual freedom,” and they have “deep concern,” for the 75 prisoners.

But believe the United States must share some of the blame in that: “the U.S. embargo . . . restricts access to information in Cuba . . .” Although what that has to do with the Independent Library Movement leaders’ and contributors’ arrests remains a mystery to me.

Maybe I’m dumb.

Privately, several of the ALA leaders have said that because these people ran these operations informally from their homes, they were not really librarians and therefore not worthy of the ALA’s support. And because they were technically charged with “aiding U.S. interests” and not – technically – with illegally distributing books, this falls outside of the Association’s purview.

Yeah, right.

Again, every significant library association around the world has specifically called for the release of these librarians and writers, and for the Cuban Government to allow the Independent Library Movement to operate freely . . . to allow the Cuban people to make their own decisions about what to read.

To stop burning books.

Which, in my childlike view of the world, makes the American Library Association either stupid, or insignificant.

Now, not everyone within the ALA is unwilling to stand up for the concept of free expression. Karen Schneider of the Governing Council of the ALA offered a statement to be adopted by the ALA:

“ALA joins the IFLA in its deep concern over the arrest and long prison terms of political dissidents in Cuba in spring 2003, and calls for their immediate release.”

The statement was rejected, almost unanimously, by the Governing Council.

Ray Bradbury, after addressing the ALA last year, after reading court transcripts of the so-called “trials” of the librarians, said this:

“I stand against any library or any librarian anywhere in the world being imprisoned or punished in any way for the books they circulate. I plead with Castro and his government to immediately take their hands off the independent librarians and release all those librarians in prison, and to send them back into Cuban culture to inform the people.”

Favoring a statement that generally blames BOTH Cuba and the United States for the atmosphere that led to the arrests, the ALA has rejected appeals like these.

As, oddly enough, the Cuban Government has rejected the appeals of the surviving arrestees.

The same Cuban government which has applauded the ALA for their non-actions.

In July of this year, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright called on the American Library Association to harden its position on the imprisoned librarians. And when they didn’t react beyond giving her a polite hearing, Eliades Acosta, Director of The Cuban National Library (whose book collection consists of only approved titles) issued a statement on behalf of the Cuban Government:

“Ms. Albright failed to achieve her objective to poison relations between Cuban and American librarians, despite having employed all of her histrionic skills in the New Orleans theater. There was no change whatsoever made in the traditional positive position of the ALA toward Cuba.”

When a man’s right, he’s right . . . there’s been no change.

The ALA still refuses to specifically condemn the arrests or call for freedom for the writers, poets, playwrights, essayists, and the librarians who loaned their work to the public . . . but ALA leaders say they’re thinking about it.

No new arrests have been made in Cuba of the remaining leaders of the Independent Library Movement . . . but they say they’re thinking about it.

José Miguel Martínez Hernández, 39; General Juan Bruno Zayas Library (Havana Province)
Sentence: 13 years

Regis Iglesias Ramírez, 33
Sentence: 18 years

José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández, age not known
Sentence: 16 years

Reinaldo Miguel Labrada Peña, 40
Sentence: 6 years

Librado Ricardo Linares García, 42
Sentence: 20 years

Tomorrow, begins the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week. There will be events at most every library, many bookstores, some schools around the country. I’ve been invited to participate in several.

I’ll participate in none of them.

Instead, I’ll spend the week shouting into the wind. In promotion of Banned Librarians Week.

For while the ALA takes the hypocritical stance of opposing the library and bookstore provisions of the Patriot Act and does nothing about these forty people named above and their compatriots named below, I’ll have nothing to do with them or their works.

Mario Enrique Mayo Hernández, 38
Sentence: 20 years

Luis Milán Fernández, 34
Sentence: 13 years

Nelson Moliné Espino, 39
Sentence: 21 years

Angel Juan Moya Acosta, 39
Sentence: 20 years

Héctor Fernando Maseda Gutiérrez, 61
Sentence: 20 years

But let me leave the last word on the atrocity of these acts against the human spirit to a most remarkable spokesman on the importance of universal free access to books.

“In prison, there were no rifles for training, no stone fortresses from which to shoot. Behind those walls, our rifles were books. And through study, stone by stone we built our fortress, the only one that is invincible: the fortress of ideas,” Fidel Castro

Shame he doesn’t want to share that invincibility.

Believe – in those writers, poets, essayists, novelists, journalists and most especially those noble, brave librarians that I’ve named above, along with:
Jesús Miguel Mustafá Felipe, 58, Sentence: 25 years; Félix Navarro Rodríguez, 49, Sentence: 25 years; Jorge Olivera Castillo, 41, Sentence: 18 years; Pablo Pacheco Avila, 33, Sentence: 20 years; Héctor Palacios Ruiz, 62, Sentence: 25 years; Arturo Pérez de Alejo Rodríguez, age not known, Sentence: 20 years; Horacio Julio Piña Borrego, 36, Sentence: 20 years; Fabio Prieto Llorente, age not known, Sentence: 20 years; Alfredo Manuel Pulido López, 42, Sentence: 14 years; José Gabriel Ramón Castillo, age not known, Sentence: 20 years; Arnaldo Ramos Lauzerique, 61, Sentence: 18 years;; Alexis Rodríguez Fernández, 33, Sentence: 15 years; Omar Rodríguez Saludes, 38, Sentence: 27 years; Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello, 58, Sentence: 20 years; Omar Moisés Ruiz Hernández, 56, Sentence: 18 years ; Claro Sánchez Altarriba, 50, Sentence: 15 years;; Guido Sigler Amaya, 46, Sentence: 20 years; Ricardo Silva Gual, age not known, Sentence: 10 years; Fidel Suárez Cruz, 33, Sentence: 20 years; Manuel Ubals González, 34, Sentence: 20 years; Julio Antonio Valdés Guevara, 52, Sentence: 20 years; Miguel Valdés Tamayo, 47, Sentence: 15 years; Héctor Raúl Valle Hernández, 35, Sentence: 12 years; Orlando Fundora Alvarez, 48, Sentence: 18 years; Próspero Gaínza Agüero, age not known, Sentence: 25 years; Carmelo Agustín Díaz Fernández, 65, Sentence: 16 years; Eduardo Díaz Fleitas, 51, Sentence: 21 years; Alfredo Felipe Fuentes, age not known, Sentence: 26 years; Efrén Fernández Fernández, 54, Sentence: 12 years

By
Richard Steinberg for Steve Savile

“En kedja är inte starkare än sin svagaste länk.”

Steve Saville is off showing us all – by example – how to be a human being; so I’m gladly filling in for him today, as Brian Knight will this time next month. As many at Storytellers Unplugged have volunteered to do in the coming time, for as long as it takes Steve to get back to us. Why? Why will we (who all are overburdened with work already) take on the added burden of a second essay in a given month?

The answer’s quite simple really: because as humans, the price for our admission to humanity requires it. Because as writers, our commitment after that to our work and our personal world, must be to other writers.

It can be a dark and hostile world out there, with fanged shadows gibbering at us from the impenetrable shadows that linger in the corners of our soul and the edges of our perception. On rare occasions, an editor, an agent, a friend or loved one will be there to help you through the literary shadows and death-pits. But, for the most part, if you choose to be an honest by-God writer – of novels, books, short stories, essays, songs, plays, poems, whatever – you will make your way through the gloom and despairscape by yourself.

There is you and the page (or monitor) and that’s it.

Terrifying.

Exhilarating.

Lonely.

Unless there suddenly appears a light – or a series of lights – that may or may not illuminate anything of import, but at the very least lets you know that you are not alone.

In the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

I make no claim (even remotely) of being a “great man.” I’m a writer who has had more success than most and considerably less than some. I’ve been gifted with a certain talent, worked my ass off to gain a certain technique. I’ve been blessed with an agent/manager who is also my primary reader/editor and my dear friend, and I’ve had to work harder than a so-called “white collar” worker ever should to promote and sell my writing.

But eleven years as a solely living off my writing income writer has placed me in a position to be one of those lights.

That’s why I’m here at Storytellers – courtesy of the gentle and stylish persuasions of fellow contributor Janet Berliner, and the class & patience of fellow contributor Dave Wilson – to take my place alongside your road to publication along with twenty-nine other lights. Twenty-nine other writers of novels, short stories, computer games, musicals, graphic novels, textbooks, and most everything else.

But dear, gentle readers, there’s more to it than that.

I’m here – in the midst of the finest literary company I have known for a great many years – because a writer (more successful than most, considerably less than some) was there for me.

I spent days lost in the pages of Writer’s Digest; not so much in the articles as in the quotations pages. I was desperate to learn something, anything about the hardest part of being a writer:

How to capture magic, then display it – not brutalized by its capture – to the world?

And there never seemed to be an article about that.

Then, one day quite by accident, in of all places a cycling magazine, I found this:

“You’ve got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell,” F. Scott Fitzgerald

Scott’s response to a young and struggling writer of his time who was also seeking to capture and display a little unbruised magic.

He died before I was born, after a troubled life and only a modicum of professional success. But there he was, speaking to me – from his heart to mine – lighting my way for at least a little while.

And, in the end, that’s why we’re all here; thirty lights from different parts of the country/world, from different genres, different ages, genders, economic standings, politics, even different viewpoints on writing.

Because all the lights shining in a row in just one color would put you to sleep, not wake you up.

And waking you up is our good willed intention!

We all have our own secondary or even tertiary reasons for doing this; for adding another assignment to our already overloaded worksheets. Mine include wanting to think more about the process of writing, and to try to improve my rather abysmal essay skills. For some, the secondary reason is better exposure (by osmosis) of their product, or to take advantage of the opportunity to hang (beit in a cyber manner) with others of our ilk . . . particularly since ilks such as ours are kinda hard to find unmounted and not hanging on a wall.

As our primary motivation is an understanding that as someone was or was not there to light our way, we all have a responsibility to help light yours.

Many of our Unplugged Storytellers work full time jobs that consume their time or pay more of their way in the world than their writing does. Off the top of my head I flash on John Rosenman being a fulltime College Professor (as is Stan Ridgley) Justine Musk is a full time Mom which means a fulltime referee with greater demands on her than Arthur Mercante or Richard Steele ever had, Dick Hill is the top audio reader in the audio book field, and David Niall Wilson spends much of his days as an evil computer genius.

But they all, we all, somehow find time to be human flashlights for Storytellers.

Because as storytellers we all needed a little light in the past, and most assuredly will again in the future.

Writers owe writers.

Talent is a gently blown kiss from God.

Technique can be learned from any number of good books.

Inspiration, well . . . inspiration can only come from someone who has groped their way in the dark – who may still be groping along but is able to shout back to you in your dark about what it is you’re going to face, that they already have.

As a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, would be poet and awkward essayist, who has been published on every continent on the planet, I have learned more from reading these said sooths on a daily basis than I had in the years before. These Writing Lights are GOOD!!! LISTEN TO THEM!!! They will teach you, beseech you, direct and inspire you to find that inspiration which combined with talent and technique leads to Heaven or Hell, but definitely to someplace other than we are.

The primary goal of all writers, to move the conversation.

Beth Massie taught me about living in reality while reaching for illusion.

John Skipp reminded me to: “share the fucking love!”

Dearest friend and angel/demon on my shoulder, Janet Berliner, constantly reteaches me that you can’t write about life from memories that you don’t have.

Weston Ochse brings us tools for interpreting what is into what should be, or might be, or can be.

Justine Musk challenges and provokes exquisitely.

Thomas Sullivan regularly shows us all the criticality of passion and elegance.

John Rosenman understands writing like a coroner your insides; but his dissections lead us to such wonderful constructions.

Jeff Marlotte and Brian Knight who normally appear a day before and a day after my regularly scheduled column, challenge me by their lessons to work to exceed their insights.

And David Niall Wilson – our monthly leadoff hitter – has such a savage affection for writing and writers (eloquently displayed in each of his essays) that I cannot be uninspired after reading him.

I won’t go on and name the rest of these thirty spectacular lights, there’s not the space or the time. You’ve read – or should have read – them already. But please know that our presence here – unpaid, to dispel a popular notion of many – is, in the final analysis, because we have stood where you now stand.

It’s often dark, cold, frightening, lonely, perilous, confusing, frustrating, angering, and dispiriting. It can feel like you are making this journey in a vacuum that none has felt before.

It can taste like day old failure.

It can feel like a vise winding inexorably closed around your soul.

It can look like a black miasma that threatens to consume you whole.

But don’t worry.

Writers owe writers; and there are, at the very least, thirty lights here at Storytellers Unplugged that will be there to gently or harshly (as the lesson may merit) help get you through to that moment when you suddenly and quite unexpectedly realize all the shit and pain and doubt and frustration and despair were worth something.

For me, that moment came three days after the release of my first solo novel.

I walked into a Borders in Stony Brook, New York intending to talk to the manager about a possible signing. I’d already received my carton of books from Doubleday, had gone through the heady air of seeing my name and picture on the dust jacket and my words printed within. I’d even been given one of my most treasured gifts: a leather-bound first edition of my first novel.

So I walked into the store without looking for the table I knew my book would be displayed on; instead moving to the back and the Manager’s Office.

Then I saw it.

On a shelf, near the floor above the carpeted kick plate, was the dark blue cover with electric green letters of my novel, The Gemini Man. But what stopped me cold, took my breath away so much so that I had to stop and work to regain myself, was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck sitting right beside it.

Steinbeck . . . Steinberg. I’m sure the clerk who stocked that shelf thought nothing of it. How could they have possibly understood what it would mean to a writer, filled with doubts, passing by on his way to pretend to be confident to a bookstore manager?

But I knew instantly what it meant, and the power of that understanding stays with me to this moment.

It meant that whether or not I succeeded, was judged commercially successfully, was reviewed well, or sold three books and no more, I had taken my place as a link in the chain of writers that stretched from me back to the first cave dweller that had a thought and preserved it in stone.

“En kedja är inte starkare än sin svagaste länk.”

Swedish (in Steve Savile’s honor) for: A chain is only as strong as its weakest point.

Take your time, Steve. We’re all here for you.

And, gentle readers, we’re all here for you as well . . .

. . . and are honored to be. So that one day you too might take your place as links in the chain, and might one day become a light, shining for another literary traveler frightened of the dark.

But until then . . .

Believe!

By
Richard Steinberg

“Spend all your time waiting For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay.
There’s always one reason
To feel not good enough
And it’s hard at the end of the day.
I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memory seeps from my veins.
Let me be empty
And weightless and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight,” —Sarah McLachlan

Some peace tonight.

I’d like that.

Some . . .

On any night . . .

But unless I pay Mephistopheles or Archangel Michael (I’m never exactly sure which) their required tithes, I’ll have none. I’ll lay there in bed, my mind moving from vision to topic to recollection to fantasy with a blindingly random celerity that never slows; simply accelerates on and on and on until synapses warp, distort, and collapse from the weight and the friction and the heat and the hurt.

And I may lose consciousness . . . but never win sleep.

I’ve tried drugs (prescribed or otherwise obtained) tried exhausting my body with exercise, hammering it with alcohol, blinding my mind with meaningless sex or privileged lovemaking. I’ve counted sheep, royalties, tried warm milk, read extensively, consulted doctors, received counseling from professionals, amateurs, and most everyone who’s had a sleepless night or two.
But as the “cure” of the week fails, again, and the sun rises while the body breaks down just a little more and I face another day without replenishment I can hear Mephisto and Mike laughing at me while they share my last bottle of beer.

“Pay us,” they chortle, “and we’ll let you sleep.”

And the payment they demand – their vig on my sleep – is that I sit in front of the computer and confront those parts of myself I most fear, most despise, most deny, most loathe. They require me to rip open my soul as you would gut a fish; but instead of dumping the entrails into a handy garbage can, mine must be artfully arranged on a page.

Not just write, but write about truth.

There are nights when I put out fifteen or twenty high quality, entertaining, and necessary pages for the project at hand. But they are also emotionally void – technically superior but without meaning or emotion – and when I go to bed my mind ignites in a spherical explosion and sleep is denied.

Now I’m not arguing that there needs to be an emotional insight, discovery, revelation, or even minor angst on every page you write. There doesn’t have to be blood on every page for the Sanguinary Gods (or are they demons) of Writing to be sated.

But there does have to be blood at least beneath the skin of the project, whether it shows often or little, for them to be well pleased.

Now before you beginning muttering among yourselves – “Steinberg is reinventing hyperbole to make his point” – fellow contributors Janet Berliner and Stan Ridgley have known me for years and can back up my insomniac’s litany from their personal experiences. They’ve known me to be miserable, contentious, obnoxious, and depressive (combining rage with depression is a unique byproduct of my sleep deprivation) while I’ve been putting out vast quantities of good, solid, emotionally neutered product. They’ve also known me to be content, comfortable, and relaxed when I’ve only written a page or two of truth and substance.

So am I arguing that unless you wholly emotionally commit to the work with the fierceness of a zealot – or a Steinberg – you will be cursed by the Gods (instead of being granted peace and sleep) and will have your brain burn with the same intensity that the great bird picked (perhaps still picks) at Prometheus’s liver?

If you don’t put at least as much blood into the circulatory system of your story and characters as you do on your victim’s faces or pooling on the ground around them are you doomed to failure and moribund essay writing?

I wish that were true, but it’s not. A great deal of flat, uninspired, not living fiction is published or produced each year, and a great many of those achieve success . . . sometimes unbelievable success.

That’s one of the unfortunate truths in the dark and gooey heart of writing.

But this I promise you: nothing you write will affect or effect anything ever. Your work may be enjoyed, well reviewed, commercially successful – things to be desired and experienced absolutely – but in the end, the world your words passed over will show no signs they were ever there. It will be as if you and your work had never been.

Is it then your responsibility to be remembered, to change the world (or attempt to change it) to state for the record and for eternity what you believe and why?

Again, no. Success as a writer (by some horrible definitions) can be had without risk of actually having to say something.

But if that’s what you want, why did God (or evolution or whatever it is that you believe began somewhere and left man at a given demarcation along the way) give you a voice?
A voice by which you can challenge the heavens to strike you down, challenge your fellow humans to pull their heads out of their collective orifices; a voice that can praise or condemn or instruct or cajole.

A voice, if left unused, that can only condemn . . . whatever it is that you call “soul.”
One definition of sin (from within my own belief system) is: the failure to properly use a gift from God.

Now maybe you don’t believe in sin, or God, or even in gifts. That’s a discussion for a different time and forum. But I’ve never heard of a writer who didn’t believe in failure. Or who hadn’t experienced failure. Or who hadn’t been changed by failure.

Who hasn’t learned that failure is a thing to be avoided.

But how will you avoid it? Will you take no chances, play it safe and down the middle? Will you (in a nonplageristic sense) pass someone else’s story through a generic filter and your own fingers retyping without reimagining? Will your finished work represent nothing but airy haze which could disappear in a nano-second and never be missed?

Or will your readers sense a storm or a sunrise breaking just beyond that haze?
I am damaged; been broken apart and glued back together so many times that the barely seen, tightly glued joinings of the shards of my being wait impatiently for the right breeze from the right angle to completely fly me apart.

This next time, perhaps, irreparably.

I think that all writers – to one extent or another – are damaged individuals. Maybe, in the end, that’s what separates the writer from the creative typist. Simply the ability to feel the damage, throw wide open the overcoat, point to it, laugh or rage, and then examine it.

In front of God and everybody.

And when we succeed, oh . . .

Bram Stoker was a man unable, no matter how hard he tried, to control his “baser nature.” He drank himself into near oblivion nightly just to “keep the beast caged.” And had success as a novelist: Under the Sunset was his first successful novel, and The Snake’s Pass his second. Both almost completely forgotten, even in their time.

Then Stoker (at the urging of his friend and employer, the English actor Henry Irving) not only confronted his nature, but in so doing decided he had a right to that nature and owed no one an apology for it.

And he expressed that truth in Dracula . . . which will never be forgotten . . . and is a novel with blood not only flowing through the veins and arteries of the work, but through its spirit as well.
Curt Siodmak was a decent writer whose works such as People on Sunday and Platform 1 Does Not Answer were always well received, always made money. Siodmak told the story abut going into a publisher’s office the year after his second bestseller (Platform 1) had been published and having the man say to him: “Have you ever published anything?”

For years, Siodmak had concentrated on being the most commercial writer he could be, and it never felt right. And then, he decided he could no longer be silent about the coming cataclysm he saw brewing in the heart of Central Europe; and that regardless of its commerciality he must (“to sleep at night,” maybe that’s why I feel such a kinship to him) write about it.

And he expressed that truth in The Wolf Man . . . which will never be forgotten . . . a novel of personal pain and torment, flowing with the blood of a man who barely escaped the unreasoning persecution that took twenty-one of his family members.

Dracula and The Wolf Man, two classic novels of horror and dark visions filled with the fears, pains, mortal dreads, and deepest obsessions of their writers. Two novels that will be remembered forever. Two visions of two very different men who shined a light on that dark and gooey spot deep within themselves, snapped a picture . . . then had the guts to share it with us.
Mephistopheles, Archangel Michael demand it of me or they will not let me sleep.

This is an easier and more palatable explanation then my taking responsibility for punishing myself when I look away from truth in favor of the always comely “easy.”

Examining our own truths is not easy, seldom pleasant, occasionally pretty, mostly frightening. Translating that truth from deep within us to the page is a process that combines technique, a certain talent, and very real psychic bravery.

And each of us must find that thing which cues truth expression, hopefully in a less deleterious manner than mine own, and then must work to put that self-revelation in our writing. As overt as a storyline, or as covert as a character’s momentary but intense shiver on seeing an ice cream cone on the ground.

I am a damaged person, a writer seeking to heal himself and hopefully – at the same time – some small dark and gooey corner of the world.

I want to sleep; not in physical collapse or narcofied relief, but because I pulled it off! Because I put some blood beneath the page, regardless of whether or not there is any on top of it. Because I reached inside and pulled out some truth (however subjective that truth might be) and shared it with a dark and frightening world longing for truth . . . any real truth.

I want to sleep; because after sharing that truth, I am less damaged and the arms of the Angel wrap themselves around me and rock me to a blessed slumber.

“In the arms of an angel, Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there,” —-Sarah McLachlan

I hope to see you there.

Believe!

by Richard Steinberg
“I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have,” Leonardo da Vinci38 pages
266 paragraphs
639 lines
5,862 words
33,208 characters

The first chapter of my recently begun 19th novel.

Crap.

Technically well done crap. Compelling in places, stirring in others, the story advances, characters begin development, shape and form begin to present themselves.

Still crap.

Crap . . . because it’s not what it could be, not what it should be, not what it would be. It lingers rather than stands, preaches instead of convincing. It’s episodic instead of flowing; and would compel no reader to turn the page for Chapter Two.

I suppose I could press on, hope to correct the systemic problems as I move through the coming chapters; count on the rewrite process to smooth it out, polish it up, make it whole and engaging. I’m a good writer, a good rewriter; this isn’t the end of the world.

Well . . . maybe it is.

And since I have no particular desire to experience the end of the world, I’m not going anywhere until I fix it.

Why?

Because the first chapter in a novel, that first toe in the water, sets the tone, mass, coloration, music and substance of the rest of the novel. If that doesn’t work . . . nothing that follows will, no matter how brilliantly written.

There are non-creative reasons as well. If you’re looking for an agent, your first chapter will determine how seriously you’re taken. It will answer the first question in every talent seeking agent’s heart: can this writer write? Submitted to a publisher/editor who receives fifty or so manuscripts a week, your first chapter will tell them whether or not it’s worth their while to press on, or if they should move to the next in the pile. Submitted to a producer or studio or network it says whether or not you have a clue about storytelling.

Submitted to God, it decides heaven or hell.

Novels, almost by definition, are evolutionary creatures. You usually figure out what you’re really writing about as you journey through the creation process. On my largest selling novel, I didn’t know what I was writing about until after Chapter Eight.

But the novel knew . . . because I had given it strength, direction, sense, and the ability to survive my own clumsiness in Chapter One. After that, I just had to hang on for the ride until my own blindness fell away and I saw what the book had known all along.

Now I am not advocating the perfect chapter, nor am I suggesting that you work on Chapter One forever (or what seems like forever) letting the rest of the book slip away in the process. Of course, a balance must be struck. But let that balance lean a little bit toward Chapter One. Because what follows is the fruit of that seed. A brilliant majestical tree or a twisted and wizened little nothing. Set some standards for that chapter; ask yourself some simple questions, test it by your own standards, and once it passes, move on immediately. You can always make it even better later, so long as you have something solid to start with. Remember, you can’t build on what doesn’t exist.

My tests? For what they’re worth, here they are.

The relative quality of the writing aside, are there things (plural) which would compel the reader further into the novel? I love good writing, live for it, but it is story and the execution thereof that moves any reader through the work. You can write with extraordinary quality . . . that’s wordsmithing. But do those words also begin to tell the story? That, my friends, is storytelling. And storytelling is the moving walkway that your reader must be convinced, baited, or shoved onto to propel them the rest of the way. And if it ain’t moving in Chapter One, it ain’t gonna in Chapter Ten.

Is there a clear emotional tone to the chapter? Regardless of the story, regardless of whether or not you even know the story when you begin, the emotional tone or tonal colors are set in Chapter One. It is the connective vibe that binds reader to story. The thing they can rely on, even after they’ve forgotten that critical sequence on Page 32, or that plot point on page 119. Can you dip all the following blank pages you will write your novel on into this expressive coloration, so that it’s already there – like a watermark – seeping through into your prose and seasoning it with its sense? Story without emotional setting is recitation. Story with emotional setting is the stuff of the Gods.

Does the first page or two of your novel say something or describe something that is germane to the story? In some ways, these first two (rarely three or more) pages are all you have to sell the book to your reader, editor, agent. How many times have you paused in a bookstore to look at those first two pages? And how often has that been a large part of the deciding factor in buying that book? Publishers and agents are no different. Lock them in and lock them in early, and it makes the rest of the ride much more comfortable.
At the end of Chapter One, is there any reason for the reader to go to Chapter Two? Not necessarily a slam-bang ending or a cliffhanger – although almost by definition all chapter endings need to have an element of cliffhanger to them – but rather have you enmeshed your reader sufficiently in the net of your story to hold them and drag them forward? Reader entrapment can not take place after Chapter One! If you haven’t taken them by the scruff of their curiosity by then, you never will.

Last point: Have you done your best? Some writers ease into books, others jump in headfirst and pray that there’s enough water in the pool to cushion the dive. But none worth calling “writer” ever just float along in the first chapter. An old friend’s mother used to say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. And as obvious and assumed as that saying is, it also cuts to the heart of first chapters. Write the best novel ever written but cop out on the first chapter, and smart money says no one but you and your family, maybe a few friends will ever read it. It’s like the lead off hitter in baseball “sets the table” for the inning; the first chapter must be your best work or else you will continue to build the structure of your novel on a foundation of sand. Uninspired sand that is the quickest of them all.

FROM: THE GEMINI MAN

The rainbow never made it to Piatigorsk.

Three colors only were in evidence: the white of the snow, the gray of the sky, the black of the souls and the hearts.

No trees or plant life of any kind broke through the crust of the moonscape. No birds with their bright plumage ever appeared in the sky or came to rest on the power lines, the only break in the desolate scene. In fact, the only life of any kind that had ever been seen here was the gray shadows that passed for humanity
The only sounds: the wind, the muffled sob, the anguished scream, the snap of a breaking arm, leg, skull, or power line.

And everything in my novel grew out of those first 116 words. The remainder of Chapter One began to introduce the humanization of that tonal color. The conflicts, plot points, suspense, comedy, terror and drama all drawing life from that first chapter’s strengths.

And the weaknesses of that novel? Simple . . . virtually every flaw, every unbelievable moment, every piece of story inadequacy was caused by not having a base for it earlier in the story.

Particularly in Chapter One.

We write to be read. We write to express ourselves in ways that mere vocalizations fail at. We write because we reach for our humanity and try to recognize it in others. And we write because we too often find that humanity lacking in those animate biological bipeds that would call themselves human. We write, because we have been gifted with the need to write and sometimes the talent to write as well.
Before moralists, simpletons, power-grabbers, and social engineers redefined it, the word SIN meant simply and only: the failure to accept and or put to use a gift from God.

About the same time, the word WRITER meant simply and only: one who provides their fellow men with an accounting.

38 pages
266 paragraphs
639 lines
5,862 words
33,208 characters

The first chapter of my recently begun 19th novel.

A sin against man & God.

“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within,” Gustave Flaubert

Time to resin the bow, tune the instrument, and begin again.

Believe!

Richard Steinberg

“Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter,” Jessamyn West

Consider what it takes to sit down: the ether of the brain must consider sitting, synapses then fire to consider whether or not it is safe to sit, other synaptic responses are required to decide where to sit, messages must be sent along the neural network and Central Nervous System to activate muscle and bone compliance, nerves on the edges of our skin judge the sit-in-progress to tell us when to continue the motion and when to stop, and finally . . . we’re sitting.

Maybe this explains why the toughest hurdle for any writer to cross is the one making sitting down to write a habit.

When I started, it was nigh on impossible.
In the early days of my professional career, I took several days to create my work space – a narrow, dark, lacking air and light, void under a staircase – and hours more arranging the typewriter (have I just aged myself) and what few supplies I had. Then, of course, came the “decoration” stage . . . deciding what pithy sayings, clippings, pictures or stuff I would have on the flimsy card table.

Then there was the music selection – the one thing that is the same today as it was then is that I always write to music – and of course the right baseball cap, beverage, snack, and taking the time to rearrange the beautiful dictionaries, thesauri, textbooks, and pamphlets that I knew I would need to write an international best seller. All, in their way, valid uses of my time.

Then I had to sit down and write.

And despite relatively full synaptic, CNS, and muscular-skeletal function, and the ability to sit down with great style and aplomb in my little cave . . . it was a Herculean struggle to stay there and actually write.

Ouch.

In the early days, if I managed to stay in the chair for an hour, to write four connected paragraphs, I considered it a great victory. And I went off to whatever else there was to do. But slowly, I began to sense the trap in that, the real danger of becoming a dabbler instead of a writer.

Now I’m in no way arguing that every writer needs to work an eight hour shift, or that a writer starting out – working at least one full time job, with personal and family responsibilities – needs to put in the same kind of time that they will later in their career. It’s just not possible. And, every writer is different when they DO get there. I work about seven hours a day on pure writing. A similarly published friend of mine works around ten, another of equal stature only works about three . . . and I hate him for the ability to produce in three what it takes me seven.

No, what I’m talking about isn’t hours alone (although making a commitment, even a sacrifice of time is crucial when you get serious) but rather, I’m talking about making sure you do it every day!

That’s the trick, the “D” word: discipline.

Writing is like loading a truck – well, at least it’s like shoveling something – the more you do it, the easier it becomes. The mental muscles become attuned to the work. Even your body begins to anticipate the work and subconsciously begins to draw you toward the work space. And as a repeated refrain of mine is “professionalism” over and above getting paid, you should know that this is also part of that definition.

Because I am an obsessive neurotic when it comes to my writing – I’m remarkably sane, if sad away from it – I write seven days a week. I tend to start around eleven at night and quit around five or six in the morning. I break twice during my work time . . . not counting the moments when nothing is coming, and I start to rearrange my desk. But I am not “done” for the day/night until it is at least close to five or six in the morning.

The discipline to work is so strong in me that when I’m on vacation, have obligations that prevent a work session or two, or for reasons of health or humor can’t work on a given night, I feel unbalanced all the rest of the next day.

Do I suggest the same extremes for writers beginning – or even writers who are established – of course not. But I do suggest the discipline . . . particularly when starting your exploration of professional writing.

– Try to begin your writing sessions as close to the same time possible each day. Your mind has an inner clock that will begin, after a time, to ramp up into the creative state as you approach that hour. Your thoughts will begin to automatically drift to the work at hand, you’ll calm or rage as is your wont and the “getting started” will, eventually, become automatic.

– Try to create the same environment for the beginning of each session. Be consistent with the external stimuli – light, music, the TV, the number of people around you, whatever – so that you will subconsciously recognize where you are and what you are supposed to do. Keep your workspace as consistent as possible – avoiding obsession and time delays in that – so that when you sit down, you’re ready to work.

– Decide in advance of the session, how long you are going to work for. You can always work longer, but unless the outside world intrudes and demands, avoid working less time. The amount of work you produce will vary and vary greatly. You may even come away from the time having written NOTHING! It happens. I’ve written 18 novels and it still happens to me, on occasion. But always remember that you can not write unless you are in a position to write . . . that is, at the typewriter, word processor, computer, pad (with pen in hand) or however you do it. Thinking about writing is not writing. Planning to write is not writing. Talking about writing is not writing. So hang in there until it is over . . . it’ll be worth it when you’re done.

– Take a break every couple of hours. This is critical. I’m not saying you should cut off mid-sentence, or in the middle of a good run, or that you should set an alarm. But you do have to stop every now and again, if only to allow your brain to clear, your eyes to focus, your heart to slow, your soul to heal. Personally, I believe that you should also walk away from your work space during that break. If you’re worried about losing your mind-set, walk away alone. If not, see other people, the world, before returning to the project. Me? I tend to leave the office, go into my living room, and watch unrelated old movies. The length of the break is unimportant – although personally I never take less than ten minutes off each break – but not allowing yourself to work or think about work is what’s important. The break is for your mind and soul as much as it is for your body.

– When you start again, start by rereading (and rewriting) the last two or three pages you wrote. This helps you get back in “rhythm,” back on point after the break. You might also consider starting each session with a small rewrite. Don’t obsess on it, or spend a great deal of time on it, but reintroduce yourself to the work through it.

– When you’re getting ready to stop for the day, pick your spots. So many writers leave themselves hanging; stopping even though they only need another paragraph or two to finish their sequence. There’s no real guarantee (as much as a hope or a prayer) that you’ll be back where you are right now, so finish the sequence wherever possible.

– Do something when you’re done for the day – anything but writing or planning your writing – for at least a couple of minutes after you stop. It’s like cleansing your palate between wines. Decompress for a moment, let go, relax or tense (whichever is the opposite of your writing state) and let it go.
The bottom line is simply this: get into the schedule, the disciplined recurrence of writing. Don’t let it be something you do outside of your life, but rather something that becomes part of your life; part of its regular rhythms and pace. Writing is hard enough – and never let anyone tell you its “just writing” – without making it an external, artificial thing. Make it a part of you, what you do, and your time in Hell will be much more pleasantly spent in far more temperate climes.

“Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write. If all feels hopeless, if that famous ‘inspiration’ will not come, write. If you are a genius, you’ll make your own rules, but if not – and the odds are against it – go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper – write,” J. B. PriestlyBelieve!