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The Gonquin Table: Resolutions

Frank Wydra

January 13, 2008

January is a transitional month. North of the frost-line grey snow still blankets the fields and the prospect of buds breaking seems a distant promise. Yet, once the solstice has passed, the chimera of renewal and rebirth flame the imagination. Young and aged alike assess the road traveled and contemplate new paths. So it is at the Gonquin where a cheery blaze in the expansive Jeffersonian fireplace warms those perched around its central table.

“Resolutions,” Mary says, as if asking a question.

“Don’t believe in them,” Edgar says.

Papa, draws deep on his briar, then, “Last year I swore off tobacco, seems a good place to start.”

Bram pats his paunch, “Leaving ten pounds on the floor wouldn’t hurt, I guess.” But it is said with little conviction.

Al, the Gonquin’s ubiquitous owner, seems relieved no one is suggesting cutting down on alcohol.

Mary, head shaking, says, “No, no. Wrong kind of resolutions. What I’m wondering is how important is it that we resolve elements we introduce into our stories, things such as issues with characters or pregnant situations.”

Edgar slaps his hand on the table and makes us all jump. “What nonsense. Of course there must be resolution. The basic rule is that if you put something into the story by its end you must take it out. Resolve it”

Mary, seemingly taken aback by the outburst, says “Heavens,” then regains her composure. “Yes Edgar, I have heard that. Yet, today, so many stories now seem to end without resolution. Take Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer winning story, The Road. At best the ending is ambiguous and it is clearly unresolved. Worse, there is no clue to the Armageddon that put them on that soot-filled road.”

Bram says, “Of course. He lets the reader draw his own conclusion as to what preceded and what follows. To me that seems a wholly appropriate ending. There seems to be a trend developing of late where, to be considered literary, the work has to be obscure and ambiguous.”

“This is not a new phenomenon,” Papa says, looking at Edgar from under his brows. “I can recall others who have left key points of the tale unresolved.”

Mary says, “So many of today’s stories seem to lack a plot, focusing, instead, on character. John Updike comes to mind. His Rabbit books are like that, character studies at stages of his protagonist, Angstrom’s, life. It is a commentary, if you will, on evolving values as man passes through life. Very literate. And, of course, he won the Pulitzer for two of them.”

“Ah,” Bram says, “but there was resolution; Angstrom dies.”

“Dies, yes,” Papa says. “But was anything resolved by his demise?” Or was death simply another event adding to the exploration of values?”

Edgar, quiet since his first outburst, says, “This talk about literary fiction is rubbish. All fiction is literary, some rises to a higher plane, allows the reader to perceive truths once masked. That is the function of all writing to shine a light where darkness reigns. Sometimes the function is mundane, sometimes profound, but the writer illuminates. And for light to be focused; there must be resolution not ambiguity.”

There is silence around the table until Papa draws deeply on his pipe and softly says, “Well.” He taps the bowl of the briar on the table to settle the ash. “A story of yours which I greatly admire is The Cask of Amontillado. A good little piece. Yet, though I have pondered the nature of the slight that led Montresor to brick up the unfortunate Fortunato, I am at a loss to what it was. In this masterpiece of yours you leave the reader to wonder, to imagine, what transgression could have led to such an extreme remedy. That, I would argue, is the core of the question Mary poses. From Amontillado it would seem that you are not averse to leaving dangling threads.

It is clear from Edgar’s scowl that he does not relish being caught up like this. “That,” he says, with noticeable restraint in his voice, “was a short story. You cannot compare shorts with novels.”

Papa nods, but it is unclear whether it is in agreement or simply acknowledgement of Edgar’s point.

Bram starts to say something, but is interrupted. “Hold on, hold on.” It is the ever-lurking Al. Everyman. “What you guys don’t get is that when you bring in a gun in chapter two or Maggie’s ex-boyfriend in chapter three, we expect that it will somehow impact the story. It doesn’t, our take is you didn’t do your job. So, yeah, those of us who pony up a shekel for a story want those ends tied up.” Al gives his chin a Mussolini lift, then, “So anyone need a refill?”

Bram lowers his spectacles and over their rim touches eyes with everyone at the table. “Quite right,” he says, perhaps acknowledging Al’s point. Perhaps not. “As to your point, Edgar, in my mind short stories are more demanding than longer works. Every word counts. If you introduce a notion, it must have purpose, otherwise what use does it serve? And once introduced the bugger must be dealt with, brought to resolution.”

Papa says, “The rule seems to be there are no rules. Once I would have said that genre fiction, particularly the mystery, requires tighter plotting—which of course implies adherence to Edgar’s rule. But, having read classic tomes such as Chandler’s Big Sleep where Taylor’s murder is unresolved or Harris’s Silence of the Lambs where Lector’s fate is ambiguous, I have come down on the side of doing what works and damn the rules.

“So,” Mary says, “you believe resolving details is situational. Do it or not as fits the story.”

“As situational as my resolution to stop smoking,” Papa says.

“Well, then,” Edgar says, ‘what guidance does that give the developing writer? For people to develop there must be standards, guidelines, benchmarks to anchor the craft, else they face chaos.”

Bram is nodding. “You are right, of course. As writers develop, the rules are important. But once they have found their voice and are confident in it, breaking rules—as you did in Amontillado—allows the craft to develop and explore new vistas. It is that freedom and exploration that creates exciting stories.

“Doesn’t always work,” Papa says.

“Nothing does,” Edgar says.

frank.writestuff@gmail.com

Sunday, January 13, 2008

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  • Looking back over the last year

    Normally, I try to have this article posted by one in the morning. I’m a few hours behind schedule this time around.

     Today was not a normal day for me. I got to sleep in rather late by anyone’s standards and by my own I may as well be Rip Van Winkle. After eventually crawling out of bed, I got dressed, went over to a friend’s house and helped her load the rental truck that’s taking her to a slightly different life in North Carolina. Her husband is in the Armed Forces, and currently in Afghanistan. Seemed liked the neighborly thing to do, and it’s a last chance to hang with one of my work buddies. By the time my next article comes out, Good Lord willing, she and her husband and daughter will once again be a family unit.

     Had you asked me what my plans were for the weekend last week, they would have involved writing. In addition to this essay, I have three short stories I really need to finish, and I also have three novels I want to get wrapped up.

       Ah, and there’s the rub. They aren’t three NEW novels. They’re the same three I was trying to get finished by the end of 2007. Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t make it.

      First mistake: I tried to start all three of them at the same time. Turns out that while I CAN write three separate novels simultaneously, it slows me down more than a bit. That’s normally called “biting off more than you can chew,” in publishing terms. That’s okay. Live and learn. And it’s not like I didn’t have other things I was working on to keep me busy.

      Other things, Jim? Like what?

      I’m glad you asked. In addition to writing novels, I do an occasional review. In addition to the occasional review, I do a monthly article on a website. If you’re reading this essay, you’re probably already familiar with that fact.

      I had to do a few rewrites on DEEPER during the course of the year. I’m pretty sure I mentioned that a couple of months ago, while I was going over the numerous suggestions that multiple proofreaders and the editor and publisher had suggested.

      I sold CHERRY HILL to a publisher that I haven’t worked with before. Said publisher suggested that I might want to write a novella to go with it. Same character, different story. Cool. That’s two sales instead of one. Of course, I had to write the novella. A little over 30,000 words later, it’s done.  I was invited into a rather unique project, A round robin with some of my favorite authors. Hell yes, I dropped everything to work on that. When I can. I might tell you more about the project.

      I was asked to write a short story for a magazine. Minimum of 3,000 words. Being the wordy bastard that I am, I turned in 10,000 words instead. The publisher didn’t complain and when the time comes to get paid, I’ll probably be even happier than usual.

      My short story collection, SLICES, is coming along. I had to edit all of the stories for that particular collection. Then I got them back a few days ago and I’ve been editing them again.

      Speaking of editing, me and a couple of friends (Tim Lebbon and Christopher Golden) got a spur of the moment idea for an anthology a couple of years back and sold it almost immediately. As in within 18 minutes of coming up with the concept. Well, hell, that was pretty amazing. Of course, we then had to edit said anthology. We read a lot of stories. Because nothing went in without a serious debate from each of us, we read ALL of the stories and then we had to edit the ones we accepted, as well as the make suggestions for those that weren’t quite there but close. (On a side note, I saw the cover art for the anthology today. Damn, it’s pretty.) I’d tell you more, but, once again, smaller presses like to control the flow of information and who am I to argue?

      Speaking of anthologies, this year has seen me invited into many more than I have been invited into in the past. A lot more. Because I’m a writer and I love anthologies, I’ve tried to write a story for each and every one of the personal invitations. On a side note, I was ready to get back into writing SMILE NO MORE (one of the three novels I’ve worked on for the last year), when the editor of one of the anthologies I’ve sold a story to already asked if I could send the story again. Yeah, well, there was this computer crash, see, and to my surprise, that story was only on one hard drive. That would be the hard drive that isn’t working anymore. So I rewrote the story from scratch. Of course, it’s been a few years and my notes are long gone. Happily I remembered the story well enough to rewrite it completely.

     Because you’re never too busy, I took on work as a freelance associate editor with Bloodletting Books. That means I get to go over the manuscripts with a fine-toothed comb and make sure that all the punctuation is handled properly. It also means I’m reading a lot of blind submissions and tales that were specifically requested.  Remember how I talked about DEEPER a little while ago? Yeah, well, the idea has always been to promote what I’m selling, right? So I wrote a ten thousand word short story for promotional purposes. It’s available here if you feel the need to read it: http://www.necessaryevilpress.com/pdf/deardiary/Dear_Diary.pdf. I think it turned out pretty damned well, if I do say so myself.

      The thing here is that I had three novels I wanted to write and sell this year and I managed to finish none of them. A few years ago, I’d been grinding my teeth and ready to scream for missing the deadlines set out by my publisher and by myself. These days, I accept that from time to time I’m not going to make the deadlines I choose for yourself. You can’t let that get you down. You surely can’t let it stop you from trying.

      I didn’t manage to write and sell three novels. Instead, I managed to write and/or sell two novels, two novellas, and five short stories and rewrite one more. Instead I worked every day, wrote every day and managed to go on far too little sleep again. In addition to writing, I edited and when I was done editing, I did a lot of proofreading. Just for kicks, I read and reviewed a decent number of novels and also read a lot of “slush” that varied from woefully inadequate to damned amazing. I’ve also written my first ever rejection letter and believe me I agonized over that one. I’ve been going into intricate notes on three separate books series, two which will be co-authored and one more of my own design, and all of which have to be finished sooner or later. I thought I’d try something new, you see, and actually have outlines and a few chapters I stead of entire books written before I start trying to sell the works.

      New Year’s resolutions are something to aim for, not a guarantee that I’ll succeed in my goals. I did not write three novels, but I stayed very busy.  I did not sell three novels, but I definitely made a few sales anyway.

      My resolution for this New Year? Finish the three novels I’ve started, and sell the two I have not sold. I’d also like to sell a few more short stories, but so far it’s survivable. Aside from what you’re reading right now, I haven’t managed a single story today. I’d feel a lot worse about it, but I was helping a friend move and I can always write tomorrow.

      Did you make writing goals last year?

      Did you meet any of them?

      How about this year?

      For me, I intend to make finish those damned novels, because they’re in my head and want out. Just, this time, I intend to finish them one after the other and not try to write them all at once.

      James A. Moore   

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  • Burying Hatchets

    You’re not important enough to hold a grudge.

    There are thousands of people who don’t believe that.  Writers, especially genre writers, simply cannot afford to number themselves among them. It has been suggested recently that writers have large egos.  That assertion was made by a highly regarded author and was quoted by yet another professional.  It also meshes perfectly with my own experience.  Writers have a belief that their stories are important enough to be distributed.  This is true of anyone who tries to publish even when they recognize their technical skills are lacking.

    Many authors also spend time at conventions, where they get drunk and let their tongues loose and their minds devolve.  Or they spend time on the computer participating in opinion forums.  In a combined effort to generate publicity, interact with fans, and vent their daily frustrations many will even blog.

    Conflicts arise.  It happens all the time.  I’ve had it happen with me.  Someone says something, another person disagrees (or even agrees in a way which offends the original speaker/scribe) and the feud begins.  Perhaps it is a quiet anger held by the person who perceives offense but unsuspected by the offender.  Perhaps it is goaded into existence by others who were present or merely heard about the disagreement.  Perhaps it is a mutual decision.  All of that is immaterial; what matters is that offense was given and offense was taken.  Intent and extent are moot.

    Now, “Forgive and Forget” is a maxim which long predates my years on this planet, but I don’t ascribe to it.  I think forgetting is for the delusional.  I prefer the adage which begins “Fool me once….”  But the Forgive part of the first saying is important.  More than that, it’s key, and it’s often forgotten or purposefully ignored by many people today.

    If you think I’m talking about you… I am.  Not specifically, probably not even thinking about you when I’m writing this, but if you’re wondering then there’s a reason.

    And obviously there are limits.  I don’t think many people would rationally argue for a “live and let live” attitude toward known pedophiles, or allow someone to verbally or physically assault their loved ones and minutes later chalk it up to water under the bridge.  But those limits should only rarely be invoked.  If you’re finding yourself with an enemies list approaching that of Harlan Ellison or Richard Nixon, you’re doing something wrong and should immediately take a critical look at your attitude with an eye toward improving it.

    Even if you disbelieve all of the health warnings associated with chronic anger, you should remember one thing: it’s tough to walk across a burned bridge.  At their height, authors may have thousands of appreciative readers, but they’ll still be dealing with the same core group of people over and over: a handful of people at each of the various publishers, a few local friends and associates, some other professional creators, and a handful of other field-related professionals.  If the author hasn’t reached the heights of fame, they’ll have a few less people they know, but the categories will be the same.

    Those are the people from whom the majority of your career leads will come.  They are also likely to be the people from whom the majority of your career leads cease to come, if and when conflicts arise.  Worse still, because so many people in the industry know so many others, it’s nearly impossible to tell when a feud with one person will bleed over into an unexpected conflict with another.  This is particularly true of sf, fantasy, and horror, where convention attendance often leads to unexpected connections and relationships.

    This is an extremely difficult business in which to succeed.  The last time I checked, more than nine out of ten authors making professional sales had at least one other job or were being supported by their partner.  Intentionally lowering the odds of your initial or continued success because of your pride ranges from counterproductive to downright asinine.

    Again, I’m not suggesting everyone lose every scrap of judgment they possess.  And I’m not suggesting that people fail to recognize the individuals who disappoint or irritate them.  But there’s a big step between disliking someone and engaging them about it, and it behooves everyone to consider the odds against their ultimate success before taking steps which could diminish those odds.

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    SHOW & TELL

    By Cody Goodfellow

    Remember how utterly lame Halloween costumes used to be?
    What kid-hating idiot in the 1960’s decided that kids had to be the Platonic ideal of a character, instead of a mimic of the real thing. that a kid who wanted to be the Wolf Man for Halloween really should instead become a billboard for the Wolf Man. Spider Man was supposed to go begging for candy in a rubber suit with a picture of himself on it. Perhaps because irritable cops kept shooting at anything remotely resembling Tatoo or Gene Simmons, we were forced to wear these retarded costumes that told who we were supposed to be, instead of elegantly showing what we were.

    Show, don’t tell: an ironclad dictum, the kind of rule you must obey to produce bearable writing, but must break to produce anything enjoyable. For no better reason than that I love to donkey-punch conventional wisdom whenever I see its loathsome, helpless haircut, I tried to get to the heart of the show and tell controversy. They got along so great in elementary school; what the hell happened to split them up?

    Showing makes prose more cinematic, but it also limits its palette. Artfully and dynamically painting the scene in words satisfies every writer’s frustrated dream of making movies, but overuse is like trying the same roundhouse punch until your reader drops, or drops you.

    As much as we are expected to produce Technicolor, Odorama brain-movies for our reader, the glassjawed ham & egger will swiftly succumb to the shocking uppercut of just coming out and telling the story, now and again.
    In film, showing is essential, because everything is fed to the passive viewer, who slips into a waking dream, if the particular film doesn’t suck out his will to live. In literature, of course, imagery is an expensive illusion generated by a flurry of words, the visual writer a tourist in the cinematic dream state, saddled with a horrible exchange rate and indecipherably showy directions. It falls to any writer above fortune cookie counts to weave a spell in which the reader must actively pull the words off the page one at a time, and still daydream according to precise and purple instructions.

    Showing gets a lot of unfair praise, while telling is often unjustly maligned. You drop a fortune to take your brats to a Hannah Montana “show,” while a “tell” is what cost me my kid’s college money at the Commerce Pai Gow Casino. The highest praise lavished on modern genre hits usually applauds their relentless pace and vivid imagery, and readers often cite the cinematic quality of their favorite prose.

    But even the zippiest thriller books can only chase after the hypnotic buzz of movies, and “breathless” thrillers often lumber along glacially under a welter of cinematically redundant detail that shows nothing at all (Witness Patricia Cornwell describing an entire dream kitchen with only the brand names and colors found in the catalog).

    I love cinematic detail in my own and others’ writing; I try to nail every image as vividly as possible, but that’s why all my favorite work is double the word ceiling for any paying magazine. Something had to give, so I tried to make my descriptions more strategic, to pick nodes of detail that triggered mnemonic responses in the reader that would fill in the gaps. Some readers would prefer you count every palace guard’s pocket change, but they’ll unconsciously thank you if you find a way to make them think you did it, and save a few trees.

    Still, there must be a simpler way, and a better way, that wins back the atavistic, hoary old charms of good old-fashioned storytelling, that has kept our backward art alive and kicking against all comers, from cave paintings to the Playstation.

    Harlan Ellison is a past master at evoking vivid settings while leaving the darkest conclusions to bloom in the sleepless reader’s mind. His strongest stories, particularly his asshole-fables from the Gentleman Junkie era (at the risk of getting sued [Hi, Harlan’s Googling Lawyers!] I won’t quote anything, but trust me), he pointedly tells you just what kind of shithead you’re about to share spit with, in colorful, but indisputably telling tones.

    Tom Picirrilli’s hallucinogothic noir style revels in decadent but svelte imagery, then counterpunches with direct apostrophe, the narrator flat-out telling you the fucked rules that govern his misbegotten character’s lives. The hairy brass balls on this guy drop out of the book and onto your chin, when he does this trick right.

    This kind of technique breaks the wall, turning off as many readers as it probably turns on, but reader’s aren’t reflexively turned off by a voice, so long as its distinctive qualities add to the delivery of the story. The words aren’t magic smoke or dancing army ants. They’re words some guy or gal wrote to trick you into dreaming their dream.

    Having only muddied my own neat personal definitions, I picked up a case of Heineken and went to see the Wise Old Owl. He told me some stuff that made me nod gravely and scratch where I hope one day to glue a convincing beard, because all his wisdom directly contradicted what I thought I totally understood. “I think telling plays best in moments of relative stillness,” he hooted, “the calm
    between the storms. That’s where literature can pull off cerebral effects that you can’t get anywhere else.”

    Now, I’d supposed that showing would be called for to lace less dynamic portions of a story with theme and atmosphere, while telling would be good for hustling readers through the unlovely mechanical tuff that intrudes on every story. And I had to agree, because NOBODY can put them away like Mr. Owl.

    Then he got loopy, like he saw juicy, tender pink mice flying out of my pockets. “But when it comes to action, it’s all show me show me show me. And every single word that ISN’T a show-me word has to do the work of at least a dozen others, in order to replace them, add velocity, AND still communicate something deeper.”

    Sure, we all want more action, but as it gets bare of metaphor and imagery, doesn’t it approach telling what happened, baldly, tersely, to speed the reader ahead all the faster under the falling expositional brick you’re dropping on the next page.

    A long time ago, I stopped trying to tweak my story ideas so much that the idea alone would give you an embolism. I realized that just articulating my simplest idea so another could and would want any part of it, would tax every last brain cell to destruction, and so the weirder things get, the more plainly they have to be described.

    Mr. Owl chided me for the foolishness of only bringing one case of beer, and flew away. I was left no closer to any solution, but it’s still my dream to see show & tell reunited again, and not like on that Captain & Tenielle special, where you could totally tell they’d both been hit with curare darts.

    If nothing else, I learned anew that reexamining the purpose and approach of each sentence as an entity, an attack, unto itself, can make any writer break up the numbing patterns that surface in veteran career writers as well as novices.

    But we must remember first and foremost that we are writers of stories, not movies. All writing is storytelling. If your words string together to form an image, you are playing with powerful tools, but you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find what all the other tools can do.

    And don’t give beer to owls.

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  • The Right And The Wrong Of It (So Far) – Part 2 Of 2

    by Brian Hodge

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    I promised you a beating this month. My own.

    As sketched out in Part 1 last month, I turned 2007 into a more introspective year than usual. The schema was to be as honest with myself as possible while sorting out where I’ve come from, where I am now, and where I intend to go. A crucial part of this was qualifying the instincts and strategies that have helped move me forward, along with the blunders and bad habits that have done the opposite.

    The overall objective should be obvious: to identify what’s worked so I could increase my commitment to it, and to put the boneheaded screw-ups in the rear-view mirror while still being mindful of their consequences … if only to make room for a whole new crop of boneheaded screw-ups. I’m only half-joking. Nobody gets very far in life without realizing that failures often end up being a lot more instructive than triumphs.

    So, this month, for your dancing pleasure, some of the hardest lessons I’ve ever learned.

    But first, there’s one last item that belongs in the positive side, which only occurred to me the other day. It’s so integral that I can’t believe I overlooked it last month. It’s not a works-for-me-but-may-not-apply-to-you thing. I feel safe in declaring this to be of universal merit.

    I got anal-retentive about turning in the cleanest manuscripts I could.

    This goes beyond the mechanics of formatting and eye appeal. Before a manuscript goes anywhere, I try my best to scrub it of every typo, grammatical lapse, inadvertent homonym, and every other brain fart that I can chase down.

    Say so we all? I’m sure we all do. I can’t fathom anyone knowingly turning in sloppy work. Well, on second thought, I can, since I’ve been a contest judge, but I believe most writers take enough pride in their work to present it in the best form they can.

    Still, consider this: I’ve received compliments on the cleanness of my manuscripts from editors at small press outfits, computer/electronics monthlies, and on up to Simon & Schuster. I don’t say that for self-aggrandizement, but to point out that if I’m getting complimented for clean manuscripts, that can only mean they’re standing out from what the editor usually sees.

    You’ll never catch every mistake. When you’re so familiar with your own material, the eye can see what it expects to see rather than the blooper that’s actually there. Editors understand that. And, in the end, story trumps all. But anything you can do to make your editor’s life easier, while at the same time demonstrating pride in your work, will be noticed and appreciated, and that never hurts the future of a working relationship.

    And now, finally, the flipside: those things that make me whack my forehead and say “If only, if only…”

    I concentrated more or less equally on short stories and novels.

    Waaaait a minute … wasn’t this the leadoff item in the plus column last month?

    So good of you to notice. What we have here is a blatant example of someone trying to have it both ways. Nobody ever said writers have to be consistent in their outlooks — in fact, it helps a lot to be able to look at the same thing from opposing points of view.

    Last month I listed many positive things that short stories had done for me. Nothing’s changed since then. It all still applies.

    And yet…

    The plain truth is, in this era, a writing career generally isn’t built on short stories. Novels count the most. Novels get the most prestige. Novels get the most attention. Standard publishing wisdom holds that readers aren’t nearly as interested in short form fiction, and that story collections don’t sell nearly as well as novels, and contracts tend to reflect that.

    I can’t say that short stories haven’t been artistically satisfying. I’ve written and published around 100 of them. I have a handful in progress now. I’m proud of them. Proud of the three collections I’ve compiled, and am happy to be nailing together a fourth.

    Yet I can’t help looking at my bookshelves and wondering what the impact on my career to this point would’ve been if the time and effort that went into those collections had gone into three or four other novels, instead … and another three or four more in lieu of the stories that remain uncollected.

    There are no do-overs, no chances to try it two ways and see which works out better. There are only fences, and grass on the other side that looks greener, or not, depending on the light.

    For a period, I skidded into a mindset in which I felt one novel had to be in place before I could really commit to the next one.

    There have been times when a novel didn’t sell right away, and instead of doing the smart thing and moving on to the next one while waiting for time and circumstances to catch up to the orphan, I found it almost impossible to look ahead, let alone step ahead. It could reasonably be diagnosed as a paralysis brought on by a lingering sense of unfinished business.

    I honestly don’t know how that happened. I certainly didn’t start out that way, and in fact had early proof that when time and circumstances do catch up to the orphan, things can turn out even better than what seemed likely before. And I’m pretty much past it now.

    But I’ll never get that time back.

    I let one significant setback defeat me for much longer than it should have.

    I’ve debated whether or not to use numbers here, even in the most general sense, or if metaphors wouldn’t be the more polite way to go. Screw it. Numbers it is. No metaphor can convey the degree of the blow half as well.

    A few years back, I went from a six-figure book to cold zero on the next. Reactions to such a turn of fortune can be complex and evolving, but for starters, “gutted” is as good a description as any.

    I’m a boxing fan. Awhile back I read that George Foreman said he went through a two-year depression after he lost the heavyweight title to Muhammad Ali in Zaire in 1974. This stopped me. I thought, Yeah … that sounds about right. Not that I was the heavyweight champion of the world. I just felt on top of it.

    Climbing out of that hole took its own time, across a landscape of ups and downs, and the one thing I couldn’t begin to think of attempting was probably the one thing that could’ve sped the process along: the occupational therapy of getting another novel going. But the fear of repeating what happened was just too great.

    I’ll never get that time back, either.

    Worse, in fact, the whole situation may have been avoidable, if I’d used better foresight. May have been. There’s no way of knowing. But it makes a better lesson if I believe that it was. Because…

    I thought there was time to coast.

    Once that lucrative book was in place, and slated as the publisher’s lead title for its month, I felt exhausted by what it had taken to get there, and just wanted to curl up for a year or so and write short stories.

    They’ll wait for me, I thought.

    And they may have. Except they weren’t there anymore. By the time I delivered the option novel, the publisher had been taken over and everyone I’d dealt with had been fired in wave after wave of corporate bloodletting. I was part of the clean sweep too.

    I don’t know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t waited. I like to think I could’ve had one more go-around, at least, with the editor who’d fought hard to win the earlier novel, who got what I was doing, and with whom I’d hoped to have a long and fruitful association. I’ll just. Never. Know.

    But I do know this much now: Coasting only works on the downhill side of the slope.

    I have an Xbox 360.

    You may have picked up a recurring theme by now, about the importance of how one chooses to spend one’s time.

    If there’s a bigger, more crack-headedly addictive waste of time than a high-def gaming console, please, I beg you, please please please don’t tell me about it. And don’t show me any pictures, either. Especially don’t send them to my web site e-mail address, brian [at] brianhodge [dot] net. Because that would be wrong.

    Admittedly, I bought the Xbox because I needed it to write a magazine article. I could’ve, should’ve, sold it immediately afterward. But I didn’t. Because I’d already itched for one even before the article came up.

    And please don’t offer to buy it from me now. I’ll have to find an excuse to say no, and that will make me an even bigger hypocrite than I already am.

    What — you thought I was going to go out on a downer?

    Sorry, I don’t see the point of that. As the man said, there’s no crying in baseball. In writing, maybe a little, but we can get away with it because we spend so much time behind closed doors. Writers are, by-and-large, self-made men and women, and on occasion we may be the obvious products of green and inexperienced labor.

    We blow it sometimes. Blow it a little, blow it in an epic way. But if we know our strengths, and what we’ve done right, they’ll always be there, a core foundation to turn to when we need to regroup, take stock, and put ourselves back together again.

    The main thing: just turn the page. Even when, especially when, you have to write it yourself.

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  • Blocks and Blockbusting

    STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED

    Many of my compatriots have tackled the issue of “Writer’s Block,” but, in that I can’t think of anything original, I decided to commence Unplugging 2008 with that very topic my own self.

    Q. What is Writer’s Block?

    A. Writer’s Block is the situation in which you cannot write.

    I do hope that was helpful. Next month, I’ll devote eight words to the subject of “Mental Health for Writers.”

    Okay, enough boffo humor.

    Granted, there are those rare writers who have never encountered writer’s block. Their production is as regular as Lawrence Welk’s alleged rhythm section. Bill O’Ladin, creator and sole author of the high-tech, monosyllabic men’s adventure series, Stone Bloodsquash: Terror Trampler, (Number 1,014, Wiesbaden Waterboarders just released, Philaslot Books, mmb), brags he’s never missed his 90,000 word novel per month deadline.

    “Writers who are blocked,” opines O’Ladin, “simply have never found what works. Way back when, I discovered the formula for Terror Trampler and I’ve stuck to it. Oh, I change locales: Sausalito Slaymakers, Osaka Osamas, Nogales Nutjobs, etc., and my protagonist uses different weapons in each adventure: a kosherkin, which is a six pointed throwing star, or a carbide cannon from the Johnson Smith catalog, or a Tom Cruise missile. And certainly, Stone has changed over the years. His weight’s gone from 193 to 197.

    “But I always know what I’m doing and how to do it because I’m always doing the same thing! McD’s doesn’t try to invent a new quarter pounder with cheese every week. What’s it going to weigh this week? Should we put cheese on it?”

    “Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.”

    When challenged with that quote from Bernard Berenson, O’Ladin responds, “What series does he write? I’ve got 100 billion readers in over four countries.”

    Many writers, however, do have IQs, and so cannot approach wordcrafting in the O’Ladin way; they are prone to periods of undesired non-productivity.

    Constance Smiley had authored three children’s books, Herbert the Happiest Hedgehog, Orville, the Optimistic Opossum, and Jamal, the Jolliest Jackal, which won the Insulin Award for Uplifting Kiddy Lit, when writer’s block fell on her like a ton of blocks.

    “I couldn’t write a thing. No jovial jackass, no ebullient emu, no merry monkey… Zero,” she recalls, lighting up an unfiltered (copasetic) Camel.

    It required 28 days of intensive psycho and aroma therapy, which was exactly what was covered by her health insurer, for her to learn that her “Inner Censor” was holding her back.

    “You see,” Smiley explains, as much to herself as to anyone who might possibly be listening, “Growing up, I was always the one who tried to do the right thing. Oh, maybe I yearned to try something wild and crazy, you know, like my slutty sister, or my pretend Uncle Jack, but I had this voice within telling me ‘No, no, no.’” Smiley knocks back three fingers of Early Times, which, while lacking smoothness, will get you there.

    “Mr. Inner Censor,” sneers Smiley through smoke, “was still with me, still always saying ‘It would be wrong.’ Inner Censor went to work on my writing: You can’t write this, you can’t write that!’”

    Laughing, Smiley pours Early Times. “I had to find a way to shut Inner Censor up.” She laughs. Coughs. Laughs. “Make that, drown the little bastard.”

    Apparently she did, for now Constance Smiley reaches for a manuscript. In a voice ripe with incipient emphysema, she reads, “‘Hop your green tail onto this lily pad. It’s prime slime time. Let’s go frog giggin’!’ Then Freddy’s tongue shot out, but he was not catching flies…”

    Constance Smiley’s newest is called Freddy, The Fornicatingest Frog and it will be published in June by Big Golden 8 Page Press.

    When Jogging with an Electric Shaver, a humorous memoir of growing up in a poverty-stricken, inbred, bipolar, sexually and sarcastically abusive family was published to stunning reviews — “The most comic and lyrical depiction of rape and beating with extension cords of the season!” — and three chair-flinging appearances on Springer, author Clarence Harrow seemed unlikely to be a victim of writer’s block.

    “But I was,” he attests. Always a believer in generic metaphysics and liking the philosophies found in brightly colored New Age catalogs, Harrow tried a styrofoam diet, hours spent in a Christian Science Reading room, a double sided DVD of Zen teaching and flower arrangement, accordion playing (which led to his almost completely severing his left nipple during a performance of “Lady of Spain,”) and such psychoceramic mind enhancing drugs as Pepcid and Mentos in cola.

    “One day, I just began crying,” Harrow remembers. “I looked at the sheet of paper in front of me and there was nothing there. There was absolutely nothing. Not a single thing.

    “It was then I heard a voice. It was as though I had an iPod™®® in my head. Only without earbuds. The voice was spiritual. Like the Reverend Ike back in the day.

    “And that voice told me…”

    Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’

    “And that voice told me…”

    You gotta have somethin’

    “And there was this pretty nice, if somewhat dated organ riff, but that’s not important. What’s important is I had a revelation. It was like Moses at the burning bush, only I didn’t have to take off my shoes or anything weird.”

    “You gotta have somethin’.

    “I had to have somethin’. Didn’t matter what it was. Anything. As long as it was somethin’. Not nothin’.”

    “Just like that! Bam! Presto Sta-Puff! I started writing again. I started writing something.”

    he heard old man was floating see more level of conscious beckoning him he knew it was and he was even if you don’t you hear all smiling and hell with the done million degrees shower run very hot while he razor smells like burnt plastic erases another patch spot the razor in the kitchen snap against her heel when she table

    We have, above, a sample of the something Clarence Harrow has been writing. “What is it? I don’t know. It’s something. I sent in 50 pages of it to the National Institute for the Arts and they sent me a 50 thousand dollar arts fellowship, signed me up to do a series of readings at Starbucks and VFWs around the nation, and I’ll be appearing at the Ford Center with Chuck Palahniuk, Sally Field, Dr. Phil, and the Amazing Kreskin.”

    While Harrow’s blockbuster came from a psychic source deep within him, aid of another person can play an important role.

    “Ooh,” she says, “Writer’s block is icky. It is so, Ohmigod, bad.” Tiffany Amber Spangler-Fowler speaks in a sort of “swallowing burps breathlessly” manner that reminds you of Marilyn Monroe, had Marilyn Monroe not been feigning stupid helplessness. “I had no reason to think I’d ever have writer’s block…”

    But it happened. No matter that Ms. Spangler-Fowler earned her MA, an MFA, and a Publisher’s Clearing House Post Grad Certificate in Creative Writing from Benford on Hudson Near Puddlington (UK) University. Several years after matriculations, she decided it was time to attempt to write something.

    “But I couldn’t!” she wheezes. “I couldn’t finish anything.” With a wisdom that belies her intellect, she adds, “That was because I couldn’t start anything.”

    Spangler-Fowler did not lose herself in a morass of self-examination and introspection. Throughout her time at the university, she had found she could always rely on teachers to serve as older and wiser mentors. “I spent a lot of time under some very fine men. And women.”

    Thanks to a classified ad not far from a column listing “Intimate Deep Massage,” Spangler-Fowler discovered The Professor. “He insists I call him that. He deserves to be a real professor, and not just a man with lots of leather accessories. The Professor explained to me that all artists need discipline. He offered to discipline me.”

    In order to motivate her, Spangler-Fowler explains, The Professor employs The Motivator. A typical weekly session begins with The Professor rigorously questioning Spangler-Fowler about her productivity. “If I’ve written only one page, instead of the 20 I’m supposed to, well…”

    She blushes blushingly as her whispery voice drops to a seemingly fevered sibilance, “Well, then I have to be punished.”

    The Professor employs The Motivator. “And after each one,” Spangler-Flower explains, “I have to say, ‘Thank you for motivating me. May I have another?’”

    When Tiffany Amber Spangler-Fowler leaves The Professor, “I can’t sit still! I’m just burning up to get at my writing so I can maybe someday please…” Her misty eyes glaze over and then her glazed eyes mist over…”The Professor.”

    Writer’s Block. It’s like the weather. Everybody talks about it, but mostly, it’s the humidity.

    And it’s also a way for me to kick off my contribution to Storytellers Unplugged 2008, for which I have never had so bad a writer’s block that I missed a deadline.

    Not even this one.

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  • It’s January In The World

    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!

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  • MAKING NEW FRIENDS FOR YOUR IMAGINARY FRIENDS

    (OR: THE FINE ART OF BELIEVABLE RELATIONSHIPS)

    by John Skipp

    Dear class –

    Great to see you again! And you’ll be either relieved or saddened to know that nobody has to die today. At least not in THIS class! (Sorry, Victor! Rest in peace, bro!)

    This time, I’m gonna pull a reluctant “volunteer” from the furthest reaches of the classroom. And not one of you jokers in the back row, neither!

    I need a relative loner today. One that’s off to the side, sitting by themselves, never raising their hand, but thinking about it a lot…

    Yes, you! The elegantly-funky young lady in the pin-striped blazer and the neat fedora…

    HO HO! Did you guys hear that horrible groan? That’s the sound of a Mystery Woman, about to be exposed. COME ON DOWN, YOU! It’s too late to argue. You’ve already been chosen.

    THAT’LL teach ya to come to my fucking class!

    Okay. So as she walks trepeditiously down to the front, with all of your glimmering eyes upon her, LET’S GIVE HER A BIG WARM HAND, everybody!

    (Clappity clappity clap!)

    Hi! Come on up. You look so embarrassed. It’s funny. See, you don’t dress like a shy person, but clearly you are. What’s your name…? Wow.

    Cameron Delancey.

    I don’t know you at all, but it seems to fit you very well.

    So let’s take a look at your personal profile here, while you stand helplessly before us. Ready? Ah! AGAIN WITH THE HORRIBLE GROAN!

    (Clappity clappity clap!)

    So let’s see. You’re 37 years old. Five two. 140 pounds, give or take. Dark-eyed. Sharp-witted. Used to taking care of yourself.

    Born in the country, hit the city on your own and never looked back. Prefer parks to wilderness, and urban decay to either. Are obsessed with watching struggling people, and trying to understand their lives.

    You’ve been writing in your journal since you were five – is that really true? – but the only real writings you share with others are the letters and notes that you write to your friends.

    So why are you in this class?

    Because you like to watch people think.

    Well, that’s about as good a reason as I can possibly imagine. SO HERE’S YOUR BIG CHANCE!

    And here’s your assignment, boys and girls:

    INVENT A FRIEND FOR CAMERON DELANCEY.

    By which I mean a friend that she might actually have.

    Popular entertainment is rife with convenient relationships, often born of narrative contrivance or the handy-dandy “Stock Friend” bin. Like the sitcom gay neighbor, or the best friend from high school that – 20 years later – still comes by every day to gossip or kvetch.

    Mind you, I’m not ruling out hilarious gay neighbors or persistent high school pals, per se. I’m just saying that shit is easy. And when you do it, discerning readers are more apt to roll their eyes than not.

    So think about the friends that you’ve valued through your life. WHY DO THEY MATTER? What’s the actual connection? What is that special confluence of elements that makes you want to hang out, as opposed to the trillion other people you might welcome into your life?

    There are social components, emotional components, intellectual components, and situational components. Let’s not rule out the sexual, the spiritual, the codependent, the opportunistic, or the wholly dysfunctional.

    From the safe and the true to the doomed and the damned, there’s a gamut of genuine connection that all of us experience with the people that matter in our lives.

    Some relationships are clearly healthier than others.

    But every time you make or discover a friend, there are actual reasons behind it.

    So that’s your challenge. GIVE CAMERON A FRIEND. Describe that person well enough that we get why those two care about each other. Then briefly describe the relationship, in ways that illuminate not only her friend, but Cameron herself.

    And while you’re at it, TRY TO MAKE IT FUN: both for yourself and the rest of the class.

    If you can do that, you are well on your way to writing stories that people might actually care about.

    Extra credit for anyone who makes me believe it.

    Yer stern yet grinning taskmaster,
    Skipp

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  • September 11

  • Rejections, Reviews and Other Dubious Reactions

    Rejections, Reviews and Other Dubious Reactions

    A friend recently complained about a review, which got me to thinking how I react to them, and by extension the slings and arrows of rejections and critical feedback and interpretations in general. Certainly a lot of folks have talked about this kind of thing here, so there’s no particular need to go over it again. And yet, I feel compelled….more on that “ego” thing later. Scroll on if you’ve heard this one before and don’t want to hear it again….

    I believe it was Robert Heinlein who pointed out that (I paraphrase roughly - he was talking about doing revisions) when it comes to a story, the only person whose opinion matters is the one who’s signing the check.

    Now there’s certainly a poetic conciseness to that idea, a compression of angst and sweat and ego and creative vision that forges a pretty hard diamond on the tip of one’s pen, to be accompanied, hopefully, by the clink (or shuffle) of currency. I’m sure there’s a bunch of you rising to arms against the conceit being applied to all reactions to one’s writing (and yeah, he revised, too, and depending on what’s being critiqued, not always enough), but bear with me for a minute.

    There’s also Doug Winter’s observation that (again, roughly paraphrased) if you’re going to believe the good reviews, you’re going to have to believe the bad ones, too.

    Ouch. That’s one tough hombre.

    And finally, Doug Clegg, during one of his Jersey City “salons” a few years ago, observed (really, really rough recollection) that writers, despite their apparent insecurities, actually have pretty large egos because it takes a lot of belief in one’s self, at some level, to keep sending work out there in the face of rejection, or if accepted, the silence that so often greets the publication of one’s vision, or if there are accolades, the accompanying criticism, as well as the discrepancy between hours worked and money received.

    So.

    What does it mean when editors tell you your story isn’t right for their magazine, your book doesn’t fit the line, your numbers are really down? Or when a reviewer picks your piece as the “sucky one” in an otherwise fine collection (or picks out other stories as excellent in a crop of otherwise poor offerings)? Or when your critique group pans your latest?

    Or a reader complains online that your writing is too obvious, or too complicated, or too something-you-never-even-thought-of? Or when your story goes forth and not even the crickets take notice and are silenced by its passing? Or when you can’t make a living in the game, or if you do, it’s not as comfortable as you wished it might be?

    Or, you become one of the chosen destined to lead us all out of the genre ghetto and into the promised land of riches and literary acceptance?

    It depends, I think, on what you need it to mean.

    If you’re hanging on to the writing thing for a good review, or an award, or a pat on the back or a fan letter, to make the game worthwhile, or if you want to be some kind of star (and at cons and writer receptions, you really hear/feel this a lot from young writers) you might be in for a rough time.

    Even if you’re using a paycheck as the measuring stick for writing worth, times and fashions change, numbers corrupt, and people signing the checks suddenly stop, not because the opinion they have has anything to do with your writing. No, the opinion more often these days is about how much money they think they’ll make (or lose) from that writing.

    As someone who makes very little money from writing, is generally ignored on message boards (even his own), will never win an award, and has good reviews on his brief quote sheet only because, after thirty years and throwing a lot of stuff up against the wall, occasionally something defies the physics of ennui and sticks, I have to be careful about what I allow to have an effect on my desire and ability to write.

    There’s not much setting me apart from the rest of humanity. Writing is one thing. So, I guess I fall in line behind Doug Clegg’s comment – in a world in which Shakespeare’s works are alive and well, along with classics from every age commanding the attention of new readers (or the producers of new media), and in a time when the mega mall B&N is a literary Library of Alexandria (not that most people would seek out those bits and pieces of that library in the store), I insist on putting my two cents in.

    Who the hell do I think I am? Certainly not the guy who’s going to set the world on fire. Just a guy who needs to write, get published, maybe be heard once in a while in far off places for an instant before being drowned out by more relevant voices.

    It makes me feel good.

    So yeah, there’s ego. But that ego’s a funny thing. Survival, at least for me, depends on walking a line between too much and too little ego, like a shaman walking the borderland between good and evil.

    Fortunately, there’s not much good news to turn the head, so that side of the path is covered. But the dark side calls, and it asks: why bother? So, yeah, those occasional bon mots keep me from straying too deeply into the depressed side. Being addicted to creativity’s rush also helps.

    But in order for the stories to improve, and so advance the writer on the path of financial and critical success, the information that comes back on the writing – good and bad, from reviews, editors, your ego – needs to be processed a bit, absorbed, applied, in some way so the writer can exploit successful techniques and learn from the bad decisions.

    In the writers group I belong to, formed by members of a class taught by Shawna McCarthy and further trained by Nancy Kress and Terry Bisson, we use this thing called consensus. Sometimes, the majority of people just don’t get a story or an element inside it. Just like rejections for a particular piece may keep piling up over the course of months and years. This is the universe is delivering a message: is one really to believe in one’s unsung genius, or does the story actually suck?

    Reviews (like a writing group’s critiques) are delivered by all kinds of people, some knowledgeable and a few with genuine critical chops. Sometimes you get a nice guy who can’t write a bad review, and other times, you get the person who loathes the particular thing you do (no matter how well or poorly). Reviewers have their favorites, and you’ll never please some. Reader reviews are even more dicey – gods help you if your work is picked up by somebody expecting serial killers and you’re delivering vampires, or the the reader was in the mood for high fantasy and picked up sword and sorcery, or the cover blurbs signaled a touch of high-octane deep physics speculation but what’s delivered is military sf. And you don’t even want to know what happens when a cozy mystery seeker accidentally stumbles into a noir thriller. I’ve seen it, and it ain’t pretty….

    Editors and agents are a different deal, of course. Anybody with experience in the business is worth listening to, even if they don’t particularly like what you’re trying to do. But even here, you have to tread carefully. I’m sure every writer on this blog can, over a few beers and under the cover of a blood-oath to secrecy, tell you stories about editors, publishers and agents who have their heads up, well, I don’t have to go all Bronx on you, do I. And editors and such can return the favor, as well.

    Creative people, and professionals in the “creative” business, are passionate. They know what the like, want, and what works for them. They are not always best at seeing the “big picture.” They are not always terrific at distancing themselves from their little successful corner of the universe and seeing how someone else might succeed doing, or being, something completely different. Their tastes can be….idiosyncratic.

    So my metaphor in dealing with the situation of feedback, positive or negative, is this: it’s all noise. Being a city-dweller, I think of it as listening to traffic, but rural types may hear nature’s sometimes subtle (insects, birds, the wind in the willows) and occasionally boisterous (thunder in the valley) call. Or, if you have kids, well, you know what I’m saying.

    You don’t need to process every single note of sound aimed in your direction. But you do need to listen to the general noise level and understand what it means. A lot of sirens and flashing lights far ahead, even the flare of brake lights, is a warning to get off at the nearest exit. Country folk, gods bless ‘em, can smell a storm coming (unless they’s jes funnin’ with me). And you can sure pick out the sound of something needing attention with the gang of kids under your supervision if the tone of the yelling and screaming changes, or if it really gets “quiet….almost…. too quiet.”

    Anyway, what I’m trying to say is the accumulated reaction you get is what’s worth listening to, short of the occasional brilliant and incisive critique that lights the epiphany bulb. It’s pretty obvious what the one ton of rejection slips and no publishing success is saying, and the options – workshops, critique groups, giving up, or just keep collecting those rejections because you just like to write – are all there for the pursuit of the reality of your choice.

    A good review means about as much as a bad one. A few positive, or negative notices on a piece of work means, maybe, you’ve hit on something. Or, maybe not. An award, as far as I can tell from out here in the balcony seats, doesn’t do much when the customer picks up the book (because it has a cool cover, which draws said reader close enough to notice the title and maybe the “award-winner” blurb), opens up to the first page, and doesn’t like the words on the page.

    I’m not saying awards and great review quotes and blurbs are meaningless – of course, they legitimize the work and the writer in the eyes of casual readers and busy editors digging through stacks of manuscripts. They’re great tools for getting noticed and laying the groundwork for acceptance on a variety of different levels.

    But in terms of the actual impact on the work and how seriously a writer needs to take that stuff, positive or negative….I’m just saying, watch out.

    Noise from various circles tells you what part of the market place you’ve reached – it’s up to you to figure out if that segment is worth reaching, and listening to. Everybody wants a best seller, but not everybody wants to write what usually becomes a best-seller. What writers want is the stuff they like to write to become best-sellers and, well, good luck with that.

    On a more practical note, the noise you hear from editors, fans, readers, bloggers, message boards, reviewers, critics, your Mom, all needs to be plugged into the algorithm in your head that figures out what you need from your writing.

    This is slow and steady stuff, I think, not quick decisions and sudden changes of directions. Hanging around my betters, I’ve heard media writers talk about the need to do more original work, and folks concentrating on their own thing contemplate jumping into work-for-hire to make ends meet. Some take jobs (or focus on marrying well).

    The general noise can inform choices in characters, tone, genre, plots, etc, if you let it. All I’m saying is that I think it’s important to hang on a healthy bit of ego, figure out what you want from writing, and then filter that noise through your needs so you get something meaningful from it.

    A bad review from someone representing an audience you don’t want is, in fact, a good review. Revising when you understand exactly what you’re going after, rather than jumping at popular or editorial whim, is I believe a sane decision. Fighting for what you believe works in a story and giving up when something doesn’t is the sign of a strong ego, not an over-inflated or weak one.

    So. For the newer writers, I’d say, don’t believe Heinlein. Writers lie. They go for dramatic effect. Sometimes they even want to impress the rubes. (Of course, I would never….) He revised, and when he didn’t, he probably still sold the story but it didn’t become one of his steady earners on the reprint circuit, so he cheated himself.

    And yeah, Doug Winter is right, treat the reviews and critiques, whatever their source, as the background noise created by your work. Whatever they may say, don’t get bogged down in defending yourself or your “vision,” and certainly don’t get hyped up on accolades. What will probably help most, anyway (I believe), are some of those negative reactions, as painful as they may be.

    Because, when taken in bulk, they’re telling you something, just like big numbers adorned by critical contempt or low sales numbers accompanied by critical love (okay, those numbers may be telling you your covers suck and your publisher’s art director has one of his or her hydra heads up, well, you know….).

    What you take from that background noise will have an effect on the creative and career options you make for yourself – some choose to write in simpler sentences and stay closer to traditional plots, others are satisfied with obscurity that comes with expressing a very specific and personal vision.

    I remember Ed Bryant speaking as the MC for some kind of gathering (World Horror/Fantasy/Stokers) and pointing out that writers out on the edge rarely get rewarded for their efforts. Something to consider, if only as motivation to check out the nearest Home Depot for some rebar and concrete to fortify one’s ego.

    Just on the editorial feedback side of the creative process, I remember meeting a writer years ago at one of SFWA’s NY receptions, lamenting that his advances were shrinking as his sentences grew longer. I haven’t seen him since. And, a young writer I used to meet at a Long Island convention every year had a successful military fantasy trilogy published, but grew so exasperated with the business that he stopped writing. And, of course, there’s the guy in Shawna McCarthy’s class who was quite stunned that writers couldn’t make gobs of money fairly quickly and walked out, and the other guys who, after a few rounds of critiquing, understood writing for publication wasn’t the thing they wanted to do.

    So, yeah, Doug Clegg is also right – it takes a strong ego to stay in the business and be successful, or to quit it if it isn’t right for you, anymore, or to hang in there doing only what you love for however large, or small, an audience that passion earns, or to apply what you love to whatever forms and styles that will make you the money you need.

    The background noise of reviews, critiques, sales, feedback, rejections and all the other reactions your writing provokes, filtered by what you want, know, and let yourself believe, gives you the signals you’ll need to make your choices.

    Bring the noise. Bring the funk. It’s a good thing if you know how to use it.

    All easier said than done, of course. But things to consider, to watch for in the jungles of the world and the self.

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  • Get It In Writing

    We’re writers. We work with words. Words are our tools, along with our imaginations, out knowledge of the craft, our reference books, and our pens, papers, and computers. You’d think that because words are so important to us, we’d be sure that not only did we work with words but also that words worked for us.

    You think by now, after 23 years in the writing biz, I’d know better.

    When I consider contributing a story to an anthology, one of the first questions I have, besides what is the word length limit and when would it be due, is “what does this pay?” That’s not being mercenary, it’s dealing with business.

    I understand that some brand new writers aren’t as concerned about what a publisher pays as much as they hope their work will be deemed publishable.
    That’s understandable. My first two years “breaking into the biz” had me selling stories for contributors’ copies or ¼ cents a word at times. I was just thrilled to see my name, and my words, in print. This isn’t to say I didn’t want more $$ for my efforts, but I didn’t avoid a magazine (some were, almost literally, “rags”) because the pay sucked. But I always knew what I was getting into when I submitted. It was there in writing, in the guidelines. These days, I not only want to know what the pay is going to be, I have to know what the pay is going to be. I need to know how much is coming in when. I need to know that the bills will be paid, I can put gas in the car, eat, and occasionally go to conventions.

    Now, a public library isn’t a publisher. A public library is our friend, full of books we can’t afford to buy or have no room for in our homes, a place where we can go to research, can relax with a magazine, and pick up some good reads. I’m all for supporting the library.

    Last spring, I got asked to be the keynote speaker at our public library’s annual “Friends of the Library” dinner. Cool, sounds like fun. A chance to chat to people who love books, to do a little promotion myself. To talk about the craft of writing. And, the guy told me on the phone when he invited me, “There is