Storytellersunplugged

by Brian Hodge

Earlier this year I came across a recommendation to the blog of writer Kevin J. Anderson. At the time, he’d just completed a list of 11 tips for writing productivity. If you want to have a look, you’ll find them in the blog’s January archives.

It’s hard to imagine that you wouldn’t get some good out of something there, no matter how accomplished you may be, although it seemed primarily aimed toward the beginners and the hopefuls that write to him asking for advice. And he certainly delivered the goods.

Unfortunately, Kevin didn’t go far enough. Oh, he told people plenty about how to get the gears in motion and get the work done … just not how to live with the results, should the tips work out and lead to actual publication. Nothing about dealing with the personal metamorphosis that has just occurred. As though the new writer is supposed to absorb these things by osmosis.

Being published is like losing your virginity: first a lot of frustration and humiliation, finally some jubilant screeching, then there’s no going back … and if you’re smart, you’ll realize you better take measures so you don’t continue to perform at that same over-eager, floundering level the rest of your life.

You’re a writer now! The world has expectations of you, all manner of eccentricities and behavioral quirks that you’d better live up to. As well, you’d be wise to start implementing some time-tested, proven strategies to ensure that you maintain your newfound status and trajectory, as you go slouching toward Amazon to be reborn:

(1) Learn to love ramen noodles.

A whole meal in a 10-cent pouch, with a flavor packet containing your recommended weekly allowance of sodium, all at once — what greater culinary friend can there be to a writer waiting for an editor to cut that check?

(2) Get a serious vice and stick with it. No matter what.

All the greats have them: Dipsomania. Nymphomania. Egomania. Every other mania. Pathological addictions to tobacco and/or firearms. Snorting ramen noodle flavor packets. And so on. If you have no obvious inclinations already, grab a DSM 4 or Physician’s Desk Reference, crack it open like a tall cold one, and something’s bound to capture your imagination. (See: William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson)

(3) Perfect the art of projectile vomiting.

This flows naturally out of the previous entry. It’s entertaining, it’s unexpected, and it never goes quite the same way twice. Bukowski often made public appearances with a bucket at his side. Meaning that’s now hopelessly passé. Better, then, to go beyond the antics of your forebear by weaponizing your risen gorge. Plus it’s more effective than an air horn for rousing that inconsiderate mung-rag who’s nodding off at your reading. (See also: Power boot, thunder chunder)

(4) Concoct your own catch phrase.

These days it’s less about quality control and more about self-marketing. Marketing’s aim is recognition, and recognition is the spawn of repetition. Ergo, whatever you choose to repeat will ideally be stupid. The stupider the better. Because stupid is always more memorable. Examples:

“I’m not exactly marriage material, baby.”

“What would Homer do?”

“Forget the hand — talk to the ass.”

(5) Get another vice.

Seriously. What are you, some kinda lightweight?

(6) Optimize your diet for maximum global compatibility.

There are seven basic food groups: sugar, fat, starch, grease, caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. Learn to live on these alone and you can thrive anywhere, whether you’re on an area book-signing tour, doing research in faraway lands, or have awakened to find yourself in an unfamiliar place, in species-inappropriate apparel, to find that all who look upon you do so with the ancient Greek theatrical attributes of pity and fear.

(7) Cultivate an ongoing reaction of pity and fear the rest of the time, too.

You have a world of savage and sublime possibilities here. Use your vices, use your wiles, use tactics the rest of us would be ashamed of ourselves to have even thought of … or at least that we didn’t think of it first. The bottom line is this: You’re a writer. You’re different. Don’t try to pretend otherwise. The average person in this country doesn’t even read so much as one book a year. Can you begin to fathom what an outlandish rarity you are for writing one?

So you might as well work that freak status to your advantage. Strive to keep those around you off-balance and constantly unsettled as to how to react. This will give you ample raw material to write about. The worst mistake you could make is to aspire to observe normal humans in their native habitats, going about normal human things. Because normal life is boring. Armed with that understanding, you can thus resolve to stir the pot … or, perhaps more accurately, the Petri dish in your ongoing biological experiment called life. (See: Aleister Crowley, Harlan Ellison)

(8) Become a world-class kvetcher.

When you’re a writer, there’s a lot to complain about. And about 99% of it can be traced back, directly or indirectly, to one thing: unrecognized genius.

“If only they recognized my genius, they wouldn’t have assigned my cover to the Art Director’s seventh-grader nephew who’s going through his ‘screaming skull’ phase.”

“If only they recognized my genius, they would’ve paid me more/faster/in something other than mildewed copies.”

“If only they recognized my genius, the rest of them would’ve mobbed together and flayed the vile hide off that inconsiderate mung-rag who nodded off at my reading … and no jury would’ve convicted them, either.”

Always remember, that which does not kill you leaves you in fine shape to kvetch another day. (See again: Harlan Ellison)

(9) One more vice oughta do it.

Because as long as you’re in this deep, go for the trifecta. (See: Keith Richards. Okay, he writes songs instead of prose. And, at this point, it’s immaterial whether or not he actually snorted his cremated father’s ashes, as claimed and then hastily denied. Who else is there about whom you could hear such a thing and immediately say, “Sounds perfectly plausible to me”? The rest of us can do naught but bow in homage and awe. Your ultimate lifelong challenge, therefore, should be to snort Keith Richards … then describe the rush in some language known to humans.)

(10) When you do a monthly column, don’t hesitate to turn in a silly facetious fluff piece when you’re really busy with projects like a couple new books and a wagonload of magazine articles and have had company for most of the week.

Just, um, speaking hypothetically.