Somewhere Between the Gutter and the Closet Guest Blogger: Pete Tzinski

It's an interesting time to be a writer, these days, isn't it? Even if you don't follow the publishing industry all that closely – and I don't, because it stops being pertinent news and turns into a horse race pretty quickly – you cannot help but be aware that the times, they be a-changin'. That fact isn't argued. The argument comes from trying to figure out what on earth those times are a-changin' into.

Recently, I've been listening to a writer I know – the wonderful MeiLin Miranda – express her frustrations as she tries to get some promotional attention for a book she's put together. It is, if you want to call it that, a self-published work.

And that means that nobody is going to touch it with a ten foot pole. Thus her frustrations. The avenues for promotion for a book – news web-sites, book review web-sites, magazines, and so forth – all say somewhere on their site if you self-publish, you can go put your head in a bucket before you can send your book to us. (Sometimes, they say it more nicely, sometimes not). Everyone knows that if you do the book yourself, with a publisher, you're going to have to do the promotion yourself too. Sure, fine. The problem arises when you aren't given any real avenues to reach out and touch readers.

As we all know, it is a fact that every self-published book is absolute crap. There is no doubt about it. Just like all indie music is garbage, any piece of art that is not in a musuem is rubbish, and any product you buy that doesn't come from a Big Box Store is just junk.

Wait a second...

I hate the phrase self-publishing. It sounds cheap. It's lumped together with vanity press, which has its own connotations. So let us, for the duration of this article at least, refer to it as indie publishing. Humor me.

It's very odd, the self-publishing stigma, but it actually is perfectly understandable. It also needs to die. It's strange that the industry of stories lags so much behind other fields. In music, it is perfectly respectable and legitimate to make indie music. Put out your own disc, or put it out on a very teeny tiny label. Or just sell CDs at your gigs. Or, as Catherine AD did, sell hand-crafted individual copies of the disc. In the music world, having a major label is no longer the end-all be-all that it once was.

Indie publishing has only lately become something to be shunned and derided. As someone who loves reading about the history of pulp fiction, and just fiction in general, it wasn't uncommon for some pulp magazines to be self-produced, or produced by tiny publishers which could barely afford to put anything out. It was common enough.

However, it's Sturgeon's Law which, these days, makes a shunning of indie publishing perfectly understandable. As an editor myself, and having waded through my fair share of slush piles, I can tell you that the prospect of having a book review site and having to slog through every single thing that anyone puts up on a web-site and sends to me is...daunting, and exhausting, and 'orrible. And while some of them might be good...how am I to know, except by reading all of them?

When a publisher sends a reviewer a book, they are also sending a guarantee. This is as good as the rest of what we publish. If I get a book from HarperCollins, I know it'll at least be on the line with other HarperCollins books. Whether I like it or not comes later, but that assurance is built in from the get-go.

But there's no similar assurance in the world of indie publishing. This is as good as the rest is more of a condemnation when you are sharing space with, for example, very badly written stories in which Captain Kirk and Spock share their feelings and then have sex. You may have poured your literary heart into what you wrote, but you're metaphorically just down the hall from the guy who is slightly off his nut and is writing something that exists somewhere between a blog post, a confession, a story, and a transmission from whatever planet his brain is on.

And the reason it can be so frustrating is...you might have written a work of literary genius, full of rich allusions and themes and metaphors and brilliant commentaries on the human condition. You might have an audience – not a huge one, but an audience that sends you money, buys your books, supports you as surely as a crowd showing up at a gig supports the musician. You might not be buying tropical islands off your fan base, but you might be going out to dinner now and then. And more importantly, you are being read.

And yet...you cannot get access to any avenue that would be otherwise open to a small, un-promoted paperback novel out through Ace Books, which maybe only twenty people will read, and which the author will see very little money, and which might do so badly that it really hurts his chances to get another book published.

It's a major hurdle. It's a frustrating glass ceiling.

Full disclosure time: I started out writing free Star Trek fan fiction stories, posted on the 'net, because I took pleasure in writing them and took greater pleasure in having people read them. As my writing muscles built and grew and I could flex them better, I shifted into original fiction. I've been telling big science fiction stories, in serialized form, on the internet in various places for more than ten years now, off and on. I take a huge amount of pleasure in it.

But...

Recently, while writing a Star Trek article for SF Signal, I discussed at length my own penchant for writing fan fiction, and how it led to my original fiction on the 'net. And I realized that actually, I was slightly nervous to talk about it. And for no good reason. The gentlemen who run SF Signal are wonderful human beings, and I consider them both friends. They would hardly come at me with pitchforks and torches. And yet...I was made nervous. It felt overly revealing. I could just imagine the snickers that I was going to get. He writes stories on the internet. Must not be able to get published. Pathetic.

And of course, that's not true. I publish regularly, in mainstream avenues. But I like writing serialized fiction and I really like putting it on the internet, for free, for whoever wants to see it. I don't do that exclusively, I travel between the worlds and also sell short stories for money. I have novels that go out to honest-to-goodness publishers.

Why can't I release my main record on a big label, and then do a delightful other project and put it out myself? Put in music terms, that is not so foreign idea.

It feels like I'm coming out of the closet, if you see what I mean. Obviously, since I am not gay, I can only theorize what that probably feels like...but I can imagine. And it is the same exposed, nervous feeling that I get (to a lesser extent, I assure you; I'm not losing sleep over this) going out into mainstream avenues and saying “Yes, I do write fiction and put it on the internet for free, Bub.”

I was very proud of my serialized fiction and the places I was able to go in it, until I got very embroiled in some aspects of the mainstream publishing world....and then, I disowned it all, was deeply embarrassed, and would have denied its existence. And I stayed that way for several years. It's only recently that I've looked it again and said “This is where I learned how to do what I'm doing. This is where I had readers, and this is where I got better.”

These days, I'm doing all the angles. I write articles for mainstream promotional web-sites, and I sell short stories, and I work on novels for publishers. I have no interest in releasing the novels, for example, for free on the 'net. But I am also putting together a big web serial. Thousands of words in each episode, detailed and as complex and intelligent as I can make it all. Put out for free.

There's no wall between it and, you know, really badly written Buffy/Angel slash fiction.

Ah well.

As I mentioned above, I read history for pleasure. And one thing history teaches you is that your time will come around, for good or ill. The pulps were gutter fiction, and now some of them are classics (and many of the authors who we consider classics of science fiction wrote gutter-trash for pennies a word). Comic books were just funny books which were most useful as ballasts on ships heading across the Atlantic. Now, comic books are a big industry and called “graphic novels” and make up most of Hollywood's output each year.

The best example of it all are web-comics. Anyone can produce a web-comic and slap it up. I can, and I can't draw. They're silly. And yet...over time...they become a fairly big thing. You wind up with strips like Questionable Content and Penny Arcade and Sluggy Freelance who are doing just fine and dandy and supporting their creators. And no one says “Well, despite that, they're only doing these internet doodles because they can't hack it in the newspaper syndicate world.” Well, no, they're doing it because they can, for pleasure and art, and because the newspaper syndicate is increasingly a dinosaur.

By the same token, indie fiction is perceived as trash. But give it time, and fight, and effort...and the quality will rise above the garbage. I don't necessarily think that internet publishing, or indie publishing, whatever you want to talk about, is the sole wave of the future...but I think that it is a wave, and it will build and prove itself.

In the meanwhile, I would entreat anyone reading this to remember the funny books, remember the pulpy gutter-fiction, remember indie music...and take that knowledge and go out and find something self-published, on the internet or in book form, and give it a shot. And what you find may be garbage. 90% will be crap. But keep looking and see if you can't find the 10% that's pretty darn good.

And when it comes down to the respectable author with a book out who is making no money and may not be able to publish again....or the hack author putting out stories and bringing in regular money through the fans who publishes what he wants, when he wants it...well. Only one of 'em is laughing all the way to the bank. If you're going to write either way, why not be that one?

_______________

Like a lobster in warming water, Peter Tzinski is an increasingly busy guy. He is working on a serial which he'd love to show you, but which won't launch until May 1st. He has fallen in love with Twitter and doodles on it, and can be found at twitter.com/tzinski. He lives in the parts of Minnesota currently not massacred by Road Construction Season.

Guest Blogger: Kristine Williams It's a Jungle in Here

Lori is being kind enough to let me stand on her soap box today, partly because she’s been very busy lately editing and herding authors, and partly out of the kindness of her advertising heart. She knows my own PR firm is an 800lb silverback gorilla named FooFoo who flings poo more often than he promotes novels, and sometimes I have to pick up the slack to get my name out there.

But enough about me . . . I was struggling a little bit about the topic for today. The plan was to discuss my issue with industry news and rumors, and how completely nutso I can get after a day of reading agent blogs and their comment trails – But then I realized Chest-Thumping Power-Whores and the People Who Love Them really didn’t seem like a subject line Lori would want on her blog.

Then I considered a post about the real truth of self publishing – fighting the tired diatribes: “Those who can’t make it in the real world, self-publish.” “Ninety nine percent of everything self published is utter drek.”

Or “Writers who aren’t good enough to get an agent always turn to self publishing and pretend that it’s the way of the future.” But I was pretty sure: That Ain’t Even Bullshit, That’s Horseshit also wasn’t a subject Lori would be happy to post.

So I sat here, staring at the screen and eating my cherry soy yogurt, and I pondered.

I pondered what makes me angry about reading industry blogs. I pondered what irks me about the reaction you get when you talk about self publishing. And I pondered the ape shit on my shoe, and reached a conclusion.


There’s an 800lb gorilla sitting on every desk. Every single writer out there has one. Whether it’s the discipline you don’t have, or the stamina you wish you could develop. Whether it’s the pride in yourself that you lack, or the social networking and public advertising you dread having to face.

Sitting on my desk, the 800lb gorilla has a name, FooFoo, because I’ve managed to bring myself to acknowledge him.

The next step is to stop feeding him and make him work for me, and in order to do that, I have to accept who I am as a writer. I have to admit that having self published novels puts me into a category in other people’s eyes – but I don’t have to accept it or agree with it. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t feel strongly about the novels, and my ability to tell a story. And if I can’t take pride in what I’ve done, how can I ask anyone else to?

My 800lb gorilla is the voice inside my head that keeps reminding me what other people are thinking. “You gave up,” it says. “They’re mocking you.” And until now, I’ve let that gorilla have his way. But not anymore. I finally grew a pair, gave that gorilla a name, and I’m putting him to work for me.

When you name your problems, you own them, and when you own them, they can’t tell you what to do any more.

But it’s a jungle out there, full of gorillas on writer’s desks.

Procrastination. He’s the one who likes to pick fleas off everyone’s back instead of doing his own work. He’d rather spend time in chat rooms, or writer’s forums, gabbing with cyber friends and giving out advice. Anything but working on his own novel or short stories, or getting that non-fiction proposal done, because he knows what will happen if he does. He’ll have to DO something with it. As long as he has a novel “in progress” or a non fiction idea brewing in the background, he’s not required to take the next step. He won’t have to write queries or research agents. He won’t have to suffer the pangs of rejection letters and revisions, or face the possibility that his dream is going to turn into just another thing he wasn’t good at.

Name him Petunia and stop feeding him.

What about his brother, Butt-in-Chair? This one has some amazing talents, and usually your spouse or significant other really appreciates him. He’s the gorilla that finds anything and everything to do BUT write. He’ll turn on that PC, open up that file holding the title of the novel and a big wash of white screen, and he’ll stare for about ten minutes, flex his fingers, crack his knuckles, then go do the laundry. After the laundry, he’ll clean up the kitchen, vacuum the carpets, wash the car, take the dog out, watch a rerun of George of the Jungle. He’ll glance at that screen as he passes by on the way for a snack, and contemplate the opening paragraph while he waits for the microwave to ding. Then he’ll sit down with a soda and his popcorn, flex his fingers, crack his knuckles, hold them over the keyboard and . . . the dryer will buzz, saving him from having to commit to the opening sentence.

You’ll never get that novel written unless you name this one Lambchop and take away his banana.

But what about Pete and Repeat? They are two scary-ass gorillas, and often harder to recognize until it’s too late. They don’t stop you from writing, and they don’t keep you from putting your butt in that chair. In fact, they’ll happily let you write your novel while they play patty cake for a while. It’s when you’re done with that novel that they go to work. Oh, at first you tell yourself they’re just editing, polishing that manuscript until it’s reached perfection, so you can send it out and find it a home. But after one or two of the rejection letters come in, Pete and Repeat take that novel, and get you to rewrite it. After all, if it was fantastic, it would have sold by now, right? So you’d best rewrite the whole thing, change up the protagonist, alter the antagonist -- maybe add some sex. Trouble is, that’s not good enough for Pete and Repeat. If you let them, they’ll keep you rewriting that same novel a hundred ways, year after year, always striving for a perfection you can’t achieve and keeping you from writing something completely different.

Call ‘em Alfalfa and Puddin'Pop and send them both packing.

Just keep an eye out for Misconception. The females are the most dangerous of any species, and fool a lot of people. Even before you’ve finished your first novel, she’s working away, whispering in your ear about how Publishing really works. She’s filled your head with tales of fame and fortune, and keeps showing you those Yahoo headlines about six-figure deals and book tours to Europe.

She’s got you convinced you’re going to sell this novel and be able to sit back and watch it all happen. Giant posters inside Barnes & Noble, book signing tours around the country, maybe even one of those trailers you see on TV and the Internet these days.

What she doesn’t want you to know is the ugly truth -- most writers have day jobs, and most publishers have very limited funds to spend on the bulk of their catalog.

They’re going to pick one or two targeted novels (more often than not these days it’ll be non fiction) and spend the most marketing money on them. While your midlist paperback is gonna get shelf space (if the bookstores order it) it’s still going to be up to YOU to make a lot of noise. You’ll need an author website, you’ll need to rub elbows, network, blow your own horn, all while writing your next novel.

Most writers don’t like to call Misconception by her real name – Delilah – and they’re afraid to stop feeding her.

But you’re in for a pile of ape shit in your future if you don’t at least put her on a diet.

And those are only the Great Apes. There’s a whole bunch of lesser apes, howler monkeys, and the occasional orangutan that can get in the way of writing and clog up a writer’s brain with false ideas, distractions, lack of motivation or creativity. It’s a jungle out there, and there aren’t any hunky, gun-toting adventure guides or thong-wearing jungle-Jane’s coming to your rescue. It’s just you, baby.

So don’t be afraid to look that 800lb gorilla sitting on your desk in the eyes, call him Snookums, and take away his banana. Either make him work for you, or send him packing so you can get your writing done.

Just, um, don’t tell FooFoo I said that. He’s huge, and he scares me.

_______________

Kristine Williams is completely off her nut. If you need further proof, she's got a webpage full of free fiction over at Midnight Reading and a blog where she randomly goes off. Just watch for ape shit and carry a big banana.

Guest Blogger: Pete Tzinski Writers Without Deadlines

I don't think that there's any way to talk about this topic without sounding like I'm complaining. And in a way, that ties in very nicely to the topic.

Deadlines are, in theory, the enemy of the working writer. As Douglas Adams so wonderfully said, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.” Anyone who knows much of anything about writing – because they are a writer, or somehow managed to find themselves married to a writer – is aware that what being a successful author mostly means is, you get no sleep and you have to try to write too much, too fast, for too many people that you can't keep track of by yourself.

Only a writer looks at that and thinks “ah, bliss.”

But the tricky bit is, a career doesn't start out that way. And when it's a career in writing, it can be very hard to make a go of things, not least because of your lack of deadlines. Let me explain.

Suppose you get a job at a big company in which you want to be CEO. Everyone around you supports you. The best job you can get is working long and tiring hours in the mail room, sorting crap for the higher-ups. You go in and work eight hours every day, occasionally you go in on the weekends. And slowly, you begin to rise through the company, getting more and more work that takes more time. Your weekends are turning into funny theoretical things.

Everyone will support you in this, because it's a proper job. It's a proper work. You're getting up, getting dressed, going off to punch in and do your time and then punch out and come home for the day. This is a Real Job.

Now writing. Suppose you want to grow up to be Stephen King? Well, I don't, but you might (I want to grow up to be a weird amalgam of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, and Ray Bradbury; you probably have your own amalgam). And you know that in order to reach the top, you have to write a lot and read a lot. And you do, there's no way around it. You have to write as constantly as you can manage, even sacrificing sleep sometimes. It's exhausting and frustrating and boring, sometimes, and it involves a lot of grind and self-doubt...but the surest sign of any writer is that they wouldn't trade that misery for a cushy job in the big-company-mail-room. (Look, I didn't say we were sane.)

And gradually, you begin to get some success. You're selling some short stories, now and then. You're doing some articles for a few places, if you're lucky. It's not always what you want to be doing – you want to grow up to write science fiction, but why are you now reviewing hardcore gay fiction? well, it's a gig – but it's work and it's helping.

The problem is with the people around you, in many cases.

(And I'll say from the get-go that it's just not their fault.)

The problem is that you are not going off, punching in, vanishing from their lives for a few hours as you work, then punching out and reappearing. Probably what you are doing is going into your computer room (or, in my case, your walk-in closet set up as an office) and sitting down to write. The stuff you are writing isn't guaranteed any sales. And even when you do have sales and gigs lined up...well, it's still not a time clock. The story for your personal pleasure and the story for sale are both done by you sitting around pecking at a computer, or doodling on a piece of paper.

All your writing has to be done as if it is a serious business, it is going to sell, and you are making a job out of this. Even if you're not. That means that when you go into your office, you are 'punched-in' and you are 'at work'. Your family wouldn't dream of showing up at your actual day job in the big company mail room and hanging out to chat. They wouldn't show up to ask you to knock this off and come take out the trash. And they wouldn't get grumpy that you go off to a day job every day instead of spending time with them.

We are not built to believe that This Is Real Work. Maybe it's just that funny little thing you do that your friends put up with. About on the lines of organizing your baseball cards, or going outside to shoot hoops. It's a thing you're doing to kill time, it's not much more vital than watching a lot of TV. It can be interrupted and put off and done away with, if needed. It's not serious.

Deadlines help a little bit. One gets more leeway if they say “I can't go out drinking, I have an article due tomorrow morning, I have to work on it.” Although one still doesn't get the leeway of saying “I can't go out drinking, I have to go into my job and close up shop.” At best, writing is, like, homework. “I can't go out drinking, I have to do four math problems by tomorrow.” It's along those lines.

But the young writer is writing to improve himself, to improve her work ethic, and to build up a body of work which they can then flog out to every editor in the world in the hopes that if they've worked extremely hard and built themselves up...they'll be lucky enough to send a story to an editor who has just fallen off the sobriety wagon and who buys it and sends out actual money.

It's not the fault of the people around the young writer. Even when they do understand that it's serious, it still seems like the sort of thing that you just magically do. In the movies, the guy sits down and goes clacky-clacky-clacky and the camera cuts away to him laughing and holding copies of his new book.

It would be a boring-as-hell movie if we saw the other four hundred hours he spent staring at six words on a computer screen, playing with a slinky, and ranging from cheerful to deeply depressed.

Everyone around you is not a writer and doesn't understand. And there's no reason why they should fully grasp the depths of the matter.

So what's the solution? Well, there isn't one, really. You can be firm, but it only works so much. You can tell your family to treat 6:00pm-10:00pm as if you are at your day job and not to bother you in your office, but I don't know how well that'll work for you (it's never worked for me). You can try to just write in the snatched moments between your actual job, and between when everyone in the house has fallen asleep, writing frantically up to the moment when you zonk out. A trick that used to work for me a lot when I was younger – before everyone caught onto me – was to make deadlines up for things. When I had to get out of something for a writing piece, I would have a magazine or an editor or somebody who 'was waiting' for it. It was rarely true. Ironically, these days, it is true, someone is waiting for lots of what I write. But no one listens to me anymore. So tread carefully there.

And it's even worse if you're doing web-based work. I write an internet serial (which I can't give you a link to, because I'm still writing myself ahead enough that it can launch and give me some free time to work on it more). But consider the people who also do web-comics. You say you want to make a living at it. Well sure, everyone supports that idea. And you might do it. But it doesn't happen instantly. You have to put up a comic every day for two years before you see a cent. Assuming you ever see a cent.

The bottom line is, there are no instant-stars in writing. And until the money is flowing in and you are clearly a Working Living Writer (if it happens, and I hope it does for all of you), it'll be tough to convince the world to give you space and treat you as if you're already a Working Living Writer.

Ah well. Writing isn't easy. I don't think it should be.

Besides, having to fight for writing time is a good thing. I can tell you from experience that if you suddenly have all the writing time in the world stretching out before you, what will mostly happen is...you'll spend time playing with your toddler and turn your e-mail into a social crutch that you spend all of your time in, and develop a pathological fear of telephones and never leave the house and have a head of hair that looks like it houses owls and read weird stuff and...

You get the idea.

Stephen King said something memorable on a different topic, but I think it applies here, too. So I'll leave you with his quote. “It's the grit of sand in the oyster that makes the pearl, not pearl-making seminars with other oysters.”

People not believing in you, you not making money, you not believing in yourself, you having to struggle to eke out any bit of writing time...

...that's the grit.

Swear about it quietly under your breath, and then go off and make yourself a pearl.
__________


Pete Tzinski also blogs at SF Signal.

Guest Blogger: Pete Tzinksi Language

[I'm up against a couple of deadlines this week, so Pete Tzinski, writer of short stories and serial fiction, and a columnist at SF Signal, has volunteered to fill in at The Commune. I will return on Thursday. --Lori Basiewicz]

___________

It begins, as most things begin, with a song.

In the beginning, after all, were the words, and they came with a tune. That was how the world was made, how the void was divided, how the lands and the stars and the dreams and the little gods and the animals, how all of them came into the world.

They were sung.

[...] songs remain. They last. The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties. A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams and gone. That's the power of songs. -- "Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman

1.

Language. It is so fundamental an element of existence, so very key a thing. It is fourth in the order of survival, in that once you have found a place to sleep, a place to eat, and a place to drink, you will then use language to convey this information to others, or to remind yourself. To study the history of languages is to study the very history of humanity, all the way back. Whether or not you believe in creationism, and a God, it is safe to say that in the beginning...there was the Word.

Once upon a time, the power of language was understood. A witch, a magician, well, they might be feared about the village, sure. They might make your hen lay funny, or make some of your teeth fall out. But even worse than someone like that was a bard. Worse than a spell, what if the Bard puts a satire on you? You will be long-dead, and people might still be laughing at you.

All of us might not know anything specific about the American War for Independence...but most of us know Yankee Doodle Dandee. Long after the events have passed and the people involved are gone, we innocently mock with a playful little children's song, originally designed to make fun of the Yanks.

That is the true power of words. They change how we see everything...and then, they hang around. They last.

It is irrelevant whether or not the Hebrew God actually exists, whether or not there was a Jesus Christ. Or it would be, if we hadn't written about it, if we hadn't told the stories. If the followers and true believers hadn't gone up and down the ancient world and told everyone, compelled everyone into believing. Without the language, without the stories, it wouldn't matter how magnificent a person Jesus had been...he would have been forgotten. Instead, we have a Bible in every hotel room.

Language remembers. Language incites. It is not just through the banging of swords and shields and screaming that the troops get their blood boiling and rush into battle. No, it's in the powerful speaking of the General, promising them victory, outraging them against their enemy, and swearing that the Gods are with them.

Language is power. Language is magic. The word "Grimoire" is just another way of saying "grammar." To cast a spell is, literally, to spell. Again, whether or not one believes in any form of mysticism is irrelevant. Through the magic power of language, in this day and age...you can make countless people, all at once, be singing the FreeCreditReport.com song. Or making horrible jokes about "gellin'." If the power to reach out across the world and plant the same piece of language, the same set of ideas, into the minds of people you will never see isn't magic, then I don't know what is.

Language. It can destroy us for the ages, and it can immortalize us. An author might die and live on, immortalized in his work. A man might die for his beliefs and live on, in the power of his language and his ideas. They are greater than statues and elegant tombs.

The ideas continue to incite and inspire and enrage.

The statues are merely admired.

2.

So why is it that this fundamental component of who we are is given so little attention and is assigned so little importance? We spend an enormous amount of time worrying about eating, sleeping, drinking, and all manner of other basic pieces of survival, and yet we neglect language. If we treated food in a similar casual and disinterested manner, then we would surely starve to death.

How many times have you been talking to someone -- or they have been talking to you, either way -- and telling a story, describing an experience, and you get to the end and you raise your hand and go, "It was like...it was like....I just can't describe it!" And how many times is this said with frustration, at the genuine inability to describe "it." To take the images and ideas and emotions in your head and convey them to another person. I hear the frustration all the time, when someone is trying hard to tell me something and I keep misunderstanding it.

I am not the first person, nor shall I be the last, who will remark on the fact that we are living in an increasingly communication-based, language-based world culture, and yet...we are becoming less and less capable of communicating with one another. We might spend hours on our cell phones, type hundreds of thousands of words into text messages, or e-mails, or blogs, or forum threads...and yet, for all of that, we do not hone our communicative skills. They lessen. So many people do not read, and cannot speak. I am forever aware of it, when sitting in a room full of people. Someone gets up to speak, and you have to parse the meaning of what they're trying to say, out through the muddle.

Why is this?

I think it can actually be explained by a quote from an interview, conducted by Bill Moyers with legendary SF author, Dr. Isaac Asimov. And I will quote the pertinent section:

ASIMOV: [...]That's another trouble with education as we now have it. People think of education as something that they can finish. And what's more, when they finish, it's a rite of passage. You're finished with school. You're no more a child, and therefore anything that reminds you of school - reading books, having ideas, asking questions - that's kid's stuff. Now you're an adult, you don't do that sort of thing any more.

MOYERS: And in fact, like prison, the reward of school is getting out. Kids say, "When are you getting out?"

ASIMOV: Every kid knows the only reason he's in school is because he's a kid and little and weak, and if he manages to get out early, if he drops out, why he's just a premature man.

MOYERS: I've talked to some of these dropouts, and they think they've become men because they're out of school.

ASIMOV: You have everybody looking forward to no longer learning, and you make them ashamed afterward of going back to learning. If you have a system of education using computers, then anyone, any age, can learn by himself, can continue to be interested. If you enjoy learning, there's no reason why you should stop at a given age. People don't stop things they enjoy doing just because they reach a certain age. They don't stop playing tennis just because they've turned forty. They don't stop with sex just because they've turned forty. They keep it up as long as they can if they enjoy it, and learning will be the same thing. The trouble with learning is that most people don't enjoy it because of the circumstances. Make it possible for them to enjoy learning, and they'll keep it up.

Here, then, is the reason why. The actual, conscious absorption and improvement of language is so strongly associated with schooling, which as Moyers aptly points out, is practically associated with prison. When do you get out? When do you get to quit reading these damn stories, writing these damn essays, using this damn brain, and so forth?

Language, and the things we use to improve it, are tied into that and thus seen as something not to waste time on. There are more important things to worry about, such as your job, your bills, your lower back pain. Language is down there, somewhere, as the sort of thing you'll fix up when you've retired and you get to read books on a beach. Or something. Or whatever.
Why is language important, then?

3.

If you are not willing to think for yourself, then you're a tool. And if you're a tool, you're gonna be somebody's tool. If you're a tool, then I'm gonna use you. -- Harlan Ellison

Language is important, because without being able to communicate with those around us, we are also unable to communicate with ourselves. How can we know what we think, if we cannot dismantle it and consider it from new angles, poke and prod and consider? And how can we do any of those things without the mental tools at our disposal? Those mental tools all come from language.

To study language -- and I do not necessarily mean an etymological study of words themselves, or doing the thing of learning one new word every time you go to the bathroom, or anything like that -- is to build ourselves up in many, many ways. If we want, we take in language from stories and poems, song lyrics, people talking to us in a million different ways on different topics, movies, news, and so forth. We absorb it, we learn to think about it critically, we hold it up against what we already know, and through the power of language (which is, in so many ways, also the power to discern), we are able to come out without confusion.

I have been vicariously reading books since the first moment I figured out how. All my life. I devour them. But I do it for pleasure alone, and for the sheer unabated joy which I take from a well-turned sentence, a brilliant idea delivered in a fashion that is inescapable. An image that is painted with words so perfectly, you can feel it living in your mind. I wasn't doing this to improve myself, it was just the thing that I enjoyed.

Recently, I returned to college. And what astonished me, as I worked my way through my first two semesters...was that subjects which were completely foreign to me, were made so much easier and so much less foreign simply because of the indiscriminate reading which has filled up the nooks and crannies of my life. It was from this foundation of language and story and idea that I could move forth and deal with college, and the rest of the world, and not only be able to handle it, but be able to feel comforted that it wasn't all alien to me. Even if it should have been. Language did that.

Language is wielded every day, at us. Journalists and newscasters on the networks use language to anger us, makes us feel sad, work us up over a controversy. Politicians use language to garner to them our support, to anger us into letting them lead us where they want to go (even if we would otherwise not have let them). Language lets a good liar get out of trouble, or out of a confrontation. Language can build up our self-image or completely destroy it. And it can do all of this without our conscious knowledge or consent.

As I said at the beginning, language is so powerful. It immortalizes and destroys. Sometimes, all at once.

And if we do not have at our disposal the greatest-possible amount of language and idea and story, if we do not armor ourselves and arm ourselves with language, then we can so easily have it wielded against us. As the Ellison quote says, without language, we become tools, and someone will use the tools for whatever ends they see fit, and what we think will not matter. And should we protest, we shall not have the language to evoke a reaction in anyone we protest to. We will be shouting into the abyss and waiting for the echo, in vain.

Language is a weapon against us, and a weapon for us. And it is a delight, and a pleasure. It can make us last forever. It can help us keep friends we might have lost through misunderstanding; it can help us make new friends. Language and the joy of learning are vital.

Unfortunately, the joy of learning part is stomped out of us pretty thoroughly by school. I hated school, and I find that I still do. But I adore learning. I can grumble my way through a class, and then come home and get excited because I've learned an exciting fact about the gravitational field of the Earth's moon and what the fact means. I adore learning now, and I get frustrated at how much there is for me to learn, because I can never get through it all.

These, then, must be our goals: we must equip ourselves with as much knowledge, and as much power-of-language as possible. And we must work as hard as we can to make learning a joy for those around us, and those who come after us.

Otherwise, someday, it may be that "the man who was a god amongst insects," shall simply be the fellow who forms evocative sentences, standing amidst a crowd of woefully ignorant TXT speakers.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it)

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Amazon's Prejudice (#amazonfail)

By now most of you will have heard that Amazon has unranked select books. There explanation is that they are unranking books with "adult" content, but books like Heather Has Two Mommies, a pure children's book, has been unranked while Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds hasn't. So far, it appears that it is books with gay and lesbian themes that are being unranked, regardless of any sexual or erotica content.

Yes, you heard right. Amazon is making marketing decisions based on homophobia.

Some people say, "What does it matter if books are unranked? Isn't that only about bestseller lists and the vanity of the author?" No. They also drive recommendations and make it easy for customers to find books whose titles readers may not know. Unranking books is the equivalent of removing books from the shelves and relocating them under the counter or to the backroom where they must be specifically requested only by those who know the specific title.

And while Amazon is claiming that it is a system glitch, back in February, they told an author that his memoir had been removed due to adult content.

More information here:

Amazon Follies

#Amazonfail and the Politics of Anti-Corporate Cyberactivism

Amazon Rankings Reek of Homophobia and Puritanism

Housebreaking Your Writer

I didn’t post anything on The Commune yesterday. I’d started writing a rather lengthy post about #agentfail and #queryfail and Nathan Bransford’s “Be An Agent for a Day,” contest. Basically it boiled down to pointing out the flawed thinking in Bransford’s contest and pointing out how both agents and writers were both wrong and right in their individual viewpoints and saying, “Can’t we all just be grown-ups and get along?” What writers, agents, and editors all need to remember is nothing in this business is about us. It’s all about the story and the reader. The story is the product and the reader is the customer. Without a worthwhile product (story) to offer to the customer (reader), none of us have a job or a reason for being.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter, or who just glance at the updates off to the side there, know that yesterday I took my puppy to have him neutered and microchipped. Based on his reactions when we dropped him off and when we picked him up, it wasn’t a traumatic experience at all for him. He just didn’t understand why we weren’t feeding him for about twelve hours beforehand. Was the pack out of food? Couldn’t we go hunt some more? Maybe we could eat the squeaky toys or one of the soft, fuzzy blankets? Oh, look, there’s a nice Texas Longhorn[1], maybe we could have one of those? You brought the barbecue sauce, right?

He was actually quite eager to go with the vet tech when I handed off the leash. I’m certain he could smell food in the back. His vet is located on the premise of a local stable that breeds champion Palominos. When we got out of the car, the smell of horses (prey) and their food was very strong in my nose. I can only imagine what it smelled like to a very hungry puppy.

The vet tech reported that Sam greeted her enthusiastically this morning; he was equally enthusiastic in greeting his human pack when we showed up to retrieve him. Sam is nothing if not friendly and enthusiastic. He’s never met a stranger and he seems to have learned that we always come back, nor is he one to hold a grudge.

I’ve long said that any writer who does not have children should have a pet – whether a dog or cat does not matter. Pets force us away from the keyboard and out into life periodically. They remind us to get up and move. They give us a reason to get up in the morning. They put us on a schedule – it doesn’t matter how long we stayed up writing the night before; they know what time the alarm is supposed to go off – which makes us more likely to take care of ourselves.

Besides all that, as I missed my rambunctious, demanding, high-energy puppy yesterday, I realized that we writers could learn even more from our pets. We could learn some very important writerly lessons, if we choose to pay attention.

1. Live in the moment. By breeding, Sam is a herding dog. As such, keeping him exercised and stimulated is very important to the overall happiness of the combined human-canine pack. There have been times when I’ve taken him out to play fetch when he’s just taken off running. He’s not running away nor is he running toward anything. He’s just running. In those moments, watching him, the sheer joy and pleasure that comes as his feet move across the grass, as his muscles contract and release, allowing him to almost fly, one can tell he’s not thinking about the past or the future or even the present. He’s not aware of the grass, the wind, me, or even himself. All that exists in that one moment is the act of running. It’s pure focus and complete absence of self.

I’ve seen the same thing in cats when they’re hunting. There’s that moment when the prey has been identified, when the cat has his muscles pulled beneath him, watching, waiting… Looking for the moment when everything is perfectly aligned. When that happens, it’s not about the cat, or the prey, or the act of springing… It’s all about the moment when these things come together and just are.

Writers often worry about what’s going to happen next. When I finish writing, who am I going to submit to? What happens if it’s rejected? What if… Sometimes, such things don’t matter. Sometimes all that matters is the act of writing. Just enjoy the moment, the act of being, the act of writing, and don’t worry about what comes next until later.

2. It’s okay to look foolish. Have you ever seen a dog rolling in a pile of leaves, legs flailing in the air, tongue hanging out? They are anything except dignified. What about a cat who walks over to you and flops over on their back in a demand to have their belly rubbed? They look anything but dignified. They have no pre-conceived notions of what is acceptable or what is proper. They don’t worry about what other dogs or cats think of them. They just do what gives them pleasure, what they want to do at the moment, what they enjoy.

Writers often get caught up wondering if something in their story is acceptable. They get bogged down in the details. Is it proper to use the serial comma? How long should a chapter be? How do you denote scene breaks? How many inches down a page should a chapter begin? Which font is the most correct? What should this character do or think or be?

Who cares? If you’re still writing, if you’re not at the submission stage, just write. This isn’t an office job. No one really cares if you’re using the exact same font as the person in the next cubicle over. New writers often tend to want to come across as serious or profound. They want to be serious literary figures who are respected and held in high regard. Pshaw. This writing gig is supposed to be fun. Go roll in a few leaves, flop over and let the words tickle your belly. Let go. Enjoy being a writer. Laugh and share the simple pleasures with your stories and your readers.

3. Explore new scents and experiences. Dogs and cats never stop exploring their environments. Despite the adage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” dogs never stop learning. Same with cats. If either comes across something new in their environment, they want to learn everything they can about it. Is it dangerous? A threat? Is it alive? Does it need protecting? How can we use this for our purposes?

Writers also should never stop learning. Through new experiences, we gain new ideas, new perspectives to share with our readers, new ways of expressing ourselves. Is it something we should or could share with others? Is it a story? Can we use this to torture a character? How will it make our writing more believable? More accessible?

Curiosity is one of the greatest resources available to any writer. Never stop looking, sniffing, exploring, tasting, listening, reading, or learning new things, no matter how experienced a writer you become.

4. Ask for what you want. Be persistent. Anyone who has ever owned a dog or a cat know it’s not easy to tell them ‘no’ when they really want something. So what if you’re about ready to solve the meaning of the universe, if puppy wants to play, there will be a squeaky toy shoved against your leg. Squeaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueak. If the cat wants his ears scratched, claws will be extended to pull your hand away from the keyboard, the remote, or whatever you were doing until their need is satisfied.

Humans with pets have learned it’s easier and simpler to take a moment to throw the toy, to scratch the ears, than it is to try to deny the animal what they want especially when, in the great scheme of things, it’s really not that big of deal.

Treat publishing the same way. Keep sending your work out over and over again. Go after the goals you really want. Don’t be afraid to ask. The worst you will be told is no, but eventually, someone will take the time to satisfy your needs if you are insistent enough.

5. Training is not a bad thing. Successful pet owners know that the key to a healthy, happy pet is training; that the right training is the best way to prevent problems later on. And the thing is, pets don’t typically resist training. They’re eager to learn what their human families want from them. Despite some clichéd differences, this is true of both cats and dogs. They want to know what is acceptable, what is forbidden, what is preferred, and what isn’t. They want to know what the rules are and when it is and is not acceptable to break them. They accept criticism.

Writers would do well to follow their example. Learning the rules of writing – how to mark dialogue, how to create tension, pacing, the different parts of speech, what different sounds can represent on a psychological level, what agents and editors want in a submission – aren’t bad things. They help make the entire writing process easier.

Learning when it is okay to break certain rules – when it is okay to jump on the bed and when it’s not – help make our writing stronger. Being willing to accept criticism, rather than claiming that a mistake is “our voice,” would serve writers well in their quest for publication and readers. Seeking out and accepting training as writers is not a bad thing.

As you learn to write and seek to improve your craft, don’t just look to other writers for lessons. Look to the world around you, including the animal kingdom.

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[1] Several years ago, a local resident purchased the herd of Longhorns that used to appear in the Marlboro cigarette commercials, back when you could still have ads for cigarettes on TV.

Business, Publishing, Writing, and This Blog

The other day, while thinking about business and what is and is not business and this blog and how it is and is not about writing, I came across the following quote:

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

Cyril Connolly, New Statesman

It crystallized many of my thoughts and tied them together for me.

I’d received an e-mail from a blog directory informing me that The Commune had scored a 6.3 out of 10 points on their ratings scale, which based on their system is a “Good.” I was invited to click on a link and add a little button to my blog informing the online world of this fact. Having never heard of the site, and knowing I never submitted The Commune to be evaluated, my first thought was that it was malicious spam and clicking on the link would cause bad things to happen. A little googling alleviated my fears somewhat. The site, such as it is, is legitimate, but still, I wasn’t prone to placing advertising for them on my blog just because they wanted me to do so. A little more research showed they had evaluated an older version of The Commune. It also says the score is based on “editorial” review but does not give me access to the review or tell me anything about who the editors are. There should be some degree of transparency on both sides, or at least provide readers a breakdown of the point system and a brief written review for the consumer, such as is found in movie and book reviews.

Beyond all that, the important bit, for the thought process I was experiencing at the moment, was that they had categorized The Commune as a blog about “writing” and that when I went to look for it in their listings I searched for it under “writing” without even thinking about it because I do believe The Commune’s tag line, that this is a place where people, life, and writing come together. And, yet, as I glanced at the other blogs characterized under the “writing” heading, I had to step back. Most blogs about writing tend to be filled with talk about publishing and getting published and the writing process and while The Commune did look at some such things in the beginning, it has evolved to the point where it discusses many things and most of them do not appear to be about the writing process or the writing life or the business of writing or the writing craft. For the most part, my posts are just turning the stones over and examining what I find underneath. Even so, I still consider The Commune to be a blog first and foremost about writing.

Why? Because, to me, writing is about life and life is about writing. Everything I encounter, everything I do, is fodder for an article or story idea. Writing is about turning the stones over and examining what is underneath and sharing it with others in such a way that they are entertained or gain a new perspective or both.

When I talk about the economy, I’m talking about writing. When I create a post about the other-worldy feeling generated by a snowstorm or the SciFi channel’s name change, I’m talking about writing. How so? The SciFi channel’s name change was about branding and respecting your readers. Without them, writers are nothing. They should never be dismissed out of hand as the SciFi channel has done their viewers. The snowstorm was about feelings we get in certain situations, about seeing the unusual in the usual, about how extraordinary the ordinary can become. There are possibilities in everything and it is up to we writers to see them and share them with others.

As for the economy, that is about the business of writing. What can people afford? What is happening to the world around us that affects our ability to make a living through our prose? It is about the writers’ ability to forecast the future and our responsibility to tell others.

About a year ago, I attended a sample class given by a PhD being interviewed for an associate professorship. His specialty was philosophy and business. It was an unusual combination. Part of his lecture has always stayed with me. He explained that when someone “went into business” there really wasn’t a definition of what that meant, other than they were going to try to make money, and why did business have to be about that? Why couldn’t the end goal of a business be about improving the community? Why was success only measured by the bottom line? I do not do his philosophy justice, but it made me think, which was the hallmark of a good professor, and one of the reasons, when all the sample classes were complete, I voted for him to get the position.

It leads to the question why is the hallmark of a successful writer only about getting agent representation and commercial publication? What if they were able to get readers some other way? Would the writer then be a success, even if they don’t have the name “Random House” or “TOR” on the spine of the books?

My friend Kristine Williams is already ahead of me on pondering the answers to that question with Midnight Reading. In an era when publishing is struggling to evolve and adapt to both economical and technological changes, she has taken her literary future into her own hands. While she still wants to be read, she has stopped considering traditional publishing to be the end all, be all goal. Instead, she has put her work out there where the readers are and invited select writers to do the same on her dime. She is in the process of creating a place that is not about how many books are sold, but about how many books are read. She is bringing fiction and readers together again without overt concern over the bottom line. As a result, she is building a future for herself and those she chooses to partner with. It’s commendable and interesting and an example of what it means when business is not just about how much money is made. It’s what writing and reading should be and were once, before those who published and sold books became so disconnected from the reader and the product in their pursuit of the almighty dollar.

I fully expect to see more such projects as the Depression continues to grow around us.

What Animals Really Think

Brain Candy and Big Business

U.S. corporations greatly under-estimate the intelligence of the American consumer. Whether it is the McDonald’s inside Wal-mart claiming that health concerns is the reason outside plastic cups can no longer be refilled at their soda fountain or the entertainment industry only producing television shows, movies, and books that appeal to the lowest common denominator, it has become obvious that Big Business does not think much of its customers. When the majority of television is reality TV or the same two shows in different incarnations and books must be either about or by a celebrity, then it is time reinvent the wheel.

Before we discuss this further, let’s clear up a couple of things. McDonald’s, we know the real reason you don’t want us to bring outside cups in is you were losing money by not being able to strictly control the size of the cup or diameter of the straw. Yes, we also know about capillary action and we, the American consumer, did notice when you increased the diameter of your straws twenty some years ago. We even know why you did it – to make us drink more and buy larger drinks – we were not fooled. Do you think it is a coincidence that this was about the same time you had to begin to fight for your share of the fast food market? Disrespect the customer and they go elsewhere.

What Big Business does not understand – what they need to start to understand if they are going to survive – is that humans are complex creatures. It is entirely possible for the same person to attend the national ballet and to watch USAF wrestling and enjoy both equally well (just hopefully not at the same time.) Just because we watch reality television doesn’t mean that’s all we want to see.

This blog is, at times, eclectic. Some posts are about nothing more than my puppy eating popcorn on the cob. They’re brain candy. Others analyze the language behind well-distributed urban legends or examine what is and what is not free speech. They’re more demanding of you, the reader, and your time. One thing I’ve noticed is that the brain candy posts get more comments, but the more in depth posts get more hits. What this tells me is that while you, the reader, like the occasional sweet, what you’re searching for is something more substantial in your internet reading diet. You want to be challenged, or at least treated like the adult you are.

Maybe that’s why independent films and self-published books are starting to be more widely received than they were in years past. Film studios, TV networks, and the large publishing houses are producing too much brain candy. That leaves us dissatisfied and looking for something more nutritious in our entertainment diet. When that happens, we’ll hunt until we find what we’re missing, with little regard for where it came from. And when we do find it, we tell our friends, who tell their friends. Word of mouth has always been the best marketing tool.

If Big Business wants to survive this economic downturn, then maybe they should step back and really examine what the consumers are spending their hard-earned entertainment dollars on rather than wasting time, money, and energy trying to convince people that the latest sugar-filled snack is worth the cost of a well-balanced dinner. Otherwise, they will not survive. There are plenty of little guys waiting in the wings, ready and willing to become the next Big Thing. US corporations should remember that every time they're tempted to under-estimate their customers. It is the consumer, after all, who ultimately decides which businesses survive and which ones file for Chapter 11.