Michael J. Sullivan's Blog, page 93
March 1, 2009
What Does The Crown Conspiracy and iPhones Have in Common?
The Crown Conspiracy has sold out due to sudden high demand. Amazon.com as well as its many market places reports themselves “out of stock,” as does Barnes and Nobles and Borders online stores. This has caused the resale price of the book to abruptly skyrocket with one vendor using the unavailability and high demand to sell the book in excess of $60 for a novel normally priced at $11.95.
I have contacted my publisher and been assured this is only temporary. It appears that a sudden increase in popularity and demand has caught the distribution channel by surprise. Normally content to ship small quantities of the book to various resellers, the demand appears to have jumped well above normal. The reason for the sudden rise in orders is unknown and could be the result of increased efforts on such sites as Goodreads to promote the novel, or something as simple as word-of-mouth hitting a critical junction. The increase coincides closely with the upcoming release of the second book in the series, Avempartha, due out in one month, which could also be helping to drive the sales.
Orders already placed with online stores will be filled and sent out just as soon as stock arrives. In the meantime, if you are desperate to obtain your copy of the book (perhaps you have a book club set to discuss it in a week or two), I still have copies on hand which you can purchase through my website—at the same low price as always.
I am not certain whether to be concerned or elated at this turn of events. It is nice to hear demand for the book has risen, and yet what good is that if people can’t read it? I will try and keep you posted on any further developments in this area.
I have contacted my publisher and been assured this is only temporary. It appears that a sudden increase in popularity and demand has caught the distribution channel by surprise. Normally content to ship small quantities of the book to various resellers, the demand appears to have jumped well above normal. The reason for the sudden rise in orders is unknown and could be the result of increased efforts on such sites as Goodreads to promote the novel, or something as simple as word-of-mouth hitting a critical junction. The increase coincides closely with the upcoming release of the second book in the series, Avempartha, due out in one month, which could also be helping to drive the sales.
Orders already placed with online stores will be filled and sent out just as soon as stock arrives. In the meantime, if you are desperate to obtain your copy of the book (perhaps you have a book club set to discuss it in a week or two), I still have copies on hand which you can purchase through my website—at the same low price as always.
I am not certain whether to be concerned or elated at this turn of events. It is nice to hear demand for the book has risen, and yet what good is that if people can’t read it? I will try and keep you posted on any further developments in this area.
February 27, 2009
Happy Endings
A tractor-trailer arrived at a fairground with a police escort. On the side of the truck, five foot red lettering declared the promise, “We Rock Your World!” Around the slogan brilliantly painted images of explosions against night skies illuminated upturned faces with open mouths.
Police formed a parameter, asking people to please move back. The back doors on the truck burst open and eight huge men in sweat-stained jumpsuits hauled out a long black draped shape, moving it like a coffin. A great hydraulic power-lift lowered the men and their mystery to the dirt. A crowd gathered and children sat on the shoulders of parents.
Using a heavy metal litter with reinforced wheels, the team in jumpsuits ushered their ominous charge to a great earthen mound outlined in circles of red and white paint. Blinding high-intensity arc lamps flooded the prepared field with white light as the last of the sun’s rays faded from the summer sky. Reaching the mound, an electric motor whined, massive gears clanked and the great behemoth beneath the drape tilted up. The drape fell. The crowd gasped.
A rocket fifteen feet in height stood majestically upon the red and white painted target. Torpedo shaped and thick as an oak tree it gleamed with a blue metallic shine. Three yellow, razor-sharp fins circled the base. A matching yellow cone capped the summit. And along its sleek length ran the legend: Starmaker.
The men in jumpsuits retreated with their litter and a new team took the field. Three men in silver foil suits with full hoods. They took a moment to check the seals on their asbestos gloves then attached the long fuse. They wheeled out a propane tank and assembled a torch at the end of a literal ten-foot-pole.
“Please stand back!” a muffled voice from within a hood shouted. The police pressed the line condensing the viewers.
The torch ignited with a pop. As his associates watched from a safer distance, one of the men in silver stepped toward the fuse—toward the rocket that waited in ghostly silence. Carefully, tentatively, he reached out the torch and lit the fuse. Immediately all three ran behind a concrete blind as the fifty-yard fuse sputtered and popped, a hissing, sparking serpent that raced across the field, rushing, charging madly and irrevocably at its target.
The crowd quieted—a silence broken only by the cry of a baby whose mother covered the mouth of the child in haste to muffle it. All eyes focused on the fuse and on the shining rocket, whose metallic skin reflected the sparks of the nearing fuse end. Above, the heavens filled with stars, below no one breathed. The fuse ran true. It reached the base and in that moment brilliantly flared. There was a brief pause, just half a beat of total silence.
Then it happened.
The cone at the top of the rocket popped off and a flag popped out displaying the word “boom.”
So my question here is—have you ever read a book like that? Have you ever read a novel that begins with a killer premise, and a great mystery that grows deeper and builds suspense and tension with each page only to fizzle at the end?
I have too.
In the middle of reading my first novel, a woman made the comment that I was a contender for replacing her favorite author—so long as I didn’t screw up the ending. I wasn’t concerned, but I knew exactly what she meant. This got me thinking how many books I read that let me down.
Authors who are exceptionally good writers, people who can titillate and form massive expectations, often compound the problem. They raise their own bar so high, no prose athlete can vault it. You can sometimes see it coming. They offer a stunning situation with only a few possible explanations, the first few you dismiss as too dull and pedestrian to be the answer and you are left with three exciting possibilities. Then one—the one you most expected—is eliminated and the excitement rises. Two left—which is it? You wonder, you debate, and then in a shocking revelation, both possibilities are declared false. As a reader, you sit with your mouth open, consuming pages in desperation to see what truly marvelous explanation the author is going to reveal. What magic trick did he pull that you were so completely taken in? Then you reach the end and discover there is no trick, no magic. The conclusion is one of those dull, expected answers. The cone pops off and the flag flies—boom.
In a way it is like buying a product that doesn’t do what it adversities. Some are very long books that can consume days or weeks of reading, always holding out that promise of a bang. Sometimes the writing of the body of the novel is so strong I don’t even mind if the end fizzles, but most of the time I do. I hate bad endings and wonder how they happen. Maybe it is merely a perception thing. Maybe because I am a writer I’m more critical, maybe I plot ahead as I read, finding what I think is a better solution and feel disappointed when it doesn’t happen. Or maybe it is that the writer didn’t know how to end it? It often feels that way.
Sometimes novelists begin stories without any idea where the story is going. They plow ahead going where the words take them and hope inspiration will strike in the end. It is an often-debated approach—to outline or not. I never used to. When I started writing, much of the allure came from discovering as I went along where the story would lead. In a way, I was as much reading as writing. Sometimes I didn’t find an ending and lost interest, wasting months of work. All too often, I found myself in a proverbial locked room trapped by my own logic walls. The only way out being to take an axe to hundreds of pages of beautiful stuff—again months of work lost. This gets old fast.
I discovered, with just a little forethought, I could avoid such train wrecks. More importantly, by knowing where I was going, I could gauge the approach. Like landing an airplane, you don’t want to come in too steep or too shallow, and when writing a novel you don’t want the beginning and middle to overshadow the climax. If you don’t know how it will end, it is easy to keep shoveling it on, stoking that furnace of anticipation until it is white-hot, only to pour lukewarm water on it in the end, because you don’t have the nuclear fission you promised.
Even with outlining, I’ve gotten near the end and realized the punch wasn’t good enough. It makes sense, it stands up, it satisfies, but…and then I have to ask myself, if it didn’t matter how the logic works, how would I love to see this turn out. I purposely think of the most outlandish ideas, find one that makes my heart race and then check to see if there is any way to make it work. I’m actually pretty good at that and I can usually pull plot threads together to weave a logic strand strong enough to take the weight. Then I stand back and grin. That’s when I know the book will fly.
I try very hard to deliver with my endings, to make them live up to the promise, to make them the best part of the story, to have them make sense, but always a little surprising, a little unexpected. I just like gripping beginnings, enjoyable middles and happy endings.
Police formed a parameter, asking people to please move back. The back doors on the truck burst open and eight huge men in sweat-stained jumpsuits hauled out a long black draped shape, moving it like a coffin. A great hydraulic power-lift lowered the men and their mystery to the dirt. A crowd gathered and children sat on the shoulders of parents.
Using a heavy metal litter with reinforced wheels, the team in jumpsuits ushered their ominous charge to a great earthen mound outlined in circles of red and white paint. Blinding high-intensity arc lamps flooded the prepared field with white light as the last of the sun’s rays faded from the summer sky. Reaching the mound, an electric motor whined, massive gears clanked and the great behemoth beneath the drape tilted up. The drape fell. The crowd gasped.
A rocket fifteen feet in height stood majestically upon the red and white painted target. Torpedo shaped and thick as an oak tree it gleamed with a blue metallic shine. Three yellow, razor-sharp fins circled the base. A matching yellow cone capped the summit. And along its sleek length ran the legend: Starmaker.
The men in jumpsuits retreated with their litter and a new team took the field. Three men in silver foil suits with full hoods. They took a moment to check the seals on their asbestos gloves then attached the long fuse. They wheeled out a propane tank and assembled a torch at the end of a literal ten-foot-pole.
“Please stand back!” a muffled voice from within a hood shouted. The police pressed the line condensing the viewers.
The torch ignited with a pop. As his associates watched from a safer distance, one of the men in silver stepped toward the fuse—toward the rocket that waited in ghostly silence. Carefully, tentatively, he reached out the torch and lit the fuse. Immediately all three ran behind a concrete blind as the fifty-yard fuse sputtered and popped, a hissing, sparking serpent that raced across the field, rushing, charging madly and irrevocably at its target.
The crowd quieted—a silence broken only by the cry of a baby whose mother covered the mouth of the child in haste to muffle it. All eyes focused on the fuse and on the shining rocket, whose metallic skin reflected the sparks of the nearing fuse end. Above, the heavens filled with stars, below no one breathed. The fuse ran true. It reached the base and in that moment brilliantly flared. There was a brief pause, just half a beat of total silence.
Then it happened.
The cone at the top of the rocket popped off and a flag popped out displaying the word “boom.”
So my question here is—have you ever read a book like that? Have you ever read a novel that begins with a killer premise, and a great mystery that grows deeper and builds suspense and tension with each page only to fizzle at the end?
I have too.
In the middle of reading my first novel, a woman made the comment that I was a contender for replacing her favorite author—so long as I didn’t screw up the ending. I wasn’t concerned, but I knew exactly what she meant. This got me thinking how many books I read that let me down.
Authors who are exceptionally good writers, people who can titillate and form massive expectations, often compound the problem. They raise their own bar so high, no prose athlete can vault it. You can sometimes see it coming. They offer a stunning situation with only a few possible explanations, the first few you dismiss as too dull and pedestrian to be the answer and you are left with three exciting possibilities. Then one—the one you most expected—is eliminated and the excitement rises. Two left—which is it? You wonder, you debate, and then in a shocking revelation, both possibilities are declared false. As a reader, you sit with your mouth open, consuming pages in desperation to see what truly marvelous explanation the author is going to reveal. What magic trick did he pull that you were so completely taken in? Then you reach the end and discover there is no trick, no magic. The conclusion is one of those dull, expected answers. The cone pops off and the flag flies—boom.
In a way it is like buying a product that doesn’t do what it adversities. Some are very long books that can consume days or weeks of reading, always holding out that promise of a bang. Sometimes the writing of the body of the novel is so strong I don’t even mind if the end fizzles, but most of the time I do. I hate bad endings and wonder how they happen. Maybe it is merely a perception thing. Maybe because I am a writer I’m more critical, maybe I plot ahead as I read, finding what I think is a better solution and feel disappointed when it doesn’t happen. Or maybe it is that the writer didn’t know how to end it? It often feels that way.
Sometimes novelists begin stories without any idea where the story is going. They plow ahead going where the words take them and hope inspiration will strike in the end. It is an often-debated approach—to outline or not. I never used to. When I started writing, much of the allure came from discovering as I went along where the story would lead. In a way, I was as much reading as writing. Sometimes I didn’t find an ending and lost interest, wasting months of work. All too often, I found myself in a proverbial locked room trapped by my own logic walls. The only way out being to take an axe to hundreds of pages of beautiful stuff—again months of work lost. This gets old fast.
I discovered, with just a little forethought, I could avoid such train wrecks. More importantly, by knowing where I was going, I could gauge the approach. Like landing an airplane, you don’t want to come in too steep or too shallow, and when writing a novel you don’t want the beginning and middle to overshadow the climax. If you don’t know how it will end, it is easy to keep shoveling it on, stoking that furnace of anticipation until it is white-hot, only to pour lukewarm water on it in the end, because you don’t have the nuclear fission you promised.
Even with outlining, I’ve gotten near the end and realized the punch wasn’t good enough. It makes sense, it stands up, it satisfies, but…and then I have to ask myself, if it didn’t matter how the logic works, how would I love to see this turn out. I purposely think of the most outlandish ideas, find one that makes my heart race and then check to see if there is any way to make it work. I’m actually pretty good at that and I can usually pull plot threads together to weave a logic strand strong enough to take the weight. Then I stand back and grin. That’s when I know the book will fly.
I try very hard to deliver with my endings, to make them live up to the promise, to make them the best part of the story, to have them make sense, but always a little surprising, a little unexpected. I just like gripping beginnings, enjoyable middles and happy endings.
February 24, 2009
Genesis
A few people have asked where I got my idea to write this series, or how it all came about. The genesis of things always fascinates people I think. It is often hard to answer that question because it wasn’t a light bulb moment, but more of a sedimentary layering of concepts that hardened into a cohesive idea. So if you like, please step into the Way-Back machine and I will try to explain.
Perhaps the most precise spark to truly ignite the Riyria Revelations was—of all things—Babylon 5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Over the years I have watched less and less television, but these two shows were some of the last I really enjoyed. The thing about them that I found fascinating were the layered plots and the mixing of humor and emotional drama with great characters. B5 in particular was amazing in that the entire five-year series was mapped out before the first episode was shot. I think this might be the first, and only, time that’s ever happened. Yet it allowed for the unique chance for viewers to watch episodes and look for clues to the ultimate mystery in a way that no other show ever did. In addition, Straczynski—the show’s creator—layered his plots, something that was mimicked to a lesser degree in Buffy. This really impressed me. I saw it as a revolution. I was certain I was seeing the future of television, the medium raised to an art form equal to a symphony. I never saw the maniacal bus, that is reality TV, coming.
It is always presumed that movies are better than television, that the little screen is inferior. In thinking about it, I came to the opposite conclusion. At best, a movie can only present a four-hour long story. This isn’t a lot of time and is why so many books made into films are truncated. But television can present hundreds of hours. TV is the novel to movie’s short story. Television can take the time to develop characters and settings, to weave plots and build foundations to erect skyscrapers on. The problem is that until Babylon 5, no one thought to do it. Instead of creating novels, producers opted for flash fiction in hour or half-hour standalone episodes. The most they managed was a weeklong mini-series always adapted from a book.
What I began to envision was, like I said, a symphony, a blending of themes set in movements. Not just one plot, but several woven together and blended into a complimentary harmony. I began to imagine that if I were a powerful producer trying to think of a new idea I would make a series where each one hour weekly show would be like a chapter in a book, except that it would have its own complete plot, a beginning a middle and an end. That way first time viewers could always enjoy it. In addition, I would weave in a season long plot, something that each week you could tune in to learn clues about and talk to your friends discussing what you think is really going on. And just about the time the season plot is ending another is already starting. And finally there would be the series long plot. This too would develop, but slower and more profoundly. This multi-layered plot concept I felt would be very exciting, so much more than watching a series where writers are making new stuff up each week based more on what fans think than on what a good story would be, struggling to squeeze every last drop of creativity from an idea.
Having thought of this, and still pretending to be a producer, I had to ask myself, ok, but what kind of show would it be. That’s when I realized there’s never really been a successful medieval fantasy television series. There hasn’t even been many attempts. Those few that were made, like most of the movies in the genre, were horrible. Either the characters were stiff overly dramatized caricatures spouting awkward sounding heroic dialog, or they were inane, silly clowns playing in a slapstick farce as if the producers are saying, “yeah we know this fantasy stuff is ridiculous too.” So I began to think how could it be done right?
Fantasies always seem to be about overly serious characters who never laugh. Why not have the main characters be able to make jokes but not be silly. People always make jokes, usually in the most inappropriate times in order to alleviate stress, so why not? And rather than have them be haughty, serious, self-righteous people who speak like rejects from a bad Shakespearean play, why can’t they be…well, normal. Maybe even a bit better than normal, how about cool?
I remembered old westerns, and Errol Flynn swashbuckling movies, I used to watch as a kid. That’s the way those characters were. They weren’t stupid, arrogant, or morose, filled with some consuming, robotic sense of duty, or desire for ultimate power. They weren’t kids reluctantly being groomed to be the savior of the world either. They were cool. The kind of people you’d like to have as friends. The kind of people you know you would get along with. The kind of people you grew to care about.
I began thinking that if I could bring those kinds of characters to a TV series that used the layered plot technique and the complete, say, six-year story arc, it would be great. I would also keep the magic and fantasy creatures to a minimum. Dragons, magic etc, have a tendency to come off as hokey, and such things are better kept understated in order to build a greater sense of mystery, fear and suspense. People’s own imagination works the best for such things. Individual viewers won’t picture something in their own mind that is silly to them. The more I thought about it the more I became depressed that it would never happen.
I began to think of two characters, nobody special, just a couple of guys who work as special agents for the rich. One a thief the other ex-military, just trying to get by in a tough economy, staying out of everyone’s way, using their specific skills to do covert jobs. In what I imagine, Hollywood-Speak would translate as: Ocean’s Eleven meets Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Middle Earth. Then the hook—they are setup to be the scapegoats for a government coup d'état. I thought it was a good idea. Familiar themes in an unfamiliar setting, with characters viewers would like to spend an hour with each week. It was really a shame I didn’t know anyone in show business.
Then it hit me. I could do the exact same thing…in book form. A series of six books, each like a season of TV. Yes, I thought I could do that, but at that time I had sworn off writing. I had put that dream away and locked it tight. I hadn’t written a creative word in nearly a decade and I was going to keep it that way. I had wasted too many years trying and failing. What good could come from it anyway? Another five years working on a series that, like all the others, would be dumped in the trash unread by anyone but me? What was the point? No, that was all behind me.
I forgot about the idea, stuffed it in a mental cardboard box in the back of my head, and moved on. Still, occasionally I would be walking the dog, or cleaning the dishes and think to myself: So if I did write it how would it start? Like any TV show I would want to begin with a nifty preamble, the kind of thing that would run before the title and lead credits, the intro that sets the tone. Something like that first part of Indiana Jones, or the murder you see before you first meet the sleuth in a show like Monk, or Murder She Wrote. And then? And then they go on the job that nails them and off the story goes. I pictured it from time to time, the two of them scaling the tower in the dead of night, whispering complaints back and forth like real people do when they are trying to be quiet. Then I would stuff it all back in the box, reminding myself there were more constructive uses of my time.
Years passed, and my daughter was struggling in school with reading. She’s dyslexic, which makes reading difficult. Not being good at something, means it isn’t very fun. So I got her books, good books, books I loved. The Hobbit, Watership Down, Narnia Chonicles, Chronicles of Prydain and that new book that I was hearing about, that thing about the kid who was a wizard or something…Harry Potter.
It was sitting around on a table one afternoon. Beautiful brand new book—I’m a sucker for a pretty book. I cracked it and started reading. It was great. So easy to read, so fun. Maybe I—no! It is a waste of time, you can’t get published, no one will ever read it! But what if that didn’t matter? Can’t I write it just for me? For the fun of making it? So what if it goes in a drawer, it’s already in a box in my head. Maybe my daughter would read it? I could even put it on the Internet for free and people could read it there and leave me messages saying if they liked it or not. I could do that couldn’t I? Couldn’t I?
I was starting to feel like Gollum/Smeagol. I won’t spend too much time on it, just when I’m bored. Just as something to do. I wrote the first book in less than a month. The second one took even less time.
I posted it online and a few (very few) people did read it. Some even commented. They liked it a lot. I showed it to my daughter. She looked at the stack of eight-and-a-half by eleven-inch manuscript sheets and turned her nose up. “What’s this? I can’t read that. It has to be a book, you know, bound with a cover. Trying to read that would drive me crazy. It’s just—I don’t know—too weird reading it that way. If you want me to read it you have to get it published.”
No, precious, no don’t trust the publish! No Luke, that way leads to the dark side. Good grief, Lucy was holding the damn football again! “Com’on Charlie Brown, one more try! This time will be different, I promise!”
Who knew Lucy could be trusted?
Perhaps the most precise spark to truly ignite the Riyria Revelations was—of all things—Babylon 5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Over the years I have watched less and less television, but these two shows were some of the last I really enjoyed. The thing about them that I found fascinating were the layered plots and the mixing of humor and emotional drama with great characters. B5 in particular was amazing in that the entire five-year series was mapped out before the first episode was shot. I think this might be the first, and only, time that’s ever happened. Yet it allowed for the unique chance for viewers to watch episodes and look for clues to the ultimate mystery in a way that no other show ever did. In addition, Straczynski—the show’s creator—layered his plots, something that was mimicked to a lesser degree in Buffy. This really impressed me. I saw it as a revolution. I was certain I was seeing the future of television, the medium raised to an art form equal to a symphony. I never saw the maniacal bus, that is reality TV, coming.
It is always presumed that movies are better than television, that the little screen is inferior. In thinking about it, I came to the opposite conclusion. At best, a movie can only present a four-hour long story. This isn’t a lot of time and is why so many books made into films are truncated. But television can present hundreds of hours. TV is the novel to movie’s short story. Television can take the time to develop characters and settings, to weave plots and build foundations to erect skyscrapers on. The problem is that until Babylon 5, no one thought to do it. Instead of creating novels, producers opted for flash fiction in hour or half-hour standalone episodes. The most they managed was a weeklong mini-series always adapted from a book.
What I began to envision was, like I said, a symphony, a blending of themes set in movements. Not just one plot, but several woven together and blended into a complimentary harmony. I began to imagine that if I were a powerful producer trying to think of a new idea I would make a series where each one hour weekly show would be like a chapter in a book, except that it would have its own complete plot, a beginning a middle and an end. That way first time viewers could always enjoy it. In addition, I would weave in a season long plot, something that each week you could tune in to learn clues about and talk to your friends discussing what you think is really going on. And just about the time the season plot is ending another is already starting. And finally there would be the series long plot. This too would develop, but slower and more profoundly. This multi-layered plot concept I felt would be very exciting, so much more than watching a series where writers are making new stuff up each week based more on what fans think than on what a good story would be, struggling to squeeze every last drop of creativity from an idea.
Having thought of this, and still pretending to be a producer, I had to ask myself, ok, but what kind of show would it be. That’s when I realized there’s never really been a successful medieval fantasy television series. There hasn’t even been many attempts. Those few that were made, like most of the movies in the genre, were horrible. Either the characters were stiff overly dramatized caricatures spouting awkward sounding heroic dialog, or they were inane, silly clowns playing in a slapstick farce as if the producers are saying, “yeah we know this fantasy stuff is ridiculous too.” So I began to think how could it be done right?
Fantasies always seem to be about overly serious characters who never laugh. Why not have the main characters be able to make jokes but not be silly. People always make jokes, usually in the most inappropriate times in order to alleviate stress, so why not? And rather than have them be haughty, serious, self-righteous people who speak like rejects from a bad Shakespearean play, why can’t they be…well, normal. Maybe even a bit better than normal, how about cool?
I remembered old westerns, and Errol Flynn swashbuckling movies, I used to watch as a kid. That’s the way those characters were. They weren’t stupid, arrogant, or morose, filled with some consuming, robotic sense of duty, or desire for ultimate power. They weren’t kids reluctantly being groomed to be the savior of the world either. They were cool. The kind of people you’d like to have as friends. The kind of people you know you would get along with. The kind of people you grew to care about.
I began thinking that if I could bring those kinds of characters to a TV series that used the layered plot technique and the complete, say, six-year story arc, it would be great. I would also keep the magic and fantasy creatures to a minimum. Dragons, magic etc, have a tendency to come off as hokey, and such things are better kept understated in order to build a greater sense of mystery, fear and suspense. People’s own imagination works the best for such things. Individual viewers won’t picture something in their own mind that is silly to them. The more I thought about it the more I became depressed that it would never happen.
I began to think of two characters, nobody special, just a couple of guys who work as special agents for the rich. One a thief the other ex-military, just trying to get by in a tough economy, staying out of everyone’s way, using their specific skills to do covert jobs. In what I imagine, Hollywood-Speak would translate as: Ocean’s Eleven meets Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Middle Earth. Then the hook—they are setup to be the scapegoats for a government coup d'état. I thought it was a good idea. Familiar themes in an unfamiliar setting, with characters viewers would like to spend an hour with each week. It was really a shame I didn’t know anyone in show business.
Then it hit me. I could do the exact same thing…in book form. A series of six books, each like a season of TV. Yes, I thought I could do that, but at that time I had sworn off writing. I had put that dream away and locked it tight. I hadn’t written a creative word in nearly a decade and I was going to keep it that way. I had wasted too many years trying and failing. What good could come from it anyway? Another five years working on a series that, like all the others, would be dumped in the trash unread by anyone but me? What was the point? No, that was all behind me.
I forgot about the idea, stuffed it in a mental cardboard box in the back of my head, and moved on. Still, occasionally I would be walking the dog, or cleaning the dishes and think to myself: So if I did write it how would it start? Like any TV show I would want to begin with a nifty preamble, the kind of thing that would run before the title and lead credits, the intro that sets the tone. Something like that first part of Indiana Jones, or the murder you see before you first meet the sleuth in a show like Monk, or Murder She Wrote. And then? And then they go on the job that nails them and off the story goes. I pictured it from time to time, the two of them scaling the tower in the dead of night, whispering complaints back and forth like real people do when they are trying to be quiet. Then I would stuff it all back in the box, reminding myself there were more constructive uses of my time.
Years passed, and my daughter was struggling in school with reading. She’s dyslexic, which makes reading difficult. Not being good at something, means it isn’t very fun. So I got her books, good books, books I loved. The Hobbit, Watership Down, Narnia Chonicles, Chronicles of Prydain and that new book that I was hearing about, that thing about the kid who was a wizard or something…Harry Potter.
It was sitting around on a table one afternoon. Beautiful brand new book—I’m a sucker for a pretty book. I cracked it and started reading. It was great. So easy to read, so fun. Maybe I—no! It is a waste of time, you can’t get published, no one will ever read it! But what if that didn’t matter? Can’t I write it just for me? For the fun of making it? So what if it goes in a drawer, it’s already in a box in my head. Maybe my daughter would read it? I could even put it on the Internet for free and people could read it there and leave me messages saying if they liked it or not. I could do that couldn’t I? Couldn’t I?
I was starting to feel like Gollum/Smeagol. I won’t spend too much time on it, just when I’m bored. Just as something to do. I wrote the first book in less than a month. The second one took even less time.
I posted it online and a few (very few) people did read it. Some even commented. They liked it a lot. I showed it to my daughter. She looked at the stack of eight-and-a-half by eleven-inch manuscript sheets and turned her nose up. “What’s this? I can’t read that. It has to be a book, you know, bound with a cover. Trying to read that would drive me crazy. It’s just—I don’t know—too weird reading it that way. If you want me to read it you have to get it published.”
No, precious, no don’t trust the publish! No Luke, that way leads to the dark side. Good grief, Lucy was holding the damn football again! “Com’on Charlie Brown, one more try! This time will be different, I promise!”
Who knew Lucy could be trusted?
February 22, 2009
Writers vs Storytellers
Having recently moved to Washington, DC, certainly one of the more literate cities, I have taken advantage of the plethora of literary organizations in the area and joined a number of reading and writing groups. This wasn’t an option when I lived in the tranquilly remote northeast kingdom of Vermont, the industrious city of Detroit, or even in the technological Raleigh-Durham area of NC. By contrast, DC feels like one giant college campus—given the number of colleges in the immediate area that might have something to do with it. So many sport a backpack over a shoulder and a book in their hands. Everyone is reading something. They read on the Metro, at the bus stops, at lunch counters, in parks. There’s also a lot of aspiring writers.
I discovered several writing workshops. Places where people submit bits of their work—often for the first time—to the eyes of a diverse group of equally brave amateurs. Since obtaining the Holy Grail of the budding novelist—getting published—I have also been asked to read a good number of manuscripts, or excerpts of stories of total strangers seeking feedback. The quality ranges, but a pattern is emerging. For the most part, there appears to be two kinds of aspiring authors—writers and storytellers.
Writers are those who study the craft and diligently develop their skills. There are far more writers in the writing workshops for this reason. They are the ones who are quick to point out when a submitted piece is “telling” rather than “showing,” when the POV changes incorrectly, the improper use of a comma or semi-colon, or the fact that the page is merely too dense and needs more paragraph breaks. These are the folks that read books on writing, who attend seminars and take classes in creative writing. They are the masters of skill and craft.
Storytellers, by contrast, often can’t even spell. They don’t take courses in writing, or read books on the subject and as a result have never heard of the “show” and “tell” principle and have no idea what POV is. They can’t tell you what the difference is between a metaphor and a simile, and they aren’t even interested in finding out. But they create wonderful stories. Wildly imaginative, captivating, enthralling stories. Storytellers often lack skill, rarely have the tenacity to keep with any project, but they drip talent. Plots, characters and setting are clay they mold with effortless ease.
The problem is, that taken separately, neither is sufficient to produce results, and rare are the two found residing in a single person. I have read perfectly constructed prose that lay like a beautiful stretch of road in a field—leading nowhere, and I have struggled through great stories buried under hideous construction, like one of those movies where the beautiful starlit is made to look ugly with bad hair, glasses and sack-like clothes. You can almost see the jewel that might lie there, if only.
Being a writer has more immediate benefits in that, a certain degree of competence with the written word can manage to get you published. I have read a few books that were written by pure writers. They are the ones with amazing, poetic prose and no plot or characterization at all. They are dull, and often pointless; the kind of book you want to say you have read, rather than the kind you want to read.
Storytellers, I think, have the advantage. They can always learn to be writers. Writing is merely a set of skills that can be taught and acquired with practice, but the ability to invent, to create, to imagine is a talent that cannot be bought or developed. A natural resource bubbling within the boundary lines of a human mind, requiring only the necessary equipment to mine, refine, and transport to market.
You might imagine that a team of a writer and storyteller would be great, the Ira and George Gershwin of literature, but it doesn’t work that way. It is not enough to conceive of a plot and characters and hand it over. The storyteller must write, for details spark new life. Like splitting atoms, often the greatest power lies in the minutia. Tiny, irrelevant comments designed to add a dash of color frequently open unexpected doors to huge possibilities and for this reason; the storyteller must be there to unlock it. The writer will type right by, happy with the dash they added. The storyteller has the ability to throw the door wide and perceive a new landscape.
As such, it is a wondrous, yet very rare thing, to find these two residing in a single person. I strongly suspect this is what publishers look for in submissions—well that and a marketable book. Let’s face it, if Jack Torrance’s haunted book of the single repeated phrase was guaranteed to sell a million copies, it would find a home instantly.
The real problem is that storytellers, the true gem, are often overlooked and invisible when standing side-by-side with a writer. The writer’s work always appears far more polished, more professional. The storyteller perceive themselves as hopeless and usually see the writer as the superior talent—the master of the craft—never realizing their own immeasurable worth, their potential to soar. It doesn’t help that writers tend to see themselves as the talent, building bulwarks against “pretenders.” This posturing frequently results in a self-gratifying pretentiousness, a proclivity to pat one’s own back, and the backs of those who agree. The result is critically lauded “masterpieces” of self-important novels that leave the average reader feeling disappointed after the hype and wondering why it was so touted by so many. Usually the lay response to such works begins, “it was very well written, but…”
Meanwhile, the storytellers are turned away, cast off, and ignored. Instead, they often content themselves with marvelously vivid and exciting daydreams shown in the privacy of their own minds. They are the ones on buses and subways, staring off without focus who abruptly smile, or laugh for no apparent reason—the natural wizards, born with the magical power to create worlds—the gods among us.
I discovered several writing workshops. Places where people submit bits of their work—often for the first time—to the eyes of a diverse group of equally brave amateurs. Since obtaining the Holy Grail of the budding novelist—getting published—I have also been asked to read a good number of manuscripts, or excerpts of stories of total strangers seeking feedback. The quality ranges, but a pattern is emerging. For the most part, there appears to be two kinds of aspiring authors—writers and storytellers.
Writers are those who study the craft and diligently develop their skills. There are far more writers in the writing workshops for this reason. They are the ones who are quick to point out when a submitted piece is “telling” rather than “showing,” when the POV changes incorrectly, the improper use of a comma or semi-colon, or the fact that the page is merely too dense and needs more paragraph breaks. These are the folks that read books on writing, who attend seminars and take classes in creative writing. They are the masters of skill and craft.
Storytellers, by contrast, often can’t even spell. They don’t take courses in writing, or read books on the subject and as a result have never heard of the “show” and “tell” principle and have no idea what POV is. They can’t tell you what the difference is between a metaphor and a simile, and they aren’t even interested in finding out. But they create wonderful stories. Wildly imaginative, captivating, enthralling stories. Storytellers often lack skill, rarely have the tenacity to keep with any project, but they drip talent. Plots, characters and setting are clay they mold with effortless ease.
The problem is, that taken separately, neither is sufficient to produce results, and rare are the two found residing in a single person. I have read perfectly constructed prose that lay like a beautiful stretch of road in a field—leading nowhere, and I have struggled through great stories buried under hideous construction, like one of those movies where the beautiful starlit is made to look ugly with bad hair, glasses and sack-like clothes. You can almost see the jewel that might lie there, if only.
Being a writer has more immediate benefits in that, a certain degree of competence with the written word can manage to get you published. I have read a few books that were written by pure writers. They are the ones with amazing, poetic prose and no plot or characterization at all. They are dull, and often pointless; the kind of book you want to say you have read, rather than the kind you want to read.
Storytellers, I think, have the advantage. They can always learn to be writers. Writing is merely a set of skills that can be taught and acquired with practice, but the ability to invent, to create, to imagine is a talent that cannot be bought or developed. A natural resource bubbling within the boundary lines of a human mind, requiring only the necessary equipment to mine, refine, and transport to market.
You might imagine that a team of a writer and storyteller would be great, the Ira and George Gershwin of literature, but it doesn’t work that way. It is not enough to conceive of a plot and characters and hand it over. The storyteller must write, for details spark new life. Like splitting atoms, often the greatest power lies in the minutia. Tiny, irrelevant comments designed to add a dash of color frequently open unexpected doors to huge possibilities and for this reason; the storyteller must be there to unlock it. The writer will type right by, happy with the dash they added. The storyteller has the ability to throw the door wide and perceive a new landscape.
As such, it is a wondrous, yet very rare thing, to find these two residing in a single person. I strongly suspect this is what publishers look for in submissions—well that and a marketable book. Let’s face it, if Jack Torrance’s haunted book of the single repeated phrase was guaranteed to sell a million copies, it would find a home instantly.
The real problem is that storytellers, the true gem, are often overlooked and invisible when standing side-by-side with a writer. The writer’s work always appears far more polished, more professional. The storyteller perceive themselves as hopeless and usually see the writer as the superior talent—the master of the craft—never realizing their own immeasurable worth, their potential to soar. It doesn’t help that writers tend to see themselves as the talent, building bulwarks against “pretenders.” This posturing frequently results in a self-gratifying pretentiousness, a proclivity to pat one’s own back, and the backs of those who agree. The result is critically lauded “masterpieces” of self-important novels that leave the average reader feeling disappointed after the hype and wondering why it was so touted by so many. Usually the lay response to such works begins, “it was very well written, but…”
Meanwhile, the storytellers are turned away, cast off, and ignored. Instead, they often content themselves with marvelously vivid and exciting daydreams shown in the privacy of their own minds. They are the ones on buses and subways, staring off without focus who abruptly smile, or laugh for no apparent reason—the natural wizards, born with the magical power to create worlds—the gods among us.
February 21, 2009
In the beginning
When I was six, no older than seven, I was at a neighbor’s house, we were playing hide and seek and in their basement, in a backroom, seemingly abandoned, I came upon a typewriter. It was a huge black metal, up-right thing with small round, divoted keys. It was electric. I pressed a key. Snap! Beside the machine was a pile of crisp white paper. I completely forgot about the game. I loaded a sheet, ratcheting it down and began to type. I swear the very first thing I wrote was: “It was a dark and stormy night, and a shot rang out.” I thought I was a genius.
My friend found me but was oblivious to the value of the discovery I had made. He wanted to go outside, do something fun. I thought to explain that I couldn’t imagine anything that could be more fun than what I was doing. I looked back wistfully at the pure white of the blank page wondering what might come next. Was it a murder mystery? A horror story? I wanted to find out, I wanted to fill the page with more genius, I wanted to see where the little keys would take me, find out who I might meet. We ended up alley-picking until my mother called me for dinner. Alley-picking was the art of walking down the alley between the houses and seeing if there was anything cool being thrown away that we could take for ourselves. I had hoped maybe someone was throwing away a typewriter—no one was and I went to bed that night thinking about that typewriter, thinking about that page and that first sentence. If only.
I forgot about the typewriter. I forgot about writing and by the age of twelve, I hated reading. The first novel I tried to read was a book called Big Red. It was about a boy and his dog. I was going to be traveling in a car for four hours on the way to my sister’s farm and would have nothing to do. This was before DS, DVD’s, VCRs—before all these letters combinations. It was also before Sirius too and I knew that twenty minutes after we left the sphere of Detroit, there would be nothing but static on the radio. That’s why I brought the book. I never read a book before. I never did much reading at all that wasn’t required by a teacher. It wasn’t something I did for fun, but I was desperate. Four hours trapped in the backseat of a car for a twelve-year-old was eternity. I read the book. It took me all summer. I finished it out of a sense of perseverance rather than enjoyment. I wanted to achieve this thing so that when I was forty I could say, “Yes! I read a book once! It was excruciating, and took half a year, but by God, I did it!” Then whomever I was speaking to would look upon me with awe and know they were in the presence of a learned man. The reality was, the book was boring and put me to sleep, and I knew I would never try something so stupid again.
The following year I passed a bookshelf in our home and stopped abruptly when I saw something very strange. This particular bookshelf belonged to my older brother and was forever filled with dozens of neatly ordered paperbacks. I lived with my brother and his books all my life. We shared a room. So I was quite familiar with each of the novels. They were mostly about animals—boys and their dogs books like the one I borrowed the year before. There were also a large number of westerns, espionage, and war books. Looking at the titles was like looking at a TV Guide from the late fifties and early sixties: The Virginian, I Spy, The Longest Day, Get Smart, Old Yeller, The Man From UNCLE. But there was something very different that day. There was one book I’d never seen before. It was sitting out, standing up, its jacket cover facing me. It was an odd book. Mostly white it had a thin border of pink surrounding it and an aqua colored title giving it an Easter feel. Within an oval, was a picture like a window looking into another world. There was an odd shaped hill with little homes built into the side of it, a meandering river, some strange ostrich-like birds and a twisting tree with huge pink fruits. It was entirely out of place with the rest of the books and seemed to know this by standing out front, separating itself from the pack, and I had this odd notion that it didn’t just happen there. I stood looking at the book for a long while. Then I looked around me, wondering if whoever put it there was watching to see what I did. I was thinking this not just because the book was new, but because it was so terribly familiar. The image of the other world, the strange scripting text on the cover, it was like something out of a dream. I felt much the same as I am certain Richard Dreyfuss’s character in Close Encounters felt when he began building his mashed potato mountains. There was something about this book, something old, something so insanely familiar, but I couldn’t think what. I read the title, but that didn’t help. It was nonsensical. It read: The Hobbit.
I picked up the perplexing book and began reading it. It wasn’t like Big Red. It was an odd little story about people with hair on their feet who don’t like to go on adventures. I wasn’t impressed but I was driven by the mystery that consumed me. What was it about this book? The only way I knew to find that answer was to read it, so I pushed on. The story got a little better when the trolls entered the picture. It was clearly better than Big Red at least. The mystery only deepened. I knew some of the names. Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin. How did I know these odd words? I only ever read the one book, and never saw this one before that day? I read on and finally reached chapter five. If you’ve ever read The Hobbit you will know what I am talking about when I say that everything changed in chapter five. This is of course, the chapter entitled, “Riddles in the Dark.” I found myself sucked into the story, lost in the world of goblins and wizards. And then I hit upon the name Gollum. It staggered me. I knew that name! It was so familiar! What was it? Then I read the riddles and finally I knew. I knew this story! I remembered about the ring and the riddle game. I remembered it from my own past, but how—my brother!
I rushed from the room and confronted him. I held up the book. What is this? I demanded. I knew he held the answer. I then learned that when I was very young perhaps only five, and my brother was fifteen, he had read The Hobbit. He was in our room late at night reading it and when he read chapter five, he couldn’t contain himself and slipping out of his bed crept to mine and woke me up. When you’re five, the house is dark and your older brother wakes you up with a flashlight, whispering, you know something important is happening. He told me the tale of Bilbo and Gollum with the passion and energy that a fifteen-year-old uses when it is three in the morning and there is a full-moon shining in the windows. In the coming days, he plastered our bedroom walls with drawings he made from the book covers and blow-ups of the maps within. I lived for several years with these images before my eyes not really knowing what they were. Then we moved and the drawings were gone and the memory of that dark night faded—until I saw the book cover some eight years later.
I read the whole trilogy. I loved it in a way I never dreamed it was possible to love a book. When I closed the last page of The Return of the King, I was miserable. My favorite pastime was over. As I mentioned before this was before all those letters, before Xboxes and PS twos and threes, back when television only had three stations and cartoons were something shown on Saturday morning. I went to the bookstore with my brother looking for another series like that one. There weren’t any. There were some ghastly books like The Worm Ourborous which said they were compared to Tolkien’s trilogy. I desperately wanted to believe them and tried very hard to read it. It made me long for Big Red.
There was nothing to read. I sat in my room miserable and bored. Like all kids I made the mistake of telling my mother I was bored and she put me to work cleaning out the front closet. I pulled out what looked like a plastic suitcase.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“That? That’s your sister’s old typewriter. Been in there for years.”
I never finished cleaning the closet.
My friend found me but was oblivious to the value of the discovery I had made. He wanted to go outside, do something fun. I thought to explain that I couldn’t imagine anything that could be more fun than what I was doing. I looked back wistfully at the pure white of the blank page wondering what might come next. Was it a murder mystery? A horror story? I wanted to find out, I wanted to fill the page with more genius, I wanted to see where the little keys would take me, find out who I might meet. We ended up alley-picking until my mother called me for dinner. Alley-picking was the art of walking down the alley between the houses and seeing if there was anything cool being thrown away that we could take for ourselves. I had hoped maybe someone was throwing away a typewriter—no one was and I went to bed that night thinking about that typewriter, thinking about that page and that first sentence. If only.
I forgot about the typewriter. I forgot about writing and by the age of twelve, I hated reading. The first novel I tried to read was a book called Big Red. It was about a boy and his dog. I was going to be traveling in a car for four hours on the way to my sister’s farm and would have nothing to do. This was before DS, DVD’s, VCRs—before all these letters combinations. It was also before Sirius too and I knew that twenty minutes after we left the sphere of Detroit, there would be nothing but static on the radio. That’s why I brought the book. I never read a book before. I never did much reading at all that wasn’t required by a teacher. It wasn’t something I did for fun, but I was desperate. Four hours trapped in the backseat of a car for a twelve-year-old was eternity. I read the book. It took me all summer. I finished it out of a sense of perseverance rather than enjoyment. I wanted to achieve this thing so that when I was forty I could say, “Yes! I read a book once! It was excruciating, and took half a year, but by God, I did it!” Then whomever I was speaking to would look upon me with awe and know they were in the presence of a learned man. The reality was, the book was boring and put me to sleep, and I knew I would never try something so stupid again.
The following year I passed a bookshelf in our home and stopped abruptly when I saw something very strange. This particular bookshelf belonged to my older brother and was forever filled with dozens of neatly ordered paperbacks. I lived with my brother and his books all my life. We shared a room. So I was quite familiar with each of the novels. They were mostly about animals—boys and their dogs books like the one I borrowed the year before. There were also a large number of westerns, espionage, and war books. Looking at the titles was like looking at a TV Guide from the late fifties and early sixties: The Virginian, I Spy, The Longest Day, Get Smart, Old Yeller, The Man From UNCLE. But there was something very different that day. There was one book I’d never seen before. It was sitting out, standing up, its jacket cover facing me. It was an odd book. Mostly white it had a thin border of pink surrounding it and an aqua colored title giving it an Easter feel. Within an oval, was a picture like a window looking into another world. There was an odd shaped hill with little homes built into the side of it, a meandering river, some strange ostrich-like birds and a twisting tree with huge pink fruits. It was entirely out of place with the rest of the books and seemed to know this by standing out front, separating itself from the pack, and I had this odd notion that it didn’t just happen there. I stood looking at the book for a long while. Then I looked around me, wondering if whoever put it there was watching to see what I did. I was thinking this not just because the book was new, but because it was so terribly familiar. The image of the other world, the strange scripting text on the cover, it was like something out of a dream. I felt much the same as I am certain Richard Dreyfuss’s character in Close Encounters felt when he began building his mashed potato mountains. There was something about this book, something old, something so insanely familiar, but I couldn’t think what. I read the title, but that didn’t help. It was nonsensical. It read: The Hobbit.
I picked up the perplexing book and began reading it. It wasn’t like Big Red. It was an odd little story about people with hair on their feet who don’t like to go on adventures. I wasn’t impressed but I was driven by the mystery that consumed me. What was it about this book? The only way I knew to find that answer was to read it, so I pushed on. The story got a little better when the trolls entered the picture. It was clearly better than Big Red at least. The mystery only deepened. I knew some of the names. Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin. How did I know these odd words? I only ever read the one book, and never saw this one before that day? I read on and finally reached chapter five. If you’ve ever read The Hobbit you will know what I am talking about when I say that everything changed in chapter five. This is of course, the chapter entitled, “Riddles in the Dark.” I found myself sucked into the story, lost in the world of goblins and wizards. And then I hit upon the name Gollum. It staggered me. I knew that name! It was so familiar! What was it? Then I read the riddles and finally I knew. I knew this story! I remembered about the ring and the riddle game. I remembered it from my own past, but how—my brother!
I rushed from the room and confronted him. I held up the book. What is this? I demanded. I knew he held the answer. I then learned that when I was very young perhaps only five, and my brother was fifteen, he had read The Hobbit. He was in our room late at night reading it and when he read chapter five, he couldn’t contain himself and slipping out of his bed crept to mine and woke me up. When you’re five, the house is dark and your older brother wakes you up with a flashlight, whispering, you know something important is happening. He told me the tale of Bilbo and Gollum with the passion and energy that a fifteen-year-old uses when it is three in the morning and there is a full-moon shining in the windows. In the coming days, he plastered our bedroom walls with drawings he made from the book covers and blow-ups of the maps within. I lived for several years with these images before my eyes not really knowing what they were. Then we moved and the drawings were gone and the memory of that dark night faded—until I saw the book cover some eight years later.
I read the whole trilogy. I loved it in a way I never dreamed it was possible to love a book. When I closed the last page of The Return of the King, I was miserable. My favorite pastime was over. As I mentioned before this was before all those letters, before Xboxes and PS twos and threes, back when television only had three stations and cartoons were something shown on Saturday morning. I went to the bookstore with my brother looking for another series like that one. There weren’t any. There were some ghastly books like The Worm Ourborous which said they were compared to Tolkien’s trilogy. I desperately wanted to believe them and tried very hard to read it. It made me long for Big Red.
There was nothing to read. I sat in my room miserable and bored. Like all kids I made the mistake of telling my mother I was bored and she put me to work cleaning out the front closet. I pulled out what looked like a plastic suitcase.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“That? That’s your sister’s old typewriter. Been in there for years.”
I never finished cleaning the closet.
February 18, 2009
Sanity Can’t Always Be Measured With A Yardstick
Part of the luggage of an author is to promote your books. Aspiring novelists might see the moment their book is accepted by a publisher as the Holy Grail, the pinnacle of the mountain, the point where they can plant their flag and take pictures. The reality is being published is a lot like graduating grade school—you celebrate until you realize you are starting high school as a freshman and everyone else is so much bigger than you are. Suddenly you aren’t comparing yourself to other unpublished writers wondering if they are better at dialog. Instead, you are comparing yourself with W. E.B. Griffin, Patricia Cornwell, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson and Stephen King, and the yardstick is numbers of copies sold. There is no question that you are on the bottom of that pile.
If your book is good then there is only one thing holding you down. No one knows your book exists. Publishers do what they can, but aren’t as interested in promoting unproven talent when they have money-makers. Writing a good book is something an author accepts as the challenge. It is what an author works at, trains for, but the moment the book is published the rules change, goals switch, and abruptly you discover you are now a PR representative. Most of the writers I know didn’t reach the age of eighteen and ponder in the solitude of their bedrooms, “author or salesman?” Yet there you are, confronted with the stark reality that in order to be an author, you have to make people want to read your stuff.
This is done mostly though book signings. The usual ones have you behind a table with a stack of your novels and a pen near the entrance. If you are doing your job you aren’t just sitting there reading, waiting for someone to notice you, walk over, and ask to buy your book. If you are doing your job, you are standing, smiling and coaxing people over, engaging them and explaining all the reasons why they should buy your book. I have yet to meet a writer who is comfortable with praising themselves and their skill to strangers, but let’s face it, “Okay, so my book isn’t Grapes of Wrath, and it will never be as popular as the Twilight Series, but do you wanna try it anyway?” Isn’t going to make too many sales.
Besides signings I’ve done lectures, both about my books and about writing in general. These are never comfortable ventures either. Luckily, I don’t have a huge problem with public speaking or I suppose this would be a nightmare. Instead, the problem arises from not knowing how many people will show up. I’ve stood at a podium with a microphone facing thirty empty folding chairs. Usually I just start speaking to my wife and maybe the event coordinator and hope folks will hear my voice, get interested and wander into seats. Sometimes it works, usually it doesn’t.
I’ve also been asked to read from my book. I was one of those kids who slumped down behind his desk in English class when it was time for the teacher to call on kids to read aloud. I’m not good at it. I trip over phrases and stumble on words—words that I wrote. I accidently add words that aren’t there but suddenly think should be and leave out words that are. I suppose no one notices anymore than if a pianist misses a note in Rhapsody in Blue, but still I feel like an idiot. Yes, I’m a published author who can’t read my own writing.
You will likely be guessing, and rightly so, that I don’t see book promotion as a perk. It is often tiring, embarrassing and stressful, yet there is one event I do enjoy. They don’t happen often, and it is not the kind of event that can be planned, designed or promoted. Publishers have no control over it, they can’t schedule them and no amount of money buys them. They just seem to happen. Every so often, I am invited to a local book club that has chosen to read my novel for that month. They can range in attendance from forty, to five people. I meet them at coffee shops, bookstores, pubs or even private homes. These are fun. Everyone there already has a book; I don’t have to sell it. Everyone there has already read it; I don’t have to be mindful of spoilers. Everyone there has something to say, a question to ask, an opinion to express; I don’t have to make a speech. And I can listen. I can listen to them talk about my characters as if they are real people, how many liked Royce verses how many preferred Hadrian. I can hear them debate whether the wizard is good or evil, and note the passion in voices. I can explain how to pronounce words and watch eyes widen, or knowing smiles appear.
No one ever says they hated it, everyone is too polite. It is the quiet ones I wonder about and I keep thinking they are listening to their mother’s advice, “if you can’t think of something nice to say…” but the quiet ones are usually silent because they are too embarrassed to say they didn’t get a chance to read the book. Everyone seems happy. They are appreciative that I have come to visit and talk and they tell me they liked the story. When you write in a small, closed room, isolated and alone in your battles against demons and dragons, you have to wonder—does anyone care? For years, I wrote novels that went into drawers unread that eventually made their way up and into cardboard boxes in the attic, forgotten. I would spend a year or more working late into the night wrestling over plot problems or the placement of a single comma. When it is three in the morning, everyone else is asleep and you are alone stressing over the placement of a comma in a hundred thousand word novel you know no one will ever read, it is easy to begin questioning your sanity.
Money would be nice. The number of units sold is the yardstick after all. But hearing a single person say they stayed up all night reading because they couldn’t put the book down, or they cried when they read the sad part, or laughed so loud they woke their husband when they read that joke—the one with the precisely placed comma—that’s when, at long last, you realize you’re not crazy. And knowing that you aren’t crazy is a pretty nice thing.
So to those of you who have reassured my sanity—thank you.
If your book is good then there is only one thing holding you down. No one knows your book exists. Publishers do what they can, but aren’t as interested in promoting unproven talent when they have money-makers. Writing a good book is something an author accepts as the challenge. It is what an author works at, trains for, but the moment the book is published the rules change, goals switch, and abruptly you discover you are now a PR representative. Most of the writers I know didn’t reach the age of eighteen and ponder in the solitude of their bedrooms, “author or salesman?” Yet there you are, confronted with the stark reality that in order to be an author, you have to make people want to read your stuff.
This is done mostly though book signings. The usual ones have you behind a table with a stack of your novels and a pen near the entrance. If you are doing your job you aren’t just sitting there reading, waiting for someone to notice you, walk over, and ask to buy your book. If you are doing your job, you are standing, smiling and coaxing people over, engaging them and explaining all the reasons why they should buy your book. I have yet to meet a writer who is comfortable with praising themselves and their skill to strangers, but let’s face it, “Okay, so my book isn’t Grapes of Wrath, and it will never be as popular as the Twilight Series, but do you wanna try it anyway?” Isn’t going to make too many sales.
Besides signings I’ve done lectures, both about my books and about writing in general. These are never comfortable ventures either. Luckily, I don’t have a huge problem with public speaking or I suppose this would be a nightmare. Instead, the problem arises from not knowing how many people will show up. I’ve stood at a podium with a microphone facing thirty empty folding chairs. Usually I just start speaking to my wife and maybe the event coordinator and hope folks will hear my voice, get interested and wander into seats. Sometimes it works, usually it doesn’t.
I’ve also been asked to read from my book. I was one of those kids who slumped down behind his desk in English class when it was time for the teacher to call on kids to read aloud. I’m not good at it. I trip over phrases and stumble on words—words that I wrote. I accidently add words that aren’t there but suddenly think should be and leave out words that are. I suppose no one notices anymore than if a pianist misses a note in Rhapsody in Blue, but still I feel like an idiot. Yes, I’m a published author who can’t read my own writing.
You will likely be guessing, and rightly so, that I don’t see book promotion as a perk. It is often tiring, embarrassing and stressful, yet there is one event I do enjoy. They don’t happen often, and it is not the kind of event that can be planned, designed or promoted. Publishers have no control over it, they can’t schedule them and no amount of money buys them. They just seem to happen. Every so often, I am invited to a local book club that has chosen to read my novel for that month. They can range in attendance from forty, to five people. I meet them at coffee shops, bookstores, pubs or even private homes. These are fun. Everyone there already has a book; I don’t have to sell it. Everyone there has already read it; I don’t have to be mindful of spoilers. Everyone there has something to say, a question to ask, an opinion to express; I don’t have to make a speech. And I can listen. I can listen to them talk about my characters as if they are real people, how many liked Royce verses how many preferred Hadrian. I can hear them debate whether the wizard is good or evil, and note the passion in voices. I can explain how to pronounce words and watch eyes widen, or knowing smiles appear.
No one ever says they hated it, everyone is too polite. It is the quiet ones I wonder about and I keep thinking they are listening to their mother’s advice, “if you can’t think of something nice to say…” but the quiet ones are usually silent because they are too embarrassed to say they didn’t get a chance to read the book. Everyone seems happy. They are appreciative that I have come to visit and talk and they tell me they liked the story. When you write in a small, closed room, isolated and alone in your battles against demons and dragons, you have to wonder—does anyone care? For years, I wrote novels that went into drawers unread that eventually made their way up and into cardboard boxes in the attic, forgotten. I would spend a year or more working late into the night wrestling over plot problems or the placement of a single comma. When it is three in the morning, everyone else is asleep and you are alone stressing over the placement of a comma in a hundred thousand word novel you know no one will ever read, it is easy to begin questioning your sanity.
Money would be nice. The number of units sold is the yardstick after all. But hearing a single person say they stayed up all night reading because they couldn’t put the book down, or they cried when they read the sad part, or laughed so loud they woke their husband when they read that joke—the one with the precisely placed comma—that’s when, at long last, you realize you’re not crazy. And knowing that you aren’t crazy is a pretty nice thing.
So to those of you who have reassured my sanity—thank you.
The Proud Father of a Three Month Old
The Crown Conspiracy is three months old with the New Year and yet I have no clear idea of how well it is doing. This being my first published novel, and not knowing any other published authors, I have no idea if this is typical or disturbing.
The reviews on Amazon look good as do the reports I am seeing on Goodreads. Readers appear to genuinely like the novel. I also know how well I’ve done at book signings, but I can’t imagine that every reader, every buyer of TCC, has obtained it through my hands. At least I hope not. I trust there are people out there who have read it on a lark, on a dare, out of boredom, or because they happened to see a review somewhere that struck a chord and were so pleased that they felt compelled to spread the word. “I just read this incredible book…” is how I imagine the multitude of conversations begin, or maybe, “Have you ever heard of The Crown Conspiracy by Michael Sullivan?” I suppose the day you can ask that second question and not be certain of the answer is the day I will need to take a great deal more care in what I write in this blog.
The reviews on Amazon look good as do the reports I am seeing on Goodreads. Readers appear to genuinely like the novel. I also know how well I’ve done at book signings, but I can’t imagine that every reader, every buyer of TCC, has obtained it through my hands. At least I hope not. I trust there are people out there who have read it on a lark, on a dare, out of boredom, or because they happened to see a review somewhere that struck a chord and were so pleased that they felt compelled to spread the word. “I just read this incredible book…” is how I imagine the multitude of conversations begin, or maybe, “Have you ever heard of The Crown Conspiracy by Michael Sullivan?” I suppose the day you can ask that second question and not be certain of the answer is the day I will need to take a great deal more care in what I write in this blog.
