Sean Cummings's Blog: POLTERBLOG!, page 9

A Message To The Grade 9 Students at Trenton High School

 

(Action shot of  obscure Canadian author talking to teens)

Hey Gang!

Thanks for inviting me to talk up books and publishing and my journey as an author. It was awesome to meet all of you and to answer your questions. Thanks for the HUGE card, the gift card to Timmies and the Werther’s Chocolate Toffee which every author on the planet knows can be life-sustaining fuel when you’re knee-deep in the act of book writin’!

I just wanted to leave you a note from a guy who actually spent time in Grade 9 back when Dinosaurs ruled the earth.

If you’re reading … read more. It’s all out there for you to discover. Everything that humanity ever said, ever thought of or might be thinking … it’s there in books. It doesn’t matter what you’re reading because the great thing about books is the odds are heavily in your favour that you’re gonna find a book or two or twenty or a hundred that will connect with you on a level that you’re going to carry with you all your life. And there are authors dying for you to read their stuff! We want to take you on a journey that will transport you through time and space … or will challenge you to consider your place in the world. The people you are right now … right this very minute … and the people you’re about to become.

If you’re writing … write more. Write every day. Write every chance you get. Your word processor, your pad of paper … whatever you choose to write a story, your thoughts, your hopes and dreams and ambitions … it’s a big blank canvas waiting for you to fill up with words that paint a picture. that speak to the heart, that have the ability to transform you and those who read what you’ve written. Writing … serious writing is a love affair. It’s a passion. It’s what’s constantly on your mind because you’re always generating ideas for stories yet to come. So just write. Just keep writing. Tell. Your. Story. Tell as many stories as you can. Create worlds, characters and events that will make a reader stand up and cheer, drop down on their knees and weep, inspire, dream … you name it.

Very simply … make your writing “un – put – downable”.  Just keep at it.

And if you’re not reading … give it a test drive. Kick the tires. Take it for a spin. Wander around a book store or the library. I guarantee … I ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEE that if you do this … you’re gonna find something to read that will absolutely rock your world to the very core. And it might even make you want to read another book or possibly even inspire you to try your hand at writing.

Thanks again for having me. It was a fantastic visit. You guys asked awesome questions and hey … thanks for reading my book!

Take good care!!!

A story about a car, friendship and goodbyes

This is the story of a car. And friendship. And time.

The car you’re looking at is a 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood. My best friend had a clone of that car. I met him when I was in Grade 11 – that would have been the fall of 1983. He’d transferred into my high school from another one just a few blocks away and I even remember the first thing he ever said to me – “Hey man, can I bum a cigarette?”

We were standing outside the freak doors – that’s what everyone at my high school called the set of doors up the hill from the gym. Freak doors because that’s where all the freaks would hang out. (I know, the very notion that teenagers actually used to smoke cigarettes on school property is likely foreign to anyone under the age of thirty, but I’m 46 and it was 1983.) Anyway, I can’t remember what led me to decide this guy with wild afro style hair, big sideburns and a long leather duster would be worth getting into a conversation with but there was a twinkle in his eye and an earnestness to his voice that made me decide to hand over a cigarette. I remember that he commented on my Zippo lighter and then he fished one out of the pocket of his duster. Oh … he was wearing a leather cowboy hat and he took it off – that’s how I knew he had a white guy afro.

Our talk about our lighters led to me saying that I almost lost mine when I was at Calgary’s World of Wheels auto show that spring. BOOM! A common interest. I was a classic car nut (and still am) and so was he. He told me his name and I learned that he was in Grade 12 so he was a year and a half older than me and could drive to school each day. I commented that I drove to school too and was the proud owner of a 1972 Pontiac Acadian that burned a quart of oil every week. I remember him saying, “where did you park?” and I told him. He said his car was parked in the same lot and he said, “I’ve got a Caddy.” I called BS immediately and he said, he’d prove it to me so off we went to the student parking lot and it was there that I laid eyes on this beauty of a car. Little did I know that a 1967 Cadillac, a bummed cigarette and a Zippo lighter would lead to a thirty-year friendship that has endured through our collective ups and downs.

I’m reminded now, at 46, that time is a fleeting thing you truly don’t even attempt to quantify when you’re 16. The mere notion that you’re an actual mortal doesn’t even register – particularly when you’re bombing around the streets of Calgary while riding shotgun in a 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood. Dear God, what a car that was. You could sneak five people into the drive-in in the trunk of that land yacht. And Jesus, it was fast. It also didn’t burn a quart of oil a week, so that was a bonus too.

He graduated high school that year, 1984. I graduated a year later. We basically hung out together every single weekend. Driving around the city. Looking at old cars. Smoking and joking and talking about girls, metal and of course automobiles.  He helped me upgrade to a better car – a 1972 Dodge Monaco with 70K miles on it. Five hundred bucks. We popped the hood, started it up and I remember seeing his lips arch up into a mischievous smile. He said, “Sean … buy this car.” And so I did.

I joined the army in the summer of 1985. I’d just graduated from high school. There were no jobs due to the recession. My friend lived at home with his mum in Whitehorn, a new community in Calgary’s North East. I did my basic training and wound up getting posted to Calgary for the next seven years. Life continued on as it had before – we hung out together on weekends. We smoked and joked. And drank probably too much for anyone’s good. I got married. He got married. I had kids. He didn’t. I got divorced. He didn’t and is still with his wife of more than twenty years.

I got posted to Atlantic Canada for about a decade. We didn’t talk very often because I was there and he was somewhere else. I wound up back in Calgary in 2003 and we just picked up where we left off. Talking cars. Hanging out. Being friends.

But that whole time is fleeting thing has hit home in the last year. My friend is dying. He’s suffering from Pick’s disease – a neurodegenerative condition that shares many symptoms with Alzheimers. I’m losing him. His wife is losing him. I’m losing my best friend and I’m angry about it. I’m really fucking angry about it. We were supposed to be friends well into our old age. We were supposed to go fishing, wear pants up to our armpits and complain about the government. We were supposed to …  insert life experience here.

I’m angry because my friend is a good person. I mean a genuinely good person. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. He would absolutely 100% give you his last ten dollars if you asked for it . Period. He is a simple person who has for all his life somehow managed to maintain that measure of childlike wonder we all lose as we grow older. He’s just plain good.

I went to Calgary last spring when I learned about his condition and I could tell that even though the disease was in its early stages, it had changed him. He walks with a cane. He’s lost sight in one eye. He can’t remember a lot of what made he and I the best of friends. The last thing he told me as I hopped into my car last Victoria Day weekend broke my heart. (It still does.) He said, “Look … Sean … I don’t know how much longer I’ve got.”

And I cut him off. I raised a hand and cut him off because I wasn’t prepared to discuss his dying. I said, “I know … just day by day, brother. Day by day.”

We Skype now. And every time I see him on my screen, I know I’m losing my best friend. It’s more noticeable now because his wife is doing most of the talking. But my friend still has that twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face. He’s still there … I can see it in his eyes.  I just don’t know for how much longer.

I’m going to visit him in the next little while. I’ll just sit across the living room and be there because he was there through all my trials and tribulations. He is a better friend to me than I ever was to  him and that probably makes me an asshole on a galactic scale.

I think I will take him for a drive when I go to see him if his wife gives me the all clear. We’ll bomb around the city, this time with my friend riding shotgun. We’ll look at cars in the car lots and maybe we might even catch a glimpse of a 1967 Fleetwood Cadillac. I want to do this before it’s too late. I need to do this while he still has that twinkle in his one good eye because I’ll know that he’ll know that he is my best friend … the best friend I could have ever hoped for.

The Blog Post About Why You’re Writing

 

It’s early Thursday morning and there are less than thirty days until Spring arrives. And with Spring comes Spring cleaning, gardening, house repair and any number of things that you have to do because they aren’t going to get done if you don’t. I’m always at my most productive during the winter months. Here in Saskatchewan we experience the kind of extreme cold during the winter that makes you stay the hell indoors. This winter we experienced the coldest December in one hundred years with daytime highs reaching -30 Celsius for most of the month. January started off insanely cold and warmed up for two weeks – then it got stupid cold again. February has been pretty much as cold as December was. And it’s dark. The sun doesn’t come up until nearly nine in the morning – you go to work in the dark and you come home in the dark for half the winter out here on the prairie.

So when it’s too cold to even think about venturing outdoors. When the dark makes you stand in front of a lamp to remind you of what light looks like, well, for me at least – that’s when I’m writing my ass off. I experiment with ideas that pop into my head. I write paragraphs and even whole “idea chapters” as I like to call them – just to see if there’s anything there. That’s my litmus test for generating a sense of excitement about what I’m doing. All of my books started out like that – “idea chapters” that went on to becoming a completed manuscript.

I’ll admit that it’s easier now to write than it was ten years ago. Partly because I’ve become a better writer, but mostly because I managed to get published, find an agent, and get published again … twice. Before I had an agent – before I had a publishing credit, I was like every other writer out there with dreams of getting a book deal. I questioned the quality of my writing. I questioned whether I actually had the chops to make a go of it. Because finding a publisher or landing a literary agent was and still is so unbelievably hard to do.  Now it’s not so hard because I’ve got an agent and I can fire off an email with a sample chapter to get her feedback. The email usually goes like this:

Good morning, Jenny – just wanted to get your thoughts on this. It might suck.

Best,

Sean!

How cool is that? I can fire off a quick email to one of those gatekeepers we keep hearing about and she’ll tell me what she thinks about what I’ve written. (And she isn’t getting paid for her insight. My agent’s pay comes when we sell a project so I never, ever, ever, ever take this fact for granted. She’s personally and professionally invested in my success because she’s got a mortgage and kids to put through school.)

It’s so much harder for an unpublished writer to get that kind of feedback – actually, it’s impossible. My agent works IN the industry. Unpublished writers don’t have industry professionals to get a no-holds-barred opinion. Lately there’s been a hell of a lot of “self-publishing is the wave of the future gatekeepers are evil bla bla bla” stuff on the web. I’m just not confident enough of a writer to go it alone. My agent’s feedback, the readers my agency hires to read my stuff – that’s industry feedback and it’s based on the idea that whatever I am writing, it’s gotta sell on top of being a good story. This reality keeps me focused on becoming a better author and reinforces the very idea that I might actually, you know, not suck at penning novels.

Why do I write? Because it makes me feel good about me. I know  … that’s probably pretty selfish, but it’s the truth. I write because I want to succeed both professionally and financially as an author. Those little successes I’ve achieved so far aren’t little at all when you think about it. Getting published is hard freaking work. Finding an agent is hard freaking work and I wouldn’t trade where I am now for anything.

I’ve encountered a lot of people who are right now where I was ten years ago. I have a little writer’s meetup here in Saskatoon. We get together monthly over coffee and the reason I started it up was to help unpublished writers by pushing them to get that damned project written. To cut the distractions in their life into little manageable bits and to focus on a game plan for their project. And I ask them, each month … why are you writing? Why do you want to get published? I want them to answer that question with complete honesty because that honest answer is what you cling to when the going gets tough.

I know a lot of bloggers who want to get published. They have wonderful book blogs and fabulous social media skills. Occasionally they will seek my input into something they are writing which I am always happy to offer – not that I’m some kind of literary whiz kid … I’m not. My agent kicks my ass all the time for stupid author mistakes. But I’m way ahead of those blogger/authors on my book journey and I guess some people actually look up to me in that regard. And I tell those blogger/authors: less blogging, less social media … more writing. If you want to get published, you gotta focus on what the end game is going to be and you need to minimize anything that is a distraction to your work.

You have to banish that little voice in the back of your head  - the one that says you suck on an epic scale. You have to visualize what getting “the call” looks like. (Mine happened in a Tim Horton’s parking lot at 3 AM because London is seven hours ahead of us.) You have to visualize what it means to be published and you need to have an honest assessment of what your priorities are in the here and now.

Yep, you might not get an agent or get a book deal. Hell, I might never sell another book to a publisher, but I keep pushing on and so should you if you have dreams of being a published author. Sure, you could self-publish. If you can make a go of it and you’re confident enough in your work to put it out to the universe on Kindle Direct Publishing, I say go for it. For me, I’m still not that sure of myself. I need that gatekeeper feedback. I need a good editor. I need the support that I get from those industry professionals who’ve invested so much of their time in my success.

And I owe them all. I owe them big time. I owe them a best seller for having believed in me enough to take a chance on my work.

Why am I writing? Because I want to get to the next step in my journey. Why are you writing and what is your end game in all of this? If you can answer that question. If you can visualize success, even small success, then you might be able to dig into the project you’ve been struggling with and get the damned thing written.

Just write.

Just keep writing. Make it your central focus. Believe that you can do it even though the odds are stacked against you. And if you meet with some success, for crying out loud, keep on writing.

The Blog Posting Wherein I Remove Myself from the Self-Publishing Debate

 

It all started with my smart phone, you see. It buzzed and then a little blue light came on telling me that I should pick up my phone, which I did. A quick swipe told me that Twitter wanted me so I swiped the app and learned that my blog posting entitled “Two Years since My Book Deal: What Have I Learned” was being featured on a blog about self-publishing entitled, The Passive Voice.

Cool, I thought. Someone actually noticed my blog! (I don’t get boatloads of comments because I’m still a relative unknown in the book world, but I try to blog regularly because I do have a few people that like to interact with me.) Exciting, right? Anyway, I clicked on the link and to my surprise, I found not my entire blog posting, just lifted portions and that’s about it. I should also add that nobody asked me if they could quote my blog in their blog post. Confused yet?

Fine, I thought. Let ‘em quote my blog post. Then I scrolled down and read the comments. This led, of course, to me putting in my two cents and VOILA! Forty-some comments later and I learn that I’m basically a twat, I’m misinformed and apparently, living on another planet entirely.

I consider myself reasonably social media savvy. It’s pretty clear that I’m not and my mistake was in commenting and engaging the self-publishing folk.  Now, I’ve said on this blog many times that I don’t recommend self-publishing but that was based on my interactions with some authors who’ve met with little success self-publishing a book. I have said, and will continue to say, that many many many many (see … I didn’t say “most” this time) self-published books are atrocious because it’s true. In fairness, many many traditionally published books aren’t all that shit hot either, but at least they have better cover art.

Look, to all the people who think I’m an ill-informed twat because of my blog post and because of my comments on The Passive Voice, get a life. No, seriously … get a life. If you feel threatened by the observations from a tiny wee little blog written by a bald author who has had marginal success in traditional publishing, you really are barking up the wrong tree. I’m about as influential in the publishing world and in the blogosphere as Canada is at middle eastern diplomacy.

I have had a small measure of success in traditional publishing, but I’m no expert and I often express this point of view in my blog posts. I don’t take myself seriously nor should you or anyone because I write bubble gum. I write books about magic and slamming evil and I admit regularly that I suck at writing romance. I have been writing all my life and I’ve been trying to get published since my soon to be 24 year old son was in diapers and there was no Internet or LOLCats. The reason I wanted to try to get published? To see if I could do it. The reason I sought a literary agent? To see if I could land one.

I’m also the first person to point out that I consider myself to be pretty damned lucky, by the way. I’m my worst critic. I think that everything I write is worse than the worst dinosaur erotica novel currently available on Amazon. I am grateful to a lot of people, mostly my wife who thinks I have some talent and my literary agent who has gone to the freaking wall for me. I’m blessed to have met amazing, wonderful people during my publishing journey. My latest books took me to England two years running and I got to watch Chelsea play my beloved Norwich City FC (who are in a relegation battle right now).

I wasn’t asked if my blog post could be featured on another blog. (There’s a copyright notice at the bottom of this page. Scroll down and you will see it.) I didn’t ask for the attention of the Passive Voice. It’s clear that  I poked the beast with a stick once I decided to engage with you all. My bad. I’m 46 and I should know better.

I’ll take this time to apologize to the self-publishing tribe on The Passive Voice if my comments antagonized you.  If self-publishing is your writing journey of choice and you’re happy with it, then good on you! Make as much money as you can and enjoy your creative control as you become the next J.K. Rowling. I will say this much though: nobody is served well by vitriolic statements and baby, there’s a ton of vitriol in the comment section. I could take a bath in it.

And I contributed to it by engaging your tribe.

My experience with traditional publishing has been just that: my experience. Everything I write on my blog is from my own point of view. I’ve had ups, downs and in-betweens in the world of publishing. But do you want to know something? I’m not ready to become the next big self-publishing phenomenon because I’m not as good as a writer as I’d like to be and I rely heavily on the insight of those so-called gatekeepers your tribe dislikes so much. I need my agent to kick my ass because it makes me a better author. I need an editor at a publishing house to do things like, oh, remind me that teenagers swear, for example. I suck at photoshop and I need a good cover artist. I need a lot of things, but what I don’t need is to be distracted from writing my next book.

So, I bid you adieu, self-publishing tribe. Good luck on your journey and you know, maybe tone down the rhetoric because it’s a total buzz kill.

Peace out, yo.

This Should Be An Official Sport at the Winter Olympics

 

 

That is all.

Two Years Since My Book Deal: What Have I Learned?

Me and Gary T. Cat in 2012 posing with newly minted book about a teen witch 

Has it really been two years since Strange Chemistry Books announced their first two author signings? Time has flown by faster than you can say “write a sequel that blows ‘em out of their boots!” It’s now twenty five months later and Strange Chemistry has twenty four authors and thirty four books published or coming soon – that’s a pretty huge accomplishment for a publisher that didn’t actually exist not that long ago. It’s also pretty ballsy given that right now is either the worst time in human history to become a published author  - or at least the weirdest what with book stores closing all over the place, Amazon taking over the universe and fewer and fewer people reading books.

So what have I learned during that time? Well, I wasn’t entirely confused by the process of working with a publisher. I’d already published three books with a small independent publisher in the UK . (They’re cool reads … order ‘em here, here and here!) I’d worked with an editor, learned there is some strange voodoo science associated with book promotion and of course, I had to get the rights to my books back because of that which will not be mentioned. (Did I mention that I love my literary agent. Her name is Jenny Savill and she has ninja skills.)

By and large, it has been an interesting experience because up until my book deal with Strange Chemistry, I was an unagented author. (I hadn’t signed with Jenny when my first three books came out).

Anyhoo … here is my quick and dirty list of lessons:

1) There is swearing in Young Adult books. 

I hadn’t put any cussing in POLTERGEEKS because it really wasn’t top of mind when I wrote it. I was more interested in writing believable magic, character development and solving the universal mystery of writing decent romance.  Strange Chemistry editor Amanda Rutter (who may possibly drop an F-bomb from time to time, though I’ve not seen it) convinced me of the need to throw some cussing in the book. A bit odd, by the way, since I’m an ex-soldier and I swear a lot. No, seriously … probably more than Chuck Wendig, if that’s actually possible.

2) What do you mean my book isn’t in Canadian book stores?

Yep. See, there’s only one national book chain in Canada. It’s Chapters/Indigo books. They also own Coles Books which are small book stores in shopping malls. Yeah, so anyway, you couldn’t get my book in Canada (Save for the good folks at independent book store of awesomesauce, McNally Robinson Booksellers.) The most common question I received from Canadian friends and people interested in POLTERGEEKS during 2012-2013? How come I can’t buy your book at Chapters? Thankfully that’s been rectified with the release of the second book, STUDENT BODIES. There’s at least a copy of each at pretty much every Chapters/Indigo/Coles in Canada.

3) Writing a sequel creates this thing called a deadline.

Um, yep. I hadn’t considered that because I’m basically dumb as a post. So what was I doing in the months up to the release of POLTERGEEKS in October 2012? I was writing STUDENT BODIES. I think, more than anything, this is why the last two years have zipped by. It took about four months for a first draft. A further two for a second one. It had to pass muster with my agent, so that meant more scrubbing of my wordage. And then it was sent off to Strange Chemistry for yet more scrubbing, bleaching, cleaning and so forth.  And of course, I had a deadline to get the damned thing done. The first was my own personal target. The second was the deadline for submission to Strange Chemistry. The third was the revisions stage prior to the advance review copy coming out last summer.

4) There are bumps in the road. Also big potholes. Also, portals to other dimensions.

Yeah, there were some bumps along the way. I hadn’t expected any and they had to do with deadlines and glitches. Communication challenges between me and the publisher as well as snags in things like getting the cover art out there for the world to see. (And both books have fantastic cover art.)

5) Haters gonna hate

I consider myself a smart guy when it comes to social media. I hadn’t considered the vitriolic fervour that comes with animated gif reviews of your books and the social media drama zone known as Goodreads. I’ve stayed out of it. I don’t comment on reviews of my books because everyone is entitled to their opinion even if their opinion is more about entertaining people inside their social media circle by eviscerating something you put your blood, sweat and tears into. The language of the Interweb is snark and social media isn’t really about friendships because 99% of everyone on social media will never occupy the same room in their lifetimes or the next. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc … the entire world is selling itself to each other and we’re stuck in a perpetual cycle of self promotion.

6) Blog Tours don’t sell books

*WARNING* This is not a shot at bloggers. I love bloggers. I’ve met a bunch of ‘em during two trips to the UK. But I won’t be doing a blog tour again because blog tours haven’t had any impact on my sales. I actually paid for a blog tour service to simplify the process – what a shit show that was. I haven’t met any authors who sold more books because of them. 98% of humanity doesn’t blog and therefore one is selling their book to 2% of the book buying public and finally, I’m tired of giving away free Kindles. . I’ve given away like … five of them in the past two years. Nope. Noooooope. Never again.

7) I’ve met amazing, wonderful, brilliant people.

Keren FREAKING AWESOME AUTHOR I AM HER BIGGEST FAN David. Laura Heath, Kim Curran, Sara Mussi,  Liz De Jager and her hubs Mark. Jenny Savill and everyone at Andrew Nurnberg Associates in London. Ella Kahn. Kaylie Ashton. Michelle Moore. Sam Cooper. Vivienne Dacosta (who is a damned fine writer and should be published) The YA Bluewater Teens of Awesomeness. Andy Robb who may or may not be a hobbit, wrote Geekhood which rocks and was on the TV Show Doc Martin and who also killed someone on Coronation Street. SF Said. Katie Dale who I would like as a daughter-in-law. Arthur Slade who lives in Saskatoon and won a Governor General’s award. Derryl Murphy. EC Blake and Edward Willett who are in fact, the same person! Sharon Jones. Sara Grant. Basically all of my agent’s clients who are jaw-droppingly fantastic writers and who kick significant amounts of ass. Seriously, I’ve met a ton of people in the UK and here in Saskatoon. If there’s anyone I failed to mention, you are required to go on social media and tell everyone that I suck. Go do it. DO IT!!

8) I’ve NOT met some amazing, wonderful, brilliant people who are amazing, wonderful and brilliant nonetheless.

AE Rought. TL Costa. Chris F. Holm. Wayne Simmons. Sharon Stogner. Everyone on my twitter feed who isn’t a porn bot.

9) I am still not a best selling author.

Yep. No gold tooth, new hair or fur coat for me. Sales are so-so but then again sales are so-so for everyone who isn’t writing dinosaur erotica these days. But I keep on writing because I love to write. I’d love a best seller. I think I have a best seller in me. I also think the market is fickle, the Gods can be cruel and even if I don’t hit paydirt, this has been a hell of a ride.

10) Life is too short.

Yeah, there have been some challenges. I don’t hold any grudges at all. Shit, as they say, happens. I’ve already beaten the odds five times over now because STUDENT BODIES is my fifth published novel and most people with dreams of holding that published book in their hands will never see that happen. Life is too short for hurt feelings, ragey moments of “they can’t say that about my book” and book signings where nobody shows up and all you can hear is the sound of crickets chirping. Very simply, I’ve been blessed. I have an awesome wife who thinks, strangely, that I am worth being married to. I have an agent who thinks I am a good author. I’ve got a fan base – a small one – but a fan base nonetheless. I’ve been to the UK twice. I’ve seen English football twice … in ENGLAND! I’ve done a ton of things over the past two years that are the direct result of my book deal with Strange Chemistry and do you want to know something? I’m really very very thankful because it wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t sold POLTERGEEKS. It’s simple as that.

So … there you have it. My life lessons. Glean away if you like. Nothing in publishing is perfect and perfection doesn’t exist anyway so I keep on writing for the love of writing books. Period. Full stop. We’re shopping something right now that I hope to hell sells because it’s just a fantastic story with a protagonist you can’t help but stand up and cheer for. I’ve completed revisions (again) on a jaw-droppingly terrifying  YA project and I’ve done a first set of revisions on a middle grade project that I hope manages to make it into book stores.

Two years. New friends. Incredible experiences and a hell of a lot of fun. Not bad for a bald guy from the Canadian prairie, eh?

Swearing in Young Adult Books: The No @$!@ Truth

This caught my attention.

And seeing as how I’ve written two books for teens which contain the occasional F-Bomb, I figured this is as good a time as any to insert my humble authorly opinion on the matter. (Oh … head’s up everyone. I’ve also written a post-apocalyptic zombie novel for teens filled to the brim with swearing, guns, explosives, flying body parts, mortars, anti-tank weapons and infantry field craft. I suspect it would come with a warning label and possibly a padlock if it gets published.)

Here’s my official word on the subject:

It doesn’t matter.  Who cares. Moot point. Why are we even having this discussion?

This is coming from a guy whose version of POLTERGEEKS that was sold to Strange Chemistry Books didn’t contain a single swear word and whose editor said, “Yo … teenagers swear.”  Why didn’t that first version contain any cussin’? Because I was focused on the plot, the action, the romance part (which I suck at) and I didn’t really even think about putting any f-bombs, shits, pisses or goddammits into the book. And that’s weird because I’m an ex-soldier, I swear like a @!!!#$ and I did so when I was teenager, I might add. My now 23 year old son swore like a #@!%%!@ when he was a teenager, though not around me unless we were having a man-to-man talk about life, growing up and how much it actually @!$!@! sucks to be a teenager.

But seriously … warning labels? I’d strongly urge those who get all “protect the childreny” to click on this link here. It’s a WikiPedia entry and it tells the story of warning labels on music albums. See, back in the early 1980′s, Tipper Gore thought we teenagers were going straight to hell, would wind up strung out on smack and kick little puppies if we listened to bands like Twisted Sister. Here’s Dee Snider talking up the matter before a congressional committee back in the day:

Look, let’s pretend there’s a world where the actual concept of Young Adult books doesn’t exist. Let’s call it, oh … how about 1982. See … that’s when I was fifteen. That’s when I was first introduced to Iron Maiden, I got righteously hammered at Tim Oulette’s house, losing one shoe as I staggered home across 32nd Avenue North East in Calgary, and when I smoked my first joint. There was no Hunger Games to read. There weren’t any Young Adult book publishers. Nada. Zip. But I was a book lover and here’s what I was reading:

Stephen @$@! King

Dean @@()% Koontz

Peter @!@)! Straub

Vincent @($@! Bugliosi

Mickey @#@!! Spillane

Elmore @@!) Leonard

In short, I read books that contained sex, violence, gore and boatloads of cussing. Why? Because holy @!$%, there were books about scary ass shit, hard core detectives, punching out bad guys and all sorts of things my then fifteen year old mind was interested in. None of those books had warning labels. I’d borrow them from the library and no librarian stopped me from taking them home. I was reading books. BOOKS! Holy crap … a teenager that was actually reading.

Martin Chilton, the author of the column writes:

But you would want the book to succeed or fail on its own merits, not because youngsters are enticed to read it in the expectation that there will be a lot of foul language. Does swearing have an impact on sales of a book, I wonder?

The short answer: @!!$ yes, but not because there’s any anticipation of foul language. They’d buy it and read it just to piss off their parents for shit sake.

So publishers take note – my next Young Adult novel, kindly forget about cover art. Just slap a big-ass crimson label on the front with a warning that my book contains swearing, sex, drugs, violence and scary-ass stuff. Please, please, please do this. It will get me more sales and then I can have a best selling novel, I will be able to afford a fur coat, a gold tooth and there might be enough left over for me to get new hair.

M’kay?

Teenagers swear. They have sex. They do all kinds of things that we parents used to do once upon a time when we were teens. Circle of life, man. Rite of passage. It’s called growing up. And sometimes when I read columns like Chilton’s, I think that maybe the adults need to grow up too.

Peace out, yo.

The Ultimate Book Promotion Tool For Authors

Yes, YES! YES!!!

I have determined that if authors (men – this won’t work for women unless they alter the outfit and grow a biker moustache) dressed like this to their book launches/events/panels at cons, they would immediately be jettisoned to the top of the best seller lists! It should also be an author’s official photo as well.  (Thanks to Sharon Stogner for finding this pic and posting it on Facebook.)

Um …. the question remains as to whether my literary agent would attend a book launch if I showed up like this. Hmmm … probably. She’s pretty badass when you get a couple of belts of scotch in her belly.

UPDATE!

A reader has pointed out another outfit that might work as well. Apparently it can be made by simply altering an extra large speedo. Again, a moustache is required to make this work.

Why Publishing is in Trouble – An Infographic

*This infographic only applies to books OTHER than dino-erotica. That stuff sells like it’s nobody’s business.

Think Less – Write More

 

I haven’t been blogging for a while – I’ve been up to my ears in a seemingly endless cycle of revisions for a couple of projects. A bit of a different approach given the darkness, the bleak, bone-chillingly frigid temperatures of the Saskatchewan winter is when I’m usually found knee-deep working on a new project. Every writer out there has a best time to write – a period of the day or possibly even of the year when the creative juices are flowing like crazy. Aside from working on new stuff and/or revisions, I’m part of a small Saskatoon-based writer’s group. I hosted a couple of day-long workshops last year and each month we get together for a meetup to look at what we’ve produced and to chart a course for the next month or so.

There’s a common theme in our meetups and it generally spins around a cycle of writing, self-editing while you write, gnashing one’s teeth because you believe the story sucks and of course, the inability to focus on getting the project done. I know … I’ve been there. I get it. But seeing as how I’m the guy in the group with five published works, everyone sort of looks to me to give them a special insight into their projects. I remind them that I am in fact:

a) Not terribly bright

b) Not the best writer in Saskatoon

c) Fortunate to have the help of a brilliant literary agent and all the resources that come with being an agented author

d) Not an editor

Emphasis on the “not an editor” part. See, I try to remind everyone that interpreting a person’s completed project is a subjective process. One editor might think the story is weak, the characters, one dimensional, the plot? Predictable. Writer’s groups are great for moral support and shared insights into each person’s interpretation of what you’re producing, but the true litmus test is to throw that project out the universe and to see what the universe as to say about it. In short, querying agents or submitting to publishers. In order to do that, you have to get the damned project completed, rewritten, revised, scoured, rinsed and repeated if necessary. What I’ve found in meeting numerous unpublished authors is they can’t get past the “I should change this” stage while they are writing. This inevitably leads to the writer getting bogged down in an endless cycle of self-editing while they’re on that evil, vile creature known as the first draft.

If this sounds like you, take a chill pill. That first draft isn’t going to get first drafted when you’re endlessly changing the story while you’re trying to write the darned thing. For me, I like to think of that first draft as a nice shiny new poured concrete foundation for a house that’s about to be built. You can’t have a completed house without a solid foundation and you can’t mix the concrete if you’re constantly tinkering with the ingredients of your ready-mix. You just have to clear your head, write that draft, get it done and then print it off and read it. Send it to your beta-readers if you’ve got some unbiased non-family members available. Consider their thoughts and notes in the margins and then write the second draft. Again, rinse and repeat.

See where I’m going with this? Stage one is the first draft. Most of the writers I meet in my group tend to get stuck playing with their ready-mix concrete, trying like hell to get the right blend and then second or even third guessing their cement mix to the point that the foundation for their house ain’t never gonna get poured.

Think less. Write More. Get it done. Just … write the damned first draft and then look at the lay of the land. There’s a secondary benefit to getting that first draft done, too. It’s called “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD … I WROTE A COMPLETE DRAFT OF A NOVEL!!! LOOK AT ME GO!”

That’s a pretty cool feeling. It’s an amazing feeling. It’s an accomplishment, feather in your cap, rite of passage, insert euphemism here. It’s validation that you actually had the chops to complete something along the lines of 60-100K words. It means that you’re deadly, brutally serious about this business of getting published.

So think about my little pearls of wisdom here. Very simply, the book ain’t gonna write itself – particularly if you’re second-guessing every fifth paragraph. Set a daily word count target and write, write, write the damned draft.

Then pour your foundation and get ready for the next step as you build the book version of your dream house.