Kyle Garret's Blog, page 22

Growing Up Is Hard to Do

I am of two minds on growing up, which shouldn't be surprising as I am generally of two minds (if not ten) on most things.

There's a part of me that has always liked the idea of growing up, the idea of having a family, having some kind of stability, at least as far as where my priorities lie.  I like the idea of having perspective, and I think having a family gives you that.  I think it would be great if there were more than one other person in this world that I actually think about when I make decisions in life.  I also like the compartmentalization that comes with it.  I think it would make me less self-absorbed.

On the other hand, I hate everything I just typed.  Okay, I don't hate the idea of having a family.  I actually like that an awful lot.  But I have made a life for myself out of trying to make a life for myself.  My neurosis demands that I reconsider most of my life every other week or so, and holding on to the last few vestiges of youth makes that possible.

My problem, as with most things, is that I tend to go to extremes.  I'm either super responsible, together, motivated, and forward thinking, or I am scatter brained, trapped in my own head, apathetic, and unrealistic.  Whenever the pendulum swings one way, it swings farther the other way to make up for it.  It's like having the worst of both worlds.

So last week I decided to take my first step towards being an adult.  I know, big deal, right?  I'm thirty-freaking-six years old, and this is what I'm doing.  But I realized, as Nicole and I were driving to breakfast and we passed one of the roving bands of upper middle class bike riders, that I'm holding on to one aspect of my youth that stands out as being ridiculous.  I am referring, of course, to my longstanding love affair with whiskey.

I like whiskey.  I like it in all its forms.  I like trying different varieties.  I like knowing what I'm talking about when I try a new one.  I like bonding over it.  It has been one of the few constants in my life.

But I drink way too often for a man who will be thirty-seven in a few months.

The reasons why I end up drinking so often are thus:

1) I can.  I know that sounds like a bad reason, but Nicole and I don't have kids yet.  My job isn't soul crushing and I don't have to get up early for a long commute.  In some ways, I'm leading the life of someone much younger than me.  I know that time is finite, so I'm enjoying it as much as I can.

2) I romanticize it.  This is entirely about my writing.  I don't think I've made a secret of the fact that I like to drink when I write.  I also know that it's not really necessary.  Countless big time writers have talked about the fact that 90% of what anyone writes is crap, and that you have to get through that 90% to get the good stuff.  And that takes time.  What alcohol has always done for me is getting me to that golden 10% quicker.  The problem, of course, is that it's a small window; while alcohol helps slow my brain down enough that I can focus, it eventually makes me want to do something that feels less like work.  Besides, if my ultimate goal is to write for a living, then I should really be able to do it without alcohol, or else I'll be in real trouble.  All that said, I wrote the vast majority of Master of the House stone cold sober -- so it can be done.

3) I am a ball of tension.  Call it nature, call it nurture, call it evil curse, but I basically lack the ability to relax.  My insomnia should be a good example of how this can be a problem.  Alcohol is a lot like television in this regard -- it helps me to be passive.  The ability to relax is a gift, but sadly one that I don't have.

4) I can.  Did I mention that one already?

5) I like whiskey.  I think I already covered this.

Nicole and I did the math and any night that I drink I consume 1200 calories.  That's more than 50% of my daily intake! It's kind of hard to get in shape when I'm piling on the calories on a regular basis.  This would really be reason enough to cut back.

But the fact remains that if I'm really serious about writing full time, I'm going to have to be able to do it at any time.  I can't manufacture some perfect writing scenario.  Now, whether that's not being able to drink or having to write on a laptop away from home, or having to write by hand, is irrelevant.  I have to be able to write on a regular basis, and while my current system might have been okay in the past, it's certainly not going to hold in the future.

Besides, at some point Nicole and I are going to start a family, and that transition is already going to be drastic enough.

So, yeah, it's time to start growing up.  Granted, I also just bought an Xbox, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

Free Fridays: Weight

There's one bit in this story that I really love.  I kind of wonder if anyone can tell which part I'm referring to.

Anywho, here's "Weight," a short story that originally appeared in the Ginosko Literary Journal and one I'm thinking of revising (but isn't that the case for everything?).

Weight for your Kindle
Weight for your eReader

Sorry about being MIA all week.  It's not so much that things have been busy lately, just evolving.

Next week, I'm thinking I'll lighten the mood a bit and post the first few pages of Master of the House, the YA book that I'm currently shopping around.  I actually feel pretty good about this book.

Have a good weekend.  I'll be spending most of mine writing and playing my new Xbox360.

Free Fridays: Everything is both

You know, I realized that I said last week's Free Friday offering was a weird one, but this one's kind of weird, too.  I've actually pulled it from my rotation of stories because I'm not entirely happy with it, but I do think it has merit.

I did two things with this story: 1) I based it on the song "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" by Stars and 2) I wrote it in the 2nd person.  These are both strange decisions to make.  Don't get me wrong, it's a good song, but basing an entire story around it was probably a little much.  And how many stories have you read in the last, say, all your life that are written in the 2nd person?  Which, of course, is why I did it.

Anywho, here you go:

"Everything Is Both" for Kindle
"Everything Is Both" for all other eReaders

And, for those who are curious, here's the video for "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead:"

Why YA, eh?

I'm sorry, that title is just so awful that I had no choice but to use it.

I recently finished the Serpent's Shadow, the third book in the Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan.  It was a great book, perhaps the best in the series.  While reading the book, I came to realize that Riordan is one of my favorite writers.  And, yes, everything I've read by him falls into the YA category (although he's written other things).

For what it's worth, you might know him better by the Percy Jackson series.

Anyway, it got me thinking about my own work (because everything comes back to me) and how it was really Riordan, along with Brandon Mull (author of the wonderful Fablehaven series) that inspired me to take a shot at writing a Young Adult novel.  Sure, Harry Potter was my first foray into that category the same as it was for a lot of people, but it was Percy Jackson and Fablehaven that pulled me in completely.

But I suppose that's not entirely true.  If I really think about it, I've been reading and writing YA since I was a kid.  For now, I'll pass on discussing the fact that comic books are so clearly YA and focus on the fact that, back when I was growing up, all the nerdy kids read fantasy fiction aka Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Shanara, Wheel of Time, etc.

These books weren't specifically tailored for young adults, but it was inherent.  You can't tell me that wizards and dragons were going to appeal to the average adult.  Sure, they probably didn't appeal to the average teenager, either, but those of us lucky (and unlucky) enough to grow up as nerds were obsessive about these things.  How many dorky kids created D&D characters named Drizzt Do'Urden twenty years ago?  How many of us wished we were Tanis Half-Elven or Tasslehoff Burrfoot?

(FYI, I got those last two right without having to look them up.  I forgot the "i" and the "o" in Drizzt's full name, though.)

It's actually kind of amazing to me that, years later, Wizards of the Coast published YA versions of the original Dragonlance Chronicles series, as if the books weren't already YA.

The 2nd and best book in the 1st Dragonlance trilogy.I wrote a ton of my own fantasy fiction, and thought about a lot more.  I had lists of characters names, lists of titles of trilogies (because all the TSR books back then were trilogies), lists of creatures that inhabited my own, horribly derivative world.  I can remember it as clear as day.  My hobbit/kender/halfling race were called the Telm.

Given that I was raised on a steady diet of comic books and fantasy fiction, it's no surprise that I would end up reading a lot of YA books, and no surprise that I would eventually try my hand at writing them.

The appeal should be obvious: YA books allow you to delve into the supernatural in ways that you can't in adult fiction, unless you're writing genre specific work.  Sure, I realize that YA is a genre (oddly enough), but it's welcoming enough that even those who don't normally read about wizards or vampires or gods or monsters find themselves reading about those things.

The best YA books are footloose and fancy free.  They're full of energy, be it kinetic energy or potential energy (I like to consider the more angsty elements of YA to be potential energy).  They mix the real world and the fictional world in ways that are just similar enough to make us wonder what it would be like if it were real, yet different enough that it still serves as escapism.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy adult fiction.  But part of the enjoyment of adult fiction, for me, is that it challenges me, both mentally and emotionally.  YA fiction is less a challenge and more a luxury.  It allows me to bask in all the things I've always loved about creating stories.  It's stimulating in a completely different way than adult fiction.

Hopefully, some of my passion for YA books will come across in the query letter I'm writing for Master of the House.  Anyone who knows me knows that I'm incredibly loyal to the things I'm passionate about, and I will fight for them with every ounce of strength I possess.

You should really pick up the first book of the Percy Jackson book, The Lightning Thief.  You'll see a very clear line from Huckleberry Finn to Percy Jackson.  You'll see a line that connects classic adult literature with current young adult stories.  And I think that will tell you everything you need to know.

Research

A picture of the file containing the majority of the research I did for "Pray."

Free Fridays: Mercurial

This week's Free Fridays offering is a weird one, you should know that going in.

Here's how weird it is:

Sometime while I was in grad school (so either 1998 or 1999), Francois Camoin came to Ohio University as a guest professor, holding two days of workshops and one on one meetings with the creative writing students.  We all sent him stories in advance of his arrival.

After the first day of workshops, and before we'd really gotten into talking about our work, a few of us went to lunch with Camoin.  At one point, he asked my name, and when I told him he responded with (and I'm paraphrasing) "You wrote the story that reads like it was written on drugs."

It wasn't, but I still find it awesome that he said that.

Anyway, that was an earlier version of "Mercurial," one that actually ended up in my thesis.  This later version was in my short story collection, "Unrequited and Other Stories," which you can get at the nifty link I just gave you (although you can also get all three of the stories in that collection on this site for free).

Anyway, here you go:

"Mercurial" for most eReaders

"Mercurial" for Kindle

For those coming late to the Free Fridays party, I finally went back and tagged all of the older posts, so you should be able to find them by hitting the Free Fridays tag over there on the right.

Next week: regular blog updates!  Another free story!  And probably at least one drunken post!

Have a great long weekend, everyone!

Free Fridays: Grimm

Contrary to popular belief, 75% of what I write is made up.  It's interesting that people seem to get hung up on the 25% that isn't, and then extrapolate that to include everything I've ever written.

"Grimm" is probably closer to 50/50.

"Grimm" is the only short story I have that is connected in any way, shape, or form to my book, "I Pray Hardest When I'm Being Shot At."  But "Grimm" is fiction, spawned from real life, while "Pray" is entirely true.

Grimm for your favorite non-Amazon eReader
Grimm for your Kindle

Back in 2006, I self-published a collection of short stories.  You should already have the first story from that collection, since I gave it away for free a few weeks ago.  "Grimm" is the third of three.  I'm not entirely if/when I'll post the middle story, as it's very, very weird.

Anyway, "Grimm" has its flaws, but it's still a very important story for me, and I think I do the subject matter justice here and there.

I hope you enjoy it.

Query? (or, Update on Kyle's YA Book)

I always want to be doing something other than what I'm doing, even if what I'm doing is something I want to do.

At work today, I wanted nothing more than to come home and write.  More specifically, I was looking forward to coming home and taking a crack at the first query letter for my YA book.

Those of you keeping track have probably realized that, while the fine folks judging the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award thought my YA manuscript was one of the best 250 they received (out of 5000), it was not one of the best 50.  And while they destroyed one of the more prominent fantasies in my head these days, it was still nice to make it as far as I did.

I also got some wonderful feedback, and since I am horribly self-absorbed and in constant need of validation, I will share some of it with you:


This book has excellent pacing, and the story will sell itself to those who like suspense books. I thought the high school scenes were well written, and also think the author does a good job of describing without being overwhelming in the description.
 I thought this was a compelling read. I enjoyed the pacing and the aura of uncertainty that surrounded the events of the visit to the house. I would definitely read more, and would also recommend this to my 13 and 16 year old sons.
This was a very good excerpt with all the elements being well done. The work reads well, polished and professional.
 I got a longer review from someone at Publisher's Weekly, who had a few minor complaints, but in general enjoyed the book, although apparently not enough to push it along to the next round.  In my defense, "Master of the House" isn't remotely dystopian, and that seems to be the flavor du jour in YA books these days.
The upside to being eliminated from the competition is that I can now start sending my book out to agents and publishers.  The downside is that I don't know that I really made it far enough to brag about it in a query letter.
This is unfortunate, because query letters are evil.
I suppose, in some sense, query letters are the literary equivalent of a resume and a cover letter in one.  You have a single page to say what you are selling, why it's worth buying, and who the hell you are.
Saying what I'm selling is probably the hardest part, because you basically need to lead with a hook, and more often than not an agent or publisher will decided whether or not they will keep reading based entirely upon your opening.  And given the number of aspiring writers in the world, it's hard to come up with something that would be considered unique.
Talking about why "Master of the House" is worth selling doesn't pose nearly the challenge to me as it would have in the past.  If you'll allow me to put on my pretentious hat for a second (the correct response to that is "wait, you mean there are times when you take that hat off?"), having a book published -- by someone other than me, no less -- has taught me a lot about what sells and what doesn't.  And, let's face facts, agents and publishers want to know if what you're selling them, they can sell to others.
As for who the hell I am, well, thanks to the aforementioned published book, at least I can claim that someone out there with the finances to run a publishing company thought enough of my work to send it out to the masses.  I wish I had a few more published short stories to my name, but I should be thankful for what I've gotten so far.
 It's an awful lot of pressure to put on one piece of paper/e-mail, and awfully hard to write.
So here I am, doing exactly what I wanted to be doing just a few hours ago, but instead writing in this blog.
*sigh* 

The Jerks Aren't the Ones Ruining the Internet

The internet is a lot like talk radio or 24 hour news channels.  It seems that the main appeal of any of those things is outrage.  People want to be outraged about something.  They want to be righteous and indignant.  I'd honestly love to know, say, what percentage of Fox News' audience is made up of liberals who want to decry everything they say.

The problem is that this makes things that aren't stories into stories, and it makes these made up stories seem more important than they really are.

One of the more recent examples of this came when the Hunger Games movie was released.  And not long afterwards, "articles" like this start popping up: 
The Hunger Games hit by racism row as movie fans tweet vile slurs over casting of black teen actress as heroine Rue

I probably found close to a dozen articles online covering this story.  And, across the board, every single one of the articles quoted the same batch of Tweets.  Said Tweets proved one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: that there are like 20 teenagers out there who are varying degrees of both prejudiced and stupid.

But that's not what these articles say, because in the internet age if enough people (say, more than 2) say the same thing, then it must be an issue.  And if enough articles are written about it, suddenly people are talking about it as if it's something we should all be really worried about.

I'm not saying it isn't awful that these people on Twitter are bigots (and, apparently, illiterate).  But it's not like book clubs across the country are gathering to decry the actors who were cast in the Hunger Games because of the color of their skin.  Even worse, there are actual examples of racism in this country that could surely use exposure more than a score of people on Twitter, yes?

But people want to feel righteous.

Why does Rush Limbaugh's opinion on anything matter?  Because he has a radio show?  He's not an elected official.  If he has so many loyal followers, then why doesn't he hold some kind of office of power by now?  And if the only people who listen to him are those that agree with him, than why is he in the press so often?
He's in the press so often because people want something to be outraged about.  Hey, don't get me wrong, I think the guy's an asshat, but he's only an asshat that gets attention because people keep giving it to him.  You might think his views are vile, but simply by going on and on about him you are, in fact, spreading those views.

Every once in a while, I will see someone on Twitter complain about seeing so many Tweets about something that they find obnoxious and/or ridiculous.  At first, I was surprised -- you choose who you follow on Twitter, so if these people are really that far off the reservation, why are you following them?  But it leads back to my point above: people want to be indignant.  The internet needs it, talk radio needs it, 24 hour news channels need it, and people need it.

Just imagine, though, if someone saw someone saying something outlandish and awful and simply said "that guy's an idiot" and walked away.  Imagine if that stupid thing didn't get shared by anyone.  But that's not the way the world works -- it's certainly not the way the internet works.

So, no, it's not the jerks who are ruining the internet.  It's the self-righteous, who need to learn that they are part of the problem, not the solution.

Free Fridays: Gateway Drug

This is a pretty old short story.  It definitely reflects a certain period of my life, I'll say that much.

This originally appeared in an issue of the literary magazine "Children, Churches, and Daddies."  It was also published in two collections, "Literary Town Hall," and "Falling Into Place," both of which are available on Amazon via the links conveniently located to your right.

I should probably point out that "Gateway Drug" is rated R, mostly for swearing and one description involving a stripper.  I would also avoid it if you're an incredibly conservative Christian, but I can't imagine you are, given my audience.

"Gateway Drug" the .epub
"Gateway Drug" for Kindle

I hope you enjoy it!  Hey, can't be the price, at least.

And if you haven't, check out my first Free Fridays offering, "Unrequited," and the one from last week, "Young Zombies in Love."

I promise more literary fun in just seven days!