Christopher Farnsworth's Blog, page 16

Guest Blogging at LitFest: Get Paid

My first guest post at LitFest Magazine is up and running, with some very basic advice for writers: get paid. Here's the intro:

I just ran across a reminder of a valuable lesson for writers. From Arianna Huffington, believe it or not.

Huffington, best known for losing the race for California governor to Arnold Schwarzenegger, recently sold her website to AOL for $315 million.

Many of the people blogging for free on her site have since gone on strike. If the site is worth a few hundred million, they figure they ought to get paid. Her response?  Nobody will care. "Go ahead, go on strike," she said.

This shows us two things.

1) Arianna Huffington is kind of a d-bag.

2) If you're going to write, God damn it, don't give it away for free.

You can hear the same advice, in much more entertaining form, from Harlan Ellison, whom I quote in the post as well:

My thanks again to Amanda Goossen for inviting me.

Peter Watts vs. The Flesh-Eating Bacteria!

[image error]If you haven't read Peter Watts' Blindsight, you should go out and do so immediately. It's a fantastic novel which actually manages to put a new spin on vampires, human evolution and aliens. Watts is also responsible for this incredibly detailed and chilling PowerPoint presentation. (Yes, a PowerPoint presentation that will scare the bejesus out of you. He's that good.)

And in the past couple years, he's also had the crap kicked out of him by thuggish, dishonest border patrolmen, and is now currently fighting — and winning — against necrotizing fasciitis, better known as the flesh-eating bacteria. (WARNING: graphic images of his carved-up leg in the link. They are really cool, though.) Through it all, he's shown more dignity and courage than I can manage when I've got a bad cold, so I'm not only impressed by his writing, I'm amazed by the man himself.

The moral of this story is: never let anyone tell you being a writer is not a dangerous job.

Assassin Nation

This is one of those cases where the real world sounds like something from one of my books:

A lawyer for Sirhan Sirhan, the confessed assassin of Robert F. Kennedy, plans to present new evidence at a parole board hearing suggesting that he did not act alone, was potentially brain washed and cannot remember anything about the 43-year-old shooting.

"There is no question he was hypno-programmed," lawyer William F. Pepper told ABCNews.com. "He was set up. He was used. He was manipulated."

This caught my attention because RFK actually figures into my next book, THE PRESIDENT'S VAMPIRE, and so does Sirhan. Conspiracy theorists have been making this claim for years — check out this passage from The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time, written by my friends John Whalen and Jonathan Vankin:

Sirhan himself was the strangest element of a strange case. Not that the lad himself was terribly odd. But his memory blackouts; his "automatic writing" including the repeated scrawl, "RFK must die!" scribbled randomly in notebooks that the LAPD for some reason saw fit to label "diaries"; the analysis of a former army intelligence officer who gave Sirhan a Psychological Stress Evaluation; and the testimony of a witness in a later civil trial who quoted acquaintances of Sirhan's as describing him "in a trance" – they all add up to one bizare but unavoidable conclusion: when he shot Robert Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan was hypnotized.

You can also see what Sirhan was writing in his journal before the assassination. He mentions the Illuminati, black magic, and writes "God help me."

This particular conspiracy theory has tendrils that extend from RFK to JFK to MLK, to the Son of Sam and Charles Manson and the CIA, and even to Jared Lee Loughner's recent murder spree in Tucson. But this is the first time I've heard Sirhan's lawyer actually make the argument that he was brainwashed.

 

There is a powerful inclination to explain the world through dark plots and patterns. From Oliver Stone's JFK to Glenn Beck's chalk-dusted connections to the die-hard Obama birthers and 9/11 Truthers, this kind of paranoia has always had a place in American politics. But now it's become a part of the mainstream national discourse. I doubt the parole board is going to buy Sirhan's argument. But it will be interesting to see how many other people do.

Paperback Writer

Today, the paperback edition of BLOOD OATH will hit stands everywhere.

This is kind of a big deal for me because in the dark ages before Borders, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, my main bookstore was the paperback rack at the local M&W. For years, that and the public library would sustain me between the all-too-rare trips to the bookstore downtown. (My hometown, due to a mix of poor urban planning and geography, didn't even get a mall until I was a sophomore in high school.) I was introduced to many of my favorite authors because they were slotted into spaces on the wire racks by the comic books and magazines. There was something so great about discovering a new book in the Fletch series or getting scared just by reading the back of a Stephen King novel.

I really hope someone else has that same feeling when they see this at the local grocery store:

In other news, I can see that I've been neglectful in my relentless ego-surfing and self-promotion. Here are a few spots around the Internet where my name has popped up lately.

Robin Bradford has a great, insightful post about BLOOD OATH and the inherent problem of bloodsuckers falling in love with their food source. It also has a brilliant title: EAT PREY LOVE. If that had been the name of the Julia Roberts flick, I might have even gone to see it with my wife. Thanks for all the kind words, Robin.
The Terrebonne Parish Library system is going to have a discussion of BLOOD OATH on March 2. The reason this geeks me out: that's located in Houma, Louisiana, which, as every fan of Alan Moore will know, is the home of the muck-encrusted SWAMP THING. In my mind, that's almost a team-up between him and Cade.
Super-Powered Fiction Files has some very flattering things to say about BLOOD OATH, too. Thanks.
And I will be guest-blogging all month at LitFest Magazine. I promise 90 percent original content. Or at least 70-85. Somewhere around there.

Noche Roja

I'm a week late on this, I know, but there's a new graphic novel out from Simon Oliver, writer of The Exterminators, and artist Jason Latour. It's called NOCHE ROJA, and it's a compelling noir tale set on the Mexican border, where U.S. companies pay cheap wages in factories called maquiladoras, and where hundreds, if not thousands, of young women have been murdered.

I got a sneak preview a while ago, and you should pick it up on your trip to the comics shop for Nerd Wednesday.

 

Happy President's Day

And since it's President's Day, here are some presents. It's not like you were working or anything.

The great, unjustly undersung Judy Greer gives an interview to the AV Club.
Link to a cheat sheet that outlines your rights and includes handy phone numbers to call when dealing with the TSA. (Via BoingBoing.)
British spy agency has its own resident artist. Now that's class.

On Borders

This is probably going to devolve into an old-man, "You kids don't know how good you've got it" kind of rant. So fair warning.

Susan Orlean has a post up at the New Yorker that matches how I feel about the Borders bankruptcy filing. As she points out, it was fashionable for a long time to bash the big bookstore chains as the Wal-Marts of the literary world.

I was never comfortable with that. I think I've got the poindexter street cred to say that I'm thrilled when any store sells books, and the more the better. I worked in an indie bookstore that was a casualty of the chains — most of my paycheck went right back into the till — but I still remember the joy I felt the first time I walked into the Borders that opened in my hometown.

The indie bookstores I grew up with were gems, and more than willing to order books for me if they didn't include them in their eclectic selections. But very often, I didn't know what I was looking for until I found it. And every time I went out of town, I hit the bookstores, looking for the titles that nobody carried back home.

But in Borders, there were actually more shelves than I had time. The place was huge. Authors I'd only read about were available for purchase right there, out in the open.

This might sound like nostalgia gone mad, but that probably means you never had to stand in a mall's Waldenbooks at the same shelf of paperbacks, vainly trying to stare the title you want into existence.

The bottom line is, I'm never going to argue against more books in the hands of more people, as Orlean puts it. The indie bookstores have been incredibly good to me, pushing my novel into the hands of their loyal customers with evangelical zeal. But so have the employees at Barnes & Noble and Borders. I'm just not a big enough ingrate to complain about anyone finding something to read, no matter where they do it — whether it's Costco or the public library.

Coming Soon To A Venue Near You!

Next weekend, I'll be at ConDor, San Diego's longest-running sci-fi/fantasy convention, speaking on several panels about vampires, zombies, and screenwriting. You can get more details here or here.

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Despite last year — where it was said my panel used the word "fuck" more than any other panel, including the one about sex in literature — I've been invited back to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 30 – May 1, 2011. And once again, I'm honored. More info as the schedule is set.

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If you were waiting for a more conveniently sized package of vampire and spy mayhem, you're in luck. We're just two weeks away from the paperback release of BLOOD OATH. The cover looks awesome. For those who haven't seen it, here it is:

Under Construction

My wife and child are out of town while we're having some work done on the house. I imagined I'd become a dynamo of productivity, knocking off 20-page days on the new novel and reading manuscripts and the stack of books on my shelf by night, with time left over to clear the TiVo backlog.

So far: I've eaten most of a package of Double Stuf Oreos. Which wasn't on the original list, but you've got to have goals you can meet.

I've made the mistake of reading the Internet, which may be where all those spare hours went. Here's what I've learned so far.

Apparently SkyNet will conquer humanity on Jeopardy before unleashing the Terminators.
Detroit will pay you to live in a home there. Oh sure, there may not be any jobs, but they are getting a RoboCop statue.
All of Spy magazine is now available online through Google Books. As Kurt Andersen tweeted, "The Internet has justified itself."
Mark Frauenfelder has a great series of posts on the apps he uses on his brand-new Mac. It's also an in-depth guide to learning how many things a writer has to do in his job these days, from selecting and editing photos to batch renaming programs. I'm a recent convert to Scrivener, based on his recommendation, and I think it's the best word processing app I've ever used.
Charlie Sheen is the new Keith Richards.
The Lisa Simpson Book Club.
Writers also have to have apps for their books these days. Don't know what that means? Me either. But there are people you can hire who do.
Oh, and apparently some stuff is going on in Egypt and other countries that have suffered for years under brutal, repressive regimes.

Further updates as events warrant.

Heresies

I can tell I'm approaching brain-death when I'm too fried even to blog. So in that spirit, I'm going to offer a short post containing a few pop-culture heresies that will make my friends cringe, but which I nonetheless believe. It may not be fashionable to admit any of the following, but deep in your hearts, I suspect you harbor the same nagging feelings.

"Friends" is funnier and holds up better than "Seinfeld."
Cargo pockets are useful, dammit.
The remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004) is better than George Romero's original. (1978)
The vast majority of grunge was repetitive, atonal crap. And nobody looked very good in flannel.
NO, BATMAN WOULD NOT WIN IN A FIGHT WITH SUPERMAN. NO. JUST STOP IT.*

*I don't care what Frank Miller thinks. I don't care how much time you give Batman to plan. I don't even care about that stupid Kryptonite ring. Yes, Batman is the smartest, toughest human being on the planet. Superman, however, is a godlike being from outer space. He could roast Batman to ash with lasers from his eyes while floating in orbit. Check out Mark Waid's "Irredeemable." The first thing the Superman character does is kill the Batman character. And it takes him about thirty seconds. True, he does take the Batman character out first because he rightly considers his former friend the greatest threat to him. But it's not because of any physical threat. And the Batman character has to get his revenge from the grave, which doesn't do him a lot of good. So, to sum up: Superman wins. Batman dies.