Jeffrey Ricker's Blog, page 58

Band of brothers and sisters

Going to the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans for the past three years has been my favorite way to connect with other writers and remind myself why I love books: I love telling stories, and I love listening to other people tell theirs. In 2008 I gave my first reading there (from Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction) and last year it's where I sat down with my editor and he told me Bold Strokes Books would publish my novel. (To say that was the best day of my life would be slight hyperbole, but it ranks up there.)

This year I got to give a reading from that book, Detours (which is coming out this November-yes, I'm going to be reminding you of that often). I was one of six writers reading at the same session. In addition to me were memoirist Aaron Anson, mystery writer Josh Aterovis, humorist Fay Jacobs, debut novelist Jen Violi, and the fantastic Jess Wells. I went after Fay, and let me just say, you do not want to be the one who has to read after her. She is an absolute riot. (Immediately after our reading, I went and bought her book.)

After she sat down and I was introduced, before I got up Josh said, "Poor Jeff." Fay is a tough act to follow.

Once I was at the mic, I repeated what Josh had said and then pulled out two bags of Hershey's miniatures. Whenever anyone in my writing group, Writers under the Arch, gets something published, they bring chocolate to the next group meeting. I figured it was a tradition worth transporting to New Orleans. I also figured it would put the audience in a generous mood in case I screwed up. It worked, and I didn't screw up too badly. Thank heavens I didn't have to follow Fay and Jess Wells, because Jess was on fire, she was so hilarious. (She has a future in standup if she wants to, I think.)

Even better: my friend David from college and his wife, Marsha, were able to come to the reading. We also went out to dinner with them Sunday night and caught up. The next morning (oh, I also remember what a bad influence David can be-I drank far too much), Mikey said to me, "Why haven't you introduced me to them sooner? They're a hoot!" And they are. David and I lost track of one another after Katrina (or, as Greg calls her, "that bitch Katrina"), and recently got back in touch thanks to the wonders of Facebook. When we go back to New Orleans in October to catch a cruise ship, we'll see them again. And I hope we'll also see Greg and Paul and have a little time that I can see New Orleans from the vantage point of something other than a conference room.

There's so much more to write about this weekend, but now we're home. I have a book to work on, two short stories to do, and an old one to revise. I also have to write up the notes I took from a panel on "Current Trends in the Publishing Industry" for a friend who edits a newsletter, and tomorrow I have to go back to work and remember what the real world is like.

Continue the discussion on redroom.com

Giving away the milk, or investing in the cow?

I believe in getting paid for my work. That said, I'm not getting paid to write these words right now. You may not be paying to read them, either. I'm not even sure how we would go about calculating a fair value for them.

That said, I know they have a worth (however minuscule) that shows up in site traffic, click-throughs, and possibly book purchases.

Not a lot of that income accrues to me, either. But some of it does. Some of you might go to Untreed Reads' store and buy a short story of mine (and there'll be another one joining it soon). Some of you might buy an anthology containing one of my stories, and (if I'm really lucky) you might write a review that someone else sees who's planning another anthology, and they might send me a request to submit.

Some of you might even remember  liking one of those stories this November when my novel gets published by Bold Strokes Books.

The connections are delicate, but they're there.

Still, I'm not getting paid to write these words. But the time it takes me to write them is an investment in future income, which is of course not guaranteed. But without the investment?

I write fiction. I've also written nonfiction—newspaper articles, essays—and I've gotten paid for all of them. I don't get paid to write blog entries, tweet, or try to keep friends and fans entertained on Facebook. Those bits of unpaid writing are promotion and marketing (and occasionally venting spleen).

Am I going to write a story and not get paid for it? No.

Am I going to keep creating content on Red Room and hopefully generating traffic for the site even though a tangible payoff is not in the offing? Absolutely.

The trick is to know when you're getting paid, when you're investing in yourself, and when you're getting ripped off.

My Idea for A Very Kate Glee, or Alex Chee Made Me Do It

Nota bene: Those of you who don't like, or at least tolerate, any mention of Glee will want to skip this entry. And while I respect everyone's right to have an opinion, any comments mocking my enjoyment of said show will mysteriously fail to post.

Much like the aforementioned Alex, I'm not a huge fan of musicals. I have made exceptions for Elaine Paige, but even that only goes (or rather went) so far. My exceptions are Joss Whedon-penned television musical extravaganzas (I know all of the lyrics to "I've Got A Theory" from "Once More, with Feeling," but I think I'm personally more the book number type as opposed to breakaway pop hit).

Where was I? Oh, right. So, don't like musicals, but I do like Joss Whedon and, I'd have to add, Glee. Earlier this week, Alex presented his plot summary for a Madonna-themed New York Nationals episode, which makes you want to fire off an email to the producers and say "You should really hire him."

And, of course, it got me thinking. If I could have an episode of Glee devoted to just one artist, who would it be?

Surprisingly, it would not be Kylie. (I know you're shocked.) It would be Kate.

I haven't got a story outline in mind quite like the geekalicious masterpiece that Alex crafted. And let's face it, the show's storyline is often contrived and stretches the limits of narrative cohesion. (Does that make it any less entertaining? Not for me. I always enjoy a retro pastiche as much as a breakaway pop hit.) Rather, I thought of each character and wondered, what would be the perfect Kate song for them?

Kurt: Moments of Pleasure. A heartwrenching song that requires a fair amount of range. Kurt wouldn't leave a dry eye in the house.

Rachel: Running Up That Hill. Making a deal with God and getting him to swap places? Rachel's enhanced opinion of herself would take that idea and run run run.

Emma: The Saxophone Song (about longing, for Will, naturally) or The Sensual World (if she ever lightens up and gets laid).

Brittany: Wuthering Heights. (About Santana, naturally.) This one would be more in theory than practice, because I don't know if Heather Morris—my favorite actress on the show—would be comfortable with those high notes.

Quinn: This Woman's Work, or if you want to go obscure, Room for the Life.

Sue: Get Out of My House. This would be, of course, about wanting Schuester out of McKinley once and for all. Also, I'd just like to see her sing the part of the mule.

Will: Watching You without Me. About Emma, of course. Or any other woman he's had feelings for.

Mike and Tina: The Red Shoes. Tina would do the singing, Mike would do the dancing, of course. Also, he should show his abs frequently during the song.

Mercedes: Rubberband Girl. For no other reason than I think it's Kate's funnest song. That, or Coffee Homeground.

I was thinking that Finn/Puck/Sam/Artie, the most un-Kate of the class, would sing King of the Mountain or The Dreaming, which are  among her more masculine songs.

Wait, I've changed my mind about one thing. Lauren  Zizes should sing The Sensual World.

The big showstopping group  number for the episode finale? Could it be anything other than The Big Sky?

Now, you tell me: if you could arrange a Glee episode around your favorite singer or band, who would it be and which songs would you choose?

Love and sandwiches

I didn't come out until I was 31.

They say it's a continuous process that you're never done with, but if you measure by the yardstick that "you're not really out until you tell Mom and Dad," then I came out to my parents in 2000, over sandwiches at the kitchen table in Orland, Maine.

I'd told my brother a couple years before—my goal was to get this over with before I was 30—but it took slightly longer to tell my parents. I don't know why, apart from the garden-variety fear. I had little to lose in a material sense: I was living a thousand miles away in St. Louis, I had a secure, well-paying job, I'd just bought a house. If my parents disowned me, I wasn't going to be thrown out on the street without any way to care for myself.

I would, however, lose the two people I loved more than anyone else in the world.

So, I went to Maine for a visit. We stopped at Tozier's on the way home from the airport to pick up sub sandwiches—they call them Italians up there. My father had had a heart attack a year or so earlier—seriously, I was not worried that my news was going to send him into the hospital again—and I remember him asking me when we got home if I wanted to see the surgery scar.

"What? God, no!" I said. (I still don't want to see the surgery scar.)

Mom cut the sandwiches and put them on plates. I stopped eating after a few bites and told them I had something I wanted to talk about with them. And then I proceeded to hem and haw, prefacing my prefaces with even more prefaces. My coming-out speech needed an editor.

Turns out, my mom's a good editor.

"Oh, just spit it out," she said.

"Fine! I'm gay."

"Do you feel better now?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now eat your sandwich."

"Okay."

Later, my father, the retired Marine, the one who's been shot at and bombed and worked in explosive ordinance disposal (and still has all of his fingers, which is a feat in that line of work), said he felt like he'd let me down. He couldn't believe I'd spent so many years carrying around that knowledge and not feeling like I could unburden myself. Being gay isn't a burden, of course, but I think I know what he meant—that keeping a secret from people you care about is a burden in itself, and it keeps you from being who you truly are around them.

Amazingly, none of us cried, but then, we are Mainers.

How could I ever have doubted them?

 

Oh England, My Lionheart….

Things about our trip to London, in no particular order:

London has changed a lot in the last twenty years.
Even though Harrod's is the world-renowned department store/tourist destination, I prefer Selfridge's.
Dear lord, London is expensive.
It's very much worth it, however.
Though Londoners think their city is filthy, it's cleaner than most cities I've visited in the U.S.
This includes St. Louis.
There were already a lot of American chain stores and restaurants in London the last time I was there, in 1992. I'm sad to say they've proliferated exponentially since then.
We avoided almost all of them, however.
People in Central London seem very fashion-conscious. Smart outfits for both men and women abounded.
I don't think all of these people are shopping at Marks & Spencer, are they?
Our friend Bob turned us on to the Uniqlo brand from Japan. If we lived near a store, I'd probably replace my entire wardrobe.
Fortunately, their only U.S. store is in New York and they don't do sales online.
The U.K. site does, however. I wonder how much shipping would be.
Our friend Tricia asked us to bring her some stationery supplies from Muji. We'd never heard of this either. I'm officially addicted. And their U.S. website does take orders. Someone chain up my wallet.
For a city of 10 million people, it's incredibly easy to get around London.
Their Underground system is a lot easier to understand than New York's subway.
That said, the District Line still confounds me sometimes.
Even though we ate like pigs, I didn't gain any weight. I attribute this to all of the walking we did.
Lordy, Londoners walk a lot.
That's probably why I saw so few cases of morbid obesity.
Food in England gets a bad rap. It's undeserved. We went to a bunch of different restaurants and never had a bad meal.
Pub food is especially good.
Probably because it's accompanied by a pint.
No one batted an eye when we had an early lunch at 11:30 and I ordered a Guinness to go with it.
I could eat ice cream every day there.
Dogs in London are abundant, and abundantly well-behaved. It's not uncommon to see a dog walking down the street a few paces ahead of his or her owner. When they get to an intersection, the owner simply says "stop," and the dog, amazingly, stops.
If there's food nearby, however, all bets are off, and the collar goes back on.
The memory usually cheats, so I wasn't sure if I'd feel the same way about London now as I did when my parents lived there. This trip confirmed that it's still my favorite city in the world.
Not that I've been to all that many cities.
Can we go back now, please?

I don't like the phrase "It's not over 'til the fat lady sings"

However, the woman wearing the helmet with the horns on it (and who could probably kick your ass) is tuning up.

Last night I submitted the final edits for Detours to my editor. I'd been up the night before until two-thirty working on them, did some more at lunch, and then hit send at 8:23 last night.

Then I had a very largish glass of wine.

And now I have to finish packing because we're leaving for London in the morning. Over a week of queuing up, Mind the Gap, and "another pint, please." Our schedule is somewhat loose, but there'll be time to go to Kew Gardens, ride up the London Eye, and see the billion-dollar Picasso at the Tate Modern.

The last time I was in London was January 1992. I'd just graduated  from college, I didn't have a job except for a temping gig back in Columbia, Mo., and I had no idea where I'd go next. I was spending my last real vacation for a while in London, with my parents, who lived there for a while before heading to Brussels. I loved London. Even though I never spent more than four months at a time there, it felt like home.

We'll see if it still does.

When I got the edits for my novel back from my editor, it was the first time I'd looked at the book since last September. It was funny (not in the ha ha way, mind you) how quickly I fell back into the story. I guess it shouldn't surprise me. I spent the better part of eight years thinking about these characters. They still matter to me.

I hope whoever reads the book comes to care about them for long enough that the time it takes to read it will be worth it to them.

Continue the discussion on redroom.com

Good News for BLOOD SACRAMENTS

BLOOD SACRAMENTS (which, as you may know, includes my short story "Lifeblood") was 2010 Book of the Year Award finalist for Horror Fiction by ForeWord Reviews. (For the complete list of nominees in horror, check here.) To quote from their website, the awards "were established to bring increased attention to librarians and booksellers of the literary and graphic achievements of independent publishers and their authors. ForeWord is the only review trade journal devoted exclusively to books from independent houses."

Looking through the other categories, there are a number of nominees from my publisher, Bold Strokes Books. I'm always encouraged when LGBT fiction gets noticed and recognized for its relevance and quality beyond its own niche market.

Congratulations to Todd Gregory, the editor of BLOOD SACRAMENTS, and to Radclyffe, the president of Bold Strokes. This is great news!

Continue the discussion on redroom.com

Good News for BLOOD SACRAMENTS

BLOOD SACRAMENTS (which, as you may know, includes my short story "Lifeblood") was 2010 Book of the Year Award finalist for Horror Fiction by ForeWord Reviews. (For the complete list of nominees in horror, check here.) To quote from their website, the awards "were established to bring increased attention to librarians and booksellers of the literary and graphic achievements of independent publishers and their authors. ForeWord is the only review trade journal devoted exclusively to books from independent houses."

Looking through the other categories, there are a number of nominees from my publisher, Bold Strokes Books. I'm always encouraged when LGBT fiction gets noticed and recognized for its relevance and quality beyond its own niche market.

Congratulations to Todd Gregory, the editor of BLOOD SACRAMENTS, and to Radclyffe, the president of Bold Strokes. This is great news!

Continue the discussion on redroom.com

Multitasking or Multitaxing

It's not like I don't have enough to do already, but this weekend it's hit me that I need to start putting pieces in place for promoting my book before it comes out. Some of these, like redesigning my website, are things I've been putting off for a long time. I started tinkering with the stylesheet last year and never uploaded it because I was afraid I broke something, and now I've decided that I want to administer the whole thing through a custom WordPress design that I originally started working on years ago for another writer I know. It didn't work for him, but in the process I learned more about PHP than anyone should really have to know.

The reason I decided to do this is because, after reading this blog post by Nathan Bransford a couple weeks ago (he no longer works as a literary agent, but he's still full of good information and has a really neat-sounding novel coming out in May), I went ahead and created a Facebook fan page (which of course you should totally go visit and press the Like button—because there are only two people following it at the moment and one of them is me). When I tried to add the Like box to my blog's sidebar, it wouldn't let me. So, I thought, hey, why not add it to my regular website?And that got me to thinking about how I've been neglecting that site somewhat. (I also have a portfolio of my design work up there, and it hasn't worked right in Firefox for the longest time, but I haven't gotten around to trying to fix it yet.)

One thing led to another, I had another cup of coffee, and suddenly this all seemed like a good Sunday project.

I read somewhere that the best time to begin promoting your book is three years before it comes out, which seems a) crazy but b) is also about the length of time it's been since I had my first short fiction publication, and I think of each one of those as a small step along the way that is hopefully entertaining enough readers that they'll see my book and think, "Oh yeah, he wrote that story in…."

So, you tell me: what are you doing (or what have you done) to promote your book? What's worked the best? What do you wish you never wasted time with?

Continue the discussion on redroom.com

Wilde Stories 2011

I just got the  table of contents list for one of my publishing credits this year: Wilde Stories 2011, edited by Steve Berman from Lethe Press. Without further ado:

"Love Will Tear us Apart"  by Alaya Dawn Johnson
"Map of Seventeen"  by Chris Barzak
"How to Make Friends in Seventh Grade"  by Nick Poniatowski
"Mortis Persona"  by Barbara A. Barnett
"Mysterium Tremendum"  by Laird Barron
"Oneirica"  by Hal Duncan
"Lifeblood"  by Jeffrey Ricker
"Waiting for the Phone to Ring"  by Richard Bowes
"Blazon"  by Peter Dubé
"All the Shadows"  by Joel Lane
"The Noise"  by Richard Larson
"How to Make a Clown"  by Jeremy C. Shipp
"Beach Blanket Spaceship"  by Sandra McDonald
"Hothouse Flowers:  or The Discreet Boys of Dr. Barnabas"  by Chaz Brenchley

I can't wait to read the rest of the collection!

Continue the discussion on redroom.com