Thomas Mullen's Blog
November 9, 2012
The Con Man Who Also Published Novels
Hey y'all.
Been a long time. Sorry about that.
Why so long? Partly because I've been writing other things, including this magazine feature. It's the amazingly true story about a novelist who also happened to be a con man.
Hope you enjoy it. Thanks to the fine people at Atlanta Magazine for providing guidance to myself, a fiction guy wading into nonfictional waters ("what do you mean I can't just make it up?").
I've been on the blog less, so if you're dying to know what I'm up to on a near daily basis, check out my Facebook page or Twitter feed.
Go To Post
Been a long time. Sorry about that.
Why so long? Partly because I've been writing other things, including this magazine feature. It's the amazingly true story about a novelist who also happened to be a con man.
Hope you enjoy it. Thanks to the fine people at Atlanta Magazine for providing guidance to myself, a fiction guy wading into nonfictional waters ("what do you mean I can't just make it up?").
I've been on the blog less, so if you're dying to know what I'm up to on a near daily basis, check out my Facebook page or Twitter feed.
Go To Post
April 30, 2012
Townsend Prize, HuffPo rant, a piece of the moon, and other stuff from April
There are several problems with a writer having a blog. One is that the writer by definition is probably supposed to be writing something else right now. The other is that the line between posting something of genuine interest to readers and something that is cravenly self-promotional is a hard one to spot, and constantly moving, and perhaps even imaginary.
Also there's the irony that, when a lot of blog-worthy things are going on, that's a sign that I'm busy, and therefore having trouble making time to blog about those things that I've been busy with.
Hence my relative lack of blogging lately.
But, I'm back. Last week was a bit of a whirlwind, but a good and productive one, so I'm posting a few links below. If they seem annoyingly self-promotional, and if they seem to be coming from Thomas Mullen the brand rather than Thomas Mullen the writer, or even Thomas Mullen the person, my apologies. I do hope instead that the below is genuinely interesting.
1. Thursday night I was thrilled to learn that my second novel was named the winner of the Townsend Prize, which is awarded to the best work of book-length fiction by a Georgia author over the preceding two years. Past winners have included Ha Jin and Alice Walker, so it's wonderful company to be included in. Also, last year's winner was some book called The Help, so I have dramatically brought down the average sales figures of past winners. Oh well.
To see the Atlanta Journal-Constitution story, click here.
It was a fun evening, at which I got to meet the other nine nominees (a few of whom I'd already met, including one whos literally my neighbor), as well as other writers, professors, booksellers, readers, and other assorted book people.
One of the cool things about being in Atlanta is that, while it's a major city with various dynamic things going on, it's unpretentious and laid back enough for writers to meet up randomly, have coffee, chat, etc. I've met a ton of other writers in my three years here and look forward to a long literary future in the ATL.
2. In less warm and sunny news: Discouraged and dismayed by the recent Department of Justice settlement with publishers over e-book prices, and just overall frazzled by the state of publishing in general, and the strange netherworld in which writers like myself find ourselves as we try to reach an audience and possibly be paid for our work at a time when Amazon and Apple are themselves minting money, I wrote a satirical op-ed piece. In it, I offer to turn myself in to the DOJ for the crime of writing for profit.
It was published in the Huffington Post, and has been reposted and tweeted a fair amount, for whatever that's worth.
If you're wondering whether I am aware of the irony of writing such an article and posting it on the Huffington Post, a web-only venue that does not pay its writers: yes, I am so aware. And deeper into the rabbit hole we go...
3. Last Tuesday I tripped down memory lane, sort of, by visiting Central Catholic High School to give a reading and meet with students. The 1,000-students-strong school and many parents had read my first novel, The Last Town on Earth. A number of colleges and universities have done this with their freshmen classes, but to my knowledge this was the first time an entire high school has tackled it this way.
As a Catholic high school alum myself, and someone who went to college in Ohio, it was a surprisingly nostalgic experience. Oh, and I got to add an awesome Toledo Mud Hens T-shirt to my now fairly extensive collection of minor league T's and hats. Score!
The other cool thing about CCHS: one of their alumns is NASA's Gene Krantz--Ed Harris played him, and won the Oscar for it, in Apollo 13. Krantz is a generous alum, and he donated to the school an actual piece of the moon. It's on display in a special "moon room" in their library, complete with blown-up B/W shots of the NASA control room and one of Krantz's senior year astronomy papers (grade: 97).
For a photo of the moon, which I orbited around, check out my Facebook fan page here.
4. I was very excited to learn that I'll have a short story in the next edition of the Grantland Quarterly. The lovechild of ESPN and McSweeney's, Grantland's web site offers excellent longform journalism about sports and culture, sometimes offered not by traditional journalists but by novelists like Dave Eggers, Colson Whitehead, and John Brandon. They also publish a McSweeneys-ish quarterly book-type thingy, containing some of the best columns from the preceding few months, plus a few extras. My story will be one of the extras. Look for "The Art of a Basketball" in Vol. 3 in June, and/or order a subscription to the quarterly here.
As always, thanks for reading!
Go To Post
Also there's the irony that, when a lot of blog-worthy things are going on, that's a sign that I'm busy, and therefore having trouble making time to blog about those things that I've been busy with.
Hence my relative lack of blogging lately.
But, I'm back. Last week was a bit of a whirlwind, but a good and productive one, so I'm posting a few links below. If they seem annoyingly self-promotional, and if they seem to be coming from Thomas Mullen the brand rather than Thomas Mullen the writer, or even Thomas Mullen the person, my apologies. I do hope instead that the below is genuinely interesting.
1. Thursday night I was thrilled to learn that my second novel was named the winner of the Townsend Prize, which is awarded to the best work of book-length fiction by a Georgia author over the preceding two years. Past winners have included Ha Jin and Alice Walker, so it's wonderful company to be included in. Also, last year's winner was some book called The Help, so I have dramatically brought down the average sales figures of past winners. Oh well.
To see the Atlanta Journal-Constitution story, click here.
It was a fun evening, at which I got to meet the other nine nominees (a few of whom I'd already met, including one whos literally my neighbor), as well as other writers, professors, booksellers, readers, and other assorted book people.
One of the cool things about being in Atlanta is that, while it's a major city with various dynamic things going on, it's unpretentious and laid back enough for writers to meet up randomly, have coffee, chat, etc. I've met a ton of other writers in my three years here and look forward to a long literary future in the ATL.
2. In less warm and sunny news: Discouraged and dismayed by the recent Department of Justice settlement with publishers over e-book prices, and just overall frazzled by the state of publishing in general, and the strange netherworld in which writers like myself find ourselves as we try to reach an audience and possibly be paid for our work at a time when Amazon and Apple are themselves minting money, I wrote a satirical op-ed piece. In it, I offer to turn myself in to the DOJ for the crime of writing for profit.
It was published in the Huffington Post, and has been reposted and tweeted a fair amount, for whatever that's worth.
If you're wondering whether I am aware of the irony of writing such an article and posting it on the Huffington Post, a web-only venue that does not pay its writers: yes, I am so aware. And deeper into the rabbit hole we go...
3. Last Tuesday I tripped down memory lane, sort of, by visiting Central Catholic High School to give a reading and meet with students. The 1,000-students-strong school and many parents had read my first novel, The Last Town on Earth. A number of colleges and universities have done this with their freshmen classes, but to my knowledge this was the first time an entire high school has tackled it this way.
As a Catholic high school alum myself, and someone who went to college in Ohio, it was a surprisingly nostalgic experience. Oh, and I got to add an awesome Toledo Mud Hens T-shirt to my now fairly extensive collection of minor league T's and hats. Score!
The other cool thing about CCHS: one of their alumns is NASA's Gene Krantz--Ed Harris played him, and won the Oscar for it, in Apollo 13. Krantz is a generous alum, and he donated to the school an actual piece of the moon. It's on display in a special "moon room" in their library, complete with blown-up B/W shots of the NASA control room and one of Krantz's senior year astronomy papers (grade: 97).
For a photo of the moon, which I orbited around, check out my Facebook fan page here.
4. I was very excited to learn that I'll have a short story in the next edition of the Grantland Quarterly. The lovechild of ESPN and McSweeney's, Grantland's web site offers excellent longform journalism about sports and culture, sometimes offered not by traditional journalists but by novelists like Dave Eggers, Colson Whitehead, and John Brandon. They also publish a McSweeneys-ish quarterly book-type thingy, containing some of the best columns from the preceding few months, plus a few extras. My story will be one of the extras. Look for "The Art of a Basketball" in Vol. 3 in June, and/or order a subscription to the quarterly here.
As always, thanks for reading!
Go To Post
March 7, 2012
The Exciting Life of the Writer: One Sample Day
Hi, Internet! Been a while.
This is my first blog post in about four months. I blame publication/publicity burnout. When my third book, The Revisionists, came out at the end of September, I was writing a lot of online essays and interviews and other random things for many other Web sites. This took a while, plus, honestly, one only has so much to say about oneself. I ran out of enthusiasm for Facebook and tweets and blogs and whatnot. Burnout caused me to turn my back on the blog for a month, which became two, and then three, etc.
Ok. I'm back now. I even have a twitter feed, if y'all are interested: check out @mullenwrites.
(There have been some bloggable things of late, interviews and reviews, including a talk I gave on NPR that guest-stars a certain recently retired Georgia-based rock band, so I'll put those links up soon. Promise.)
I've decided to kickstart the blog because, though most days in a writer's life just aren't all that interesting to recap, yesterday qualifies. A lot of people ask me what it is I do, how I do it, when I do what, etc, and the answer is usually so dull I feel compelled to make things up. Oz didn't seem so powerful when people peered behind his curtain, after all. I don't want to pierce your illusions by telling you, "well, I sit in a chair and stare at a screen and daydream, and some of these daydreams cause my fingers to twitch, striking the keys, and then at 4:00 I have a thousand words, on a good day." It would be more fascinating if I also fought bulls or hunted rhinos like Hemingway, or something.
BUT, back to yesterday.
The day began with the aforementioned sitting/staring/daydreaming/typing. Working on some freelance assignments, as well as an original screenplay. I've dabbled in screenplays before but this is the first time I've tried an original idea that is extremely close to completion, so that's exciting. And it's fun to write in such a new form, in a very visual medium. No telling if it's any good, but we shall see.
Then I drove to Atlanta's KIPP Charter School as part of their Writing Tutors program. Writer-types like me are paired with 5th-7th graders, who are trying to write a 3-5 page historical fiction story. My 5th grade student is crafting a dazzling, riveting tale set at Jacob's Pharmacy, the birthplace of Coca-Cola in downtown Atlanta. I don't want to give much away, but I will mention that aliens are going to invade the Pharmacy during our young hero's school field trip, and the aliens (who hate Coke) will arrive in a space ship emblazoned with a Pepsi logo. I'm not making this up. Serious battling is going to go down. The "historical" aspect of this story might have been slightly lost on my student, who, when reminded of this requirement, decided maybe we could set it in the 1990s. He's going to write a draft this weekend. I'm dying to see it.
Oh, and I found out that his mother went to the Rhode Island high school that was rivals with my RI high school. Small world.
Then, after our hero (me) swiftly raced home to pick up one of his sons from school, and quickly started cooking a dinner he himself would not have time to eat, and his awesome and awe-inspiring wife arrived home with Son #2, I changed into slightly-more-presentable-attire-than usual and got back in my car (lots of driving here in Atlanta) to race to Midtown to attend a book club of attorneys who had just read my new book.
I've done a lot of book club visits, but only one for my new book, and that was with my mother-in-law and her friends. Never done one with all lawyers. I've done all-students, all-teachers, all-retirees, all-public-health-workers, and even all-inmates-of-a-women's-correctional-facility, but this would be something new. Last night's was held at The Lawyer's Club of Atlanta (I swiped a nice cocktail napkin), a snazzy space on the 38th floor of one of ATL's signature skyscrapers, though I can't remember its name. (It's the pointy reddish one.) The fact that one of The Revisionists' main characters is an attorney, and there's some legal intrigue in the book, made me wonder if they'd nail me for getting some key legal issue wrong.
Luckily, they didn't. Everyone was friendly, even the ones who admitted they hadn't read it yet but came because this was the first time an author had crashed their proceedings. I sat beside a judge. A few folks were wearing "I voted!" stickers with GA peaches. Occasional political remarks were made, but not too many. Debate broke out as to whether in fact my main character was a shizophrenic living in a created mental universe to hide from his difficult reality, leading to debate as to whether I myself as a writer am schitzophrenic, hiding in my invented fictional worlds (my verdict: maybe). The board room in which we met had a fabulous view of the city, but I sat with my back to it.
And then, to top things off, I had dinner with Jimi Hendrix. (!!!) His health wasn't very good -- he had an oxygen tank with tubes leading into his right nostril, which he tried to conceal with some interestingly placed dreadlocks. And he coughed a lot. Still, it was great to talk to him and hear his take on contemporary bands like The Black Keys.
Actually, I dreamt that last part. Honestly, I did. But I felt the need to include it here because, a few hours agao while I was in fact dreaming, I even thought to myself, "wow, this is so amazing, a day that included tutoring a middle schooler about a space/soda story and then meeting a book club of lawyers is now ending with dinner beside Jimi freakin' Hendrix -- I have GOT to put this in my blog." So I am. Even though it didn't actually happen.
There you have it, a day in the life. Today, however, looks to be less interesting. But I started by writing a blog post, and in fact am typing it right now, like literally now, and you're reading it. Thanks! But I should go to work now.
Even though I'm already here.
Go To Post
This is my first blog post in about four months. I blame publication/publicity burnout. When my third book, The Revisionists, came out at the end of September, I was writing a lot of online essays and interviews and other random things for many other Web sites. This took a while, plus, honestly, one only has so much to say about oneself. I ran out of enthusiasm for Facebook and tweets and blogs and whatnot. Burnout caused me to turn my back on the blog for a month, which became two, and then three, etc.
Ok. I'm back now. I even have a twitter feed, if y'all are interested: check out @mullenwrites.
(There have been some bloggable things of late, interviews and reviews, including a talk I gave on NPR that guest-stars a certain recently retired Georgia-based rock band, so I'll put those links up soon. Promise.)
I've decided to kickstart the blog because, though most days in a writer's life just aren't all that interesting to recap, yesterday qualifies. A lot of people ask me what it is I do, how I do it, when I do what, etc, and the answer is usually so dull I feel compelled to make things up. Oz didn't seem so powerful when people peered behind his curtain, after all. I don't want to pierce your illusions by telling you, "well, I sit in a chair and stare at a screen and daydream, and some of these daydreams cause my fingers to twitch, striking the keys, and then at 4:00 I have a thousand words, on a good day." It would be more fascinating if I also fought bulls or hunted rhinos like Hemingway, or something.
BUT, back to yesterday.
The day began with the aforementioned sitting/staring/daydreaming/typing. Working on some freelance assignments, as well as an original screenplay. I've dabbled in screenplays before but this is the first time I've tried an original idea that is extremely close to completion, so that's exciting. And it's fun to write in such a new form, in a very visual medium. No telling if it's any good, but we shall see.
Then I drove to Atlanta's KIPP Charter School as part of their Writing Tutors program. Writer-types like me are paired with 5th-7th graders, who are trying to write a 3-5 page historical fiction story. My 5th grade student is crafting a dazzling, riveting tale set at Jacob's Pharmacy, the birthplace of Coca-Cola in downtown Atlanta. I don't want to give much away, but I will mention that aliens are going to invade the Pharmacy during our young hero's school field trip, and the aliens (who hate Coke) will arrive in a space ship emblazoned with a Pepsi logo. I'm not making this up. Serious battling is going to go down. The "historical" aspect of this story might have been slightly lost on my student, who, when reminded of this requirement, decided maybe we could set it in the 1990s. He's going to write a draft this weekend. I'm dying to see it.
Oh, and I found out that his mother went to the Rhode Island high school that was rivals with my RI high school. Small world.
Then, after our hero (me) swiftly raced home to pick up one of his sons from school, and quickly started cooking a dinner he himself would not have time to eat, and his awesome and awe-inspiring wife arrived home with Son #2, I changed into slightly-more-presentable-attire-than usual and got back in my car (lots of driving here in Atlanta) to race to Midtown to attend a book club of attorneys who had just read my new book.
I've done a lot of book club visits, but only one for my new book, and that was with my mother-in-law and her friends. Never done one with all lawyers. I've done all-students, all-teachers, all-retirees, all-public-health-workers, and even all-inmates-of-a-women's-correctional-facility, but this would be something new. Last night's was held at The Lawyer's Club of Atlanta (I swiped a nice cocktail napkin), a snazzy space on the 38th floor of one of ATL's signature skyscrapers, though I can't remember its name. (It's the pointy reddish one.) The fact that one of The Revisionists' main characters is an attorney, and there's some legal intrigue in the book, made me wonder if they'd nail me for getting some key legal issue wrong.
Luckily, they didn't. Everyone was friendly, even the ones who admitted they hadn't read it yet but came because this was the first time an author had crashed their proceedings. I sat beside a judge. A few folks were wearing "I voted!" stickers with GA peaches. Occasional political remarks were made, but not too many. Debate broke out as to whether in fact my main character was a shizophrenic living in a created mental universe to hide from his difficult reality, leading to debate as to whether I myself as a writer am schitzophrenic, hiding in my invented fictional worlds (my verdict: maybe). The board room in which we met had a fabulous view of the city, but I sat with my back to it.
And then, to top things off, I had dinner with Jimi Hendrix. (!!!) His health wasn't very good -- he had an oxygen tank with tubes leading into his right nostril, which he tried to conceal with some interestingly placed dreadlocks. And he coughed a lot. Still, it was great to talk to him and hear his take on contemporary bands like The Black Keys.
Actually, I dreamt that last part. Honestly, I did. But I felt the need to include it here because, a few hours agao while I was in fact dreaming, I even thought to myself, "wow, this is so amazing, a day that included tutoring a middle schooler about a space/soda story and then meeting a book club of lawyers is now ending with dinner beside Jimi freakin' Hendrix -- I have GOT to put this in my blog." So I am. Even though it didn't actually happen.
There you have it, a day in the life. Today, however, looks to be less interesting. But I started by writing a blog post, and in fact am typing it right now, like literally now, and you're reading it. Thanks! But I should go to work now.
Even though I'm already here.
Go To Post
November 14, 2011
My take on the whole Q.R. Markham plagiarism thing
For those of you not in the know, the scenario is thus: a new spy novel called Assassin of Secrets was published two weeks ago, and less than a week later the publisher pulled it from the market upon realizing that large swaths of the book were stolen, verbatim, from earlier works. The plagiarized texts ranged from Ian Fleming's classic James Bond novels and newer spy thrillers to nonfiction books about the intelligence industry, like James Bamford's tomes about the National Security Agency.
A few things to note: Markham and I have the same publisher and, in fact, the very same editor. I feel badly for my editor, not only because he's had to deal with this mess but also because some people will doubtless use this as yet another example of the inferiority of "traditional, legacy" publishers in a digital world, evidence that the gatekeepers of the publishing world are incompetent, etc etc.
Here's the deal: if you really want to pull one over on an editor, it isn't that hard. Editors have only so much time, and they spend that time doing things other than, say, Googling random phrases of a manuscript to see if they turn up any matches. We should not expect editors or publishers to play the role of high school English teachers looking for cheaters, mainly because we should not expect writers to act like 13 year-olds.
Another thing: Any writer with a "traditional, legacy" publisher signs these boring, analog things called legal contracts. The contract explains your royalty rate, what will happen if someone sues you for libel, what happens when your book is remaindered, and other fascinating tidbits of Inside Publishing. There also is a clause in which you, the writer, do solemnly swear that the work is entirely yours and does not contain passages taken from other writers.
If a writer wants to pull a fast one, fine, but you're breaking your contract. You're being a fraud. It's clear that there was some weird element of performance art with Markham, who published under an alias and even used stolen lines in his interviews. Perhaps he was intending to make some grand statement about influence and appropriation, or the art of fiction and lying, or sneaky spies, or whatever. I'm just not all that impressed. Congrats, you got your name in lights for a brief moment, and you fooled people who trusted you. Hats off, old man.
Another random thing: My editor had asked me, a few months ago, if I would read Markham's book and, if I liked it, if I might contribute a blurb. (Like "an amazing work from a writer to watch," a line which someone once wrote about a first novel and which countless blurbers have appropriated.) I've actually never given a blurb, and I wasn't sure the book would be my thing, but I said I'd take a look. I read the first chapter, didn't like it. I read a few more, as a favor to my editor, hoping it would get better. It didn't. After maybe 50 pages, I gave up, and sent my editor my regrets.
Of course, now it's coming to light that the book was not so much a cohesive novel as a series of stolen lines, woven together into something approximating a narrative. Maybe this is why I didn't like it, though I'd be lying if I said I felt there was something suspicious afoot.
A few of the stories about Markham have playfully noted that Publishers Weekly and Kirkus gave the book starred reviews, delighting in the fact that the publishing empire (whatever that is) could be so easily fooled. Others have wondered how the editor could have failed to notice the thefts, as if he should have possessed instant recall of spy thrillers he might have read as a teenager (which is when I myself last read a few Ian Fleming books).
No doubt some voices are already calling Markham a genius, a sly jester whose theft (and whose very brief period of Getting Away With It) exposed the flaws of big publishing and shined a spotlight on the notoriously muddy concept of artistic inspiration. We all borrow from each other, such voices say, and we all rip each other off. Right?
Yawn. I think it just proves that if someone in today's world wants to get a lot of attention for something other than hard work or artistic prowess, it isn't all that difficult. The rest of us will trudge along using our own words, thanks.
Go To Post
A few things to note: Markham and I have the same publisher and, in fact, the very same editor. I feel badly for my editor, not only because he's had to deal with this mess but also because some people will doubtless use this as yet another example of the inferiority of "traditional, legacy" publishers in a digital world, evidence that the gatekeepers of the publishing world are incompetent, etc etc.
Here's the deal: if you really want to pull one over on an editor, it isn't that hard. Editors have only so much time, and they spend that time doing things other than, say, Googling random phrases of a manuscript to see if they turn up any matches. We should not expect editors or publishers to play the role of high school English teachers looking for cheaters, mainly because we should not expect writers to act like 13 year-olds.
Another thing: Any writer with a "traditional, legacy" publisher signs these boring, analog things called legal contracts. The contract explains your royalty rate, what will happen if someone sues you for libel, what happens when your book is remaindered, and other fascinating tidbits of Inside Publishing. There also is a clause in which you, the writer, do solemnly swear that the work is entirely yours and does not contain passages taken from other writers.
If a writer wants to pull a fast one, fine, but you're breaking your contract. You're being a fraud. It's clear that there was some weird element of performance art with Markham, who published under an alias and even used stolen lines in his interviews. Perhaps he was intending to make some grand statement about influence and appropriation, or the art of fiction and lying, or sneaky spies, or whatever. I'm just not all that impressed. Congrats, you got your name in lights for a brief moment, and you fooled people who trusted you. Hats off, old man.
Another random thing: My editor had asked me, a few months ago, if I would read Markham's book and, if I liked it, if I might contribute a blurb. (Like "an amazing work from a writer to watch," a line which someone once wrote about a first novel and which countless blurbers have appropriated.) I've actually never given a blurb, and I wasn't sure the book would be my thing, but I said I'd take a look. I read the first chapter, didn't like it. I read a few more, as a favor to my editor, hoping it would get better. It didn't. After maybe 50 pages, I gave up, and sent my editor my regrets.
Of course, now it's coming to light that the book was not so much a cohesive novel as a series of stolen lines, woven together into something approximating a narrative. Maybe this is why I didn't like it, though I'd be lying if I said I felt there was something suspicious afoot.
A few of the stories about Markham have playfully noted that Publishers Weekly and Kirkus gave the book starred reviews, delighting in the fact that the publishing empire (whatever that is) could be so easily fooled. Others have wondered how the editor could have failed to notice the thefts, as if he should have possessed instant recall of spy thrillers he might have read as a teenager (which is when I myself last read a few Ian Fleming books).
No doubt some voices are already calling Markham a genius, a sly jester whose theft (and whose very brief period of Getting Away With It) exposed the flaws of big publishing and shined a spotlight on the notoriously muddy concept of artistic inspiration. We all borrow from each other, such voices say, and we all rip each other off. Right?
Yawn. I think it just proves that if someone in today's world wants to get a lot of attention for something other than hard work or artistic prowess, it isn't all that difficult. The rest of us will trudge along using our own words, thanks.
Go To Post
October 13, 2011
Send Me A Question on Goodreads!
Hey folks-
Goodreads.com has set up an author interview page for readers to post questions to yours truly. Have any questions on the writing process, or where I get my ideas, or why I do what I do? Or what the deal is with a certain mysterious character in my new book, or anything at all about the previous two? Don't be shy. Go to this page and post a question for me. I've been posting answers all week, and I'll answer any new ones on Monday.
And would someone please tell the sun to come back to Atlanta? Some of us are much, much better writers when it's sunny out. Thanks.
Go To Post
Goodreads.com has set up an author interview page for readers to post questions to yours truly. Have any questions on the writing process, or where I get my ideas, or why I do what I do? Or what the deal is with a certain mysterious character in my new book, or anything at all about the previous two? Don't be shy. Go to this page and post a question for me. I've been posting answers all week, and I'll answer any new ones on Monday.
And would someone please tell the sun to come back to Atlanta? Some of us are much, much better writers when it's sunny out. Thanks.
Go To Post
October 3, 2011
CNN.com interview
Maybe it's not the same as being interviewed on the air by Wolf Blitzer, but there's a new interview with yours truly now online at CNN.com.
Crazy month, as I'm off to talk to a college tomorrow about my first novel, which was assigned to their freshmen. Glad to hear that people are still reading it! I need to take off my Revisionists hat and put on my trusty old Last Town on Earth hat...
Go To Post
Crazy month, as I'm off to talk to a college tomorrow about my first novel, which was assigned to their freshmen. Glad to hear that people are still reading it! I need to take off my Revisionists hat and put on my trusty old Last Town on Earth hat...
Go To Post
September 29, 2011
Links to Stories and Interviews on The Revisionists' publication
Today's blog post is just a couple quick links to other sites that have posted new content about The Revisionists, which is now available at bookstores (yes, they exist) and various e-forms, or so I'm told.
For a new interview of yours truly by my friend and fellow novelist Jon Fasman (The Geographer's Library and The Dispossessed City), click here.
For an wonderful review of the book written by novelist Michael Koryta (So Cold The River and The Ridge), click here.
More soon!
Go To Post
For a new interview of yours truly by my friend and fellow novelist Jon Fasman (The Geographer's Library and The Dispossessed City), click here.
For an wonderful review of the book written by novelist Michael Koryta (So Cold The River and The Ridge), click here.
More soon!
Go To Post
September 23, 2011
Eavesdrop on the Characters from The Revisionists
Next Wednesday is officially the publication date for The Revisionists, though I hear that Amazon is already shipping it and some brick-and-mortar stores are already putting it on their shelves and tables. That gives you a hint into the oddity of the publication business. (Reviews are coming out too, including this one from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which calls the book "superb.")
Lots of new essays, posts, and random info will be appearing on my site over the next few weeks, and on the site of my publisher, Mulholland Books, so please check in regularly.
Already new to my site, if you click on the BOOKS link and then click on the new book (or just click here), you'll find a new author interview, touching on the various subjects of The Revisionists.
Now, I realize there may be some readers of my earlier two books who, upon hearing that the new one has a time traveler in it, get a bit turned off. Or they hear it called an espionage thriller and wonder if it's their thing. Trust me, it's not as odd as it sounds. Or maybe it is, but in a good way.
I thought that a better way of describing the book, rather than trying to figure out which genre to put it in or which adjective best fits, would be to simply let some of the characters speak for themselves. After all, especially in a book about post-9/11 paranoia about government surveillance and ubiquitous threats, what better way to learn about the characters than by eavesdropping on them?
So, read below (or click on this link) to hear from the characters in their own words:
Eavesdrop on the Characters from The Revisionists
Introducing the major players of The Revisionists, in their own words:
Republicans believe that the scariest thing in the world is an all-powerful, unfettered government crushing their freedom. Right? And Democrats believe that the scariest thing in the world is a group of all-powerful, unfettered corporations crushing their rights. What they don't want to admit is that the corporations and our government are completely intertwined: the modern corporatist state. (p. 206)
--T.J., bike messenger by day, freelance political activist and troublemaker by night. Lives with the constant awareness that he's being watched by powerful forces. Is right about that.
Here was what none of these peace activists wanted to admit, the thing they were simply too blind or angry or spoiled to realize: this life was the best it could possibly be. There were flaws, yes, and the world might not work for everyone all of the time, and innocent people occasionally suffered due to the callousness of fate or their fellow citizens, but what were the alternatives? What utopia were people like T.J. dreaming of when they railed against the minor problems of capitalism and democracy? Had they taken a look at the world around them? Didn't they realize how much better this was than any other country, any other system, any other way of life? Had they failed to notice that every time some mad dreamer took the reins of a country by revolution and promised his people a paradise on earth, he delivered the opposite?
What these loony activists didn't realize was that if they lived in almost any other country, they already would have been arrested, tortured, and discarded. (p. 279)
--LEO, former CIA agent, now monitoring peace activists and hackers for an "entrepreneurial intelligence contractor." Hates his job.
She remembered when she was younger, all the collegiate energy, the anger at the rotten world, the desire to remake it. Even the smallest decision--going vegetarian (for one year) to save a few hundred animals or boycotting clothing chains that used sweatshops--seemed to carry enormous moral weight. Years later, she still considered herself a politically engaged citizen, but full-grown adults who even mentioned sweatshops tended to sound like teenagers chanting slogans at a rock concert, and people who didn't eat meat were a bitch to plan around at dinner parties. Bringing up the plight of the oppressed sounded ridiculous when buying five-hundred-thousand-dollar row houses in what had recently been dilapidated neighborhoods.
Modern living made you choose between your morality and your desire to fit in, to not be a freak. But what if the freaks were right? (p.77)
--TASHA, corporate attorney, dealing with the loss of her brother in Iraq. Recently leaked sensitive documents about a war contractor to the press. About to get in a lot of trouble.
We help people filter information. Anyone can tap a phone, track an e-mail, but who can keep up with all that information? How do you differentiate the important shit from the unimportant shit without having ten thousand bored-to-tears analysts combing through meaningless babble, half ready to shoot themselves? When Orwell invented Big Brother, he must have imagined the guy was an amazingly fast reader with infinite patience. But he's not. My company invents the tools to filter things out, make it all intelligible, actionable. (p. 342)
--SENTRICK, former high-ranking officer with the National Security Agency, now head of a vaguely defined company called Enhanced Awareness.
Jakarta was my home. I grew up there. It felt safe to me, until one day it wasn't. That's the funny thing. Everyone knew we lived under a horrible tyrant--you weren't supposed to talk about it, but people would say things when they felt they could trust you. But then when the horrible tyrant finally stepped down, look what we did to each other. The riots. The burning. My mother. Maybe all those students and protesters were wrong. Maybe it was good to live under a dictator.
So now I work in Washington. I'm learning that everywhere is just as bad as everywhere else. My employer hates me just because I'm not Korean. In North Korea they hated her just because her husband said something good about South Korea, or something. And here in America they'll hate me because I'm not American. (p. 247)
--SARI, abused servant for shady foreign diplomats. Needs to escape, but they took her passport and she doesn't speak English. Working with Leo on a dangerous escape plan.
I protect the Events.
That's the most succinct way of putting it, and that's how my superiors at the Department first explained it to me. I used to know as little about these particular Events as anyone else did, but now I'm an expert on this era. I know why these people are fighting each other, why they hate those they hate, what they most fear. At least, that's what they told me in Training. Don't be intimidated, they said. You will know these people better than they know themselves. After all, how much do we truly know about what we're doing, and why, as we're actually doing it? It's only later, as we're looking back, that events fall into easily definable categories. Motive, desire, bias. Happenstance, randomness, intent. Cause and effect, ends and means. One thing this job has taught me is that when people are caught in the maddening swirl of time, they do what they need to do and invent their reasoning afterward. They exculpate themselves, claim they had no choice. They throw their hands up to the heavens or shrug that Events simply were what they were. They used to call it fate, or God, or Allah, though of course such talk is illegal now.
Now. I barely know what the word means anymore. (p. 6)
--ZED, time traveler, officer for the Department of Historical Integrity. Currently working in present-day Washington to ensure that a horrible disaster unfolds as dictated by history, in order to protect his perfect future society. Patiently watching all of the above characters. Hates his job.
Go To Post
Lots of new essays, posts, and random info will be appearing on my site over the next few weeks, and on the site of my publisher, Mulholland Books, so please check in regularly.
Already new to my site, if you click on the BOOKS link and then click on the new book (or just click here), you'll find a new author interview, touching on the various subjects of The Revisionists.
Now, I realize there may be some readers of my earlier two books who, upon hearing that the new one has a time traveler in it, get a bit turned off. Or they hear it called an espionage thriller and wonder if it's their thing. Trust me, it's not as odd as it sounds. Or maybe it is, but in a good way.
I thought that a better way of describing the book, rather than trying to figure out which genre to put it in or which adjective best fits, would be to simply let some of the characters speak for themselves. After all, especially in a book about post-9/11 paranoia about government surveillance and ubiquitous threats, what better way to learn about the characters than by eavesdropping on them?
So, read below (or click on this link) to hear from the characters in their own words:
Eavesdrop on the Characters from The Revisionists
Introducing the major players of The Revisionists, in their own words:
Republicans believe that the scariest thing in the world is an all-powerful, unfettered government crushing their freedom. Right? And Democrats believe that the scariest thing in the world is a group of all-powerful, unfettered corporations crushing their rights. What they don't want to admit is that the corporations and our government are completely intertwined: the modern corporatist state. (p. 206)
--T.J., bike messenger by day, freelance political activist and troublemaker by night. Lives with the constant awareness that he's being watched by powerful forces. Is right about that.
Here was what none of these peace activists wanted to admit, the thing they were simply too blind or angry or spoiled to realize: this life was the best it could possibly be. There were flaws, yes, and the world might not work for everyone all of the time, and innocent people occasionally suffered due to the callousness of fate or their fellow citizens, but what were the alternatives? What utopia were people like T.J. dreaming of when they railed against the minor problems of capitalism and democracy? Had they taken a look at the world around them? Didn't they realize how much better this was than any other country, any other system, any other way of life? Had they failed to notice that every time some mad dreamer took the reins of a country by revolution and promised his people a paradise on earth, he delivered the opposite?
What these loony activists didn't realize was that if they lived in almost any other country, they already would have been arrested, tortured, and discarded. (p. 279)
--LEO, former CIA agent, now monitoring peace activists and hackers for an "entrepreneurial intelligence contractor." Hates his job.
She remembered when she was younger, all the collegiate energy, the anger at the rotten world, the desire to remake it. Even the smallest decision--going vegetarian (for one year) to save a few hundred animals or boycotting clothing chains that used sweatshops--seemed to carry enormous moral weight. Years later, she still considered herself a politically engaged citizen, but full-grown adults who even mentioned sweatshops tended to sound like teenagers chanting slogans at a rock concert, and people who didn't eat meat were a bitch to plan around at dinner parties. Bringing up the plight of the oppressed sounded ridiculous when buying five-hundred-thousand-dollar row houses in what had recently been dilapidated neighborhoods.
Modern living made you choose between your morality and your desire to fit in, to not be a freak. But what if the freaks were right? (p.77)
--TASHA, corporate attorney, dealing with the loss of her brother in Iraq. Recently leaked sensitive documents about a war contractor to the press. About to get in a lot of trouble.
We help people filter information. Anyone can tap a phone, track an e-mail, but who can keep up with all that information? How do you differentiate the important shit from the unimportant shit without having ten thousand bored-to-tears analysts combing through meaningless babble, half ready to shoot themselves? When Orwell invented Big Brother, he must have imagined the guy was an amazingly fast reader with infinite patience. But he's not. My company invents the tools to filter things out, make it all intelligible, actionable. (p. 342)
--SENTRICK, former high-ranking officer with the National Security Agency, now head of a vaguely defined company called Enhanced Awareness.
Jakarta was my home. I grew up there. It felt safe to me, until one day it wasn't. That's the funny thing. Everyone knew we lived under a horrible tyrant--you weren't supposed to talk about it, but people would say things when they felt they could trust you. But then when the horrible tyrant finally stepped down, look what we did to each other. The riots. The burning. My mother. Maybe all those students and protesters were wrong. Maybe it was good to live under a dictator.
So now I work in Washington. I'm learning that everywhere is just as bad as everywhere else. My employer hates me just because I'm not Korean. In North Korea they hated her just because her husband said something good about South Korea, or something. And here in America they'll hate me because I'm not American. (p. 247)
--SARI, abused servant for shady foreign diplomats. Needs to escape, but they took her passport and she doesn't speak English. Working with Leo on a dangerous escape plan.
I protect the Events.
That's the most succinct way of putting it, and that's how my superiors at the Department first explained it to me. I used to know as little about these particular Events as anyone else did, but now I'm an expert on this era. I know why these people are fighting each other, why they hate those they hate, what they most fear. At least, that's what they told me in Training. Don't be intimidated, they said. You will know these people better than they know themselves. After all, how much do we truly know about what we're doing, and why, as we're actually doing it? It's only later, as we're looking back, that events fall into easily definable categories. Motive, desire, bias. Happenstance, randomness, intent. Cause and effect, ends and means. One thing this job has taught me is that when people are caught in the maddening swirl of time, they do what they need to do and invent their reasoning afterward. They exculpate themselves, claim they had no choice. They throw their hands up to the heavens or shrug that Events simply were what they were. They used to call it fate, or God, or Allah, though of course such talk is illegal now.
Now. I barely know what the word means anymore. (p. 6)
--ZED, time traveler, officer for the Department of Historical Integrity. Currently working in present-day Washington to ensure that a horrible disaster unfolds as dictated by history, in order to protect his perfect future society. Patiently watching all of the above characters. Hates his job.
Go To Post
September 22, 2011
How To Not Be Considered Spam
I feel terrible about this, but I just realized that people who have been sending me emails via my web site (to say nice things to me about my book or to ask if I am in fact the same Thomas Mullen that they grew up with in Rhode Island) have not been getting replies from me, all due to an overactive Spam filter.
So: if you have sent me an email over the last 6 months or so, and I never responded, please don't hate me! (Unless you already hated me, and your email was expressly designed to describe your hatred, in which case, you may skip the rest of this, and also, why are you reading my blog?) Write me back, and this time I promise to reply!
I really do reply to every email that I actually receive. (How do you email me? See that small, envelope-shaped icon in the upper-right hand corner? Click on it! And fill out the info, and write your message. I'll read it! I promise! Unless, see below.)
It turns out that my Gmail account was placing in my Spam folder a lot of emails that weren't Spam but were in fact very kind emails from readers. I don't know why this is. These particular emails had nothing Spammish about them, yet Google considered them spam, and quarantined them accordingly. I just realized it this week, when I thought to myself, "hey, I haven't received any emails from my web site in a while," and then I went digging into the Spam folder, and there mixed among the actual Spam were some real emails from real people who wanted to talk literature. I feel badly that they were sitting there, unresponded to and forlorn among the Viagra ads and weird Cyrillic messages, but even worse is the fact that any month-old emails in that folder are autodeleted. Which means that, over the 6 or so months since I switched to Gmail, there have no doubt been other real emails that were misplaced in the Spam folder, and I never got them, and then they got deleted.
So, again, if you wrote me once and I never responded, it's not because I'm a jerk or too busy. I am indeed busy, though not a jerk, and despite my busyness I do find the time to write back. So write me again, and I'll reply. Really.
BUT, to make sure your message isn't wrongfully put in the Spam folder, please follow these handy email-writing tips:
-Do not mention any of your favorite pharmaceuticals and the wonders that they've worked for your sex life. Such messages will certainly be considered Spam.
-Try not to write your email using Cyrillic characters. Google seems to have a strong anti-Cyrillic bias. I myself don't share this -- I think the Cyrllians are a fine people, and their nation a just one -- but that' s just how it is.
-Avoiding use words such as "nude" or "lusty" or "hot Asian chicks" anywhere in your message. I know this is difficult, as my novels are chock full of them, but still, they do tend to set off the Spam guards.
-Keep your comments to my books, or books in general, and leave out anything about the foreign bank that contains hundreds of thousands of dollars and can be accessed if only I could wire you a few hundred first. Oddly, these too are considered Spam.
-Do not write to me about YouTube and the horrible things you've allegedly seen me doing on YouTube. It just isn't true, and is considered Spam.
Thanks, and sorry again, and I look forward to reading your emails!
*This message brought to you by The Revisionists, an amazing novel that actually comes out next week. More info and blatant self-promotion to come!
Go To Post
So: if you have sent me an email over the last 6 months or so, and I never responded, please don't hate me! (Unless you already hated me, and your email was expressly designed to describe your hatred, in which case, you may skip the rest of this, and also, why are you reading my blog?) Write me back, and this time I promise to reply!
I really do reply to every email that I actually receive. (How do you email me? See that small, envelope-shaped icon in the upper-right hand corner? Click on it! And fill out the info, and write your message. I'll read it! I promise! Unless, see below.)
It turns out that my Gmail account was placing in my Spam folder a lot of emails that weren't Spam but were in fact very kind emails from readers. I don't know why this is. These particular emails had nothing Spammish about them, yet Google considered them spam, and quarantined them accordingly. I just realized it this week, when I thought to myself, "hey, I haven't received any emails from my web site in a while," and then I went digging into the Spam folder, and there mixed among the actual Spam were some real emails from real people who wanted to talk literature. I feel badly that they were sitting there, unresponded to and forlorn among the Viagra ads and weird Cyrillic messages, but even worse is the fact that any month-old emails in that folder are autodeleted. Which means that, over the 6 or so months since I switched to Gmail, there have no doubt been other real emails that were misplaced in the Spam folder, and I never got them, and then they got deleted.
So, again, if you wrote me once and I never responded, it's not because I'm a jerk or too busy. I am indeed busy, though not a jerk, and despite my busyness I do find the time to write back. So write me again, and I'll reply. Really.
BUT, to make sure your message isn't wrongfully put in the Spam folder, please follow these handy email-writing tips:
-Do not mention any of your favorite pharmaceuticals and the wonders that they've worked for your sex life. Such messages will certainly be considered Spam.
-Try not to write your email using Cyrillic characters. Google seems to have a strong anti-Cyrillic bias. I myself don't share this -- I think the Cyrllians are a fine people, and their nation a just one -- but that' s just how it is.
-Avoiding use words such as "nude" or "lusty" or "hot Asian chicks" anywhere in your message. I know this is difficult, as my novels are chock full of them, but still, they do tend to set off the Spam guards.
-Keep your comments to my books, or books in general, and leave out anything about the foreign bank that contains hundreds of thousands of dollars and can be accessed if only I could wire you a few hundred first. Oddly, these too are considered Spam.
-Do not write to me about YouTube and the horrible things you've allegedly seen me doing on YouTube. It just isn't true, and is considered Spam.
Thanks, and sorry again, and I look forward to reading your emails!
*This message brought to you by The Revisionists, an amazing novel that actually comes out next week. More info and blatant self-promotion to come!
Go To Post
September 15, 2011
Anatomy of a Tree Removal
I'm sitting here in my home office, trying to write, and watching the tree-removal men slowly cut up and remove a dead oak from my front yard. Very sad day -- mine is one of five newish houses on this block, and apparently the construction of the new houses killed the roots of some of the great oaks and elms that line our street. As a result, this one block has lost at least half a dozen big, big trees in the past two years. Most neighborhoods here have a great Southern canopy of leaves in the spring and summer and fall, but ours is slowly being denuded. We've planted a few new trees since moving here, but by the time they're big enough to shade me I'll be a very, very old man.
Also thinking: Wow, I wish I'd kept my sons home from school so they could watch this. A wood-chipping truck, a elevated-lift crane, a skid steer, and chainsaws! My one-year-old especially would be in toddler heaven right now.
And: in this age of ascendant e-books, I can't help wondering how much pulp this one dead tree has in it, and how many pages of an actual real non-electronic book that equates to. How many pages have I written while under the shadow of this particular tree in the last three years? Will reading e-books actually save trees, or just kill West Virginia mountains, since e-book readers aren't exactly solar powered?
And: How cool must it feel to be fifty feet high, in a small bucket lift, wielding a chainsaw? Or how terrifying?
(On cue, here comes one of my neighbors with his two-year-old son to watch as the remainder of the now branchless tree is slowly lopped off.)
And: wow, I hope none of that lands on my house. I trust that these guys know what they're doing. They're insured. I'm insured. It's all good, right?
And while on the subject of dead trees: Just yesterday I received my box of hardcovers of The Revisionists! It's a real book, and it's officially coming out in less than two weeks! I've had some softcover, non-proofed galleys for a few months now, but nothing beats seeing the real hardcover. (Sorry to sound old-school and pro-real-book, but there, I've revealed my partisan preference.) I'm very excited to share The Revisionists with the world, and I'm glad that it's already receiving some good reviews, with rumors of more to follow. On the week of publication, my publisher's web site, mulhollandbooks.com, will post daily interviews, reviews, and essays by or about myself and the book, so be sure to check there starting Monday, Sept. 26. Good stuff coming soon.
I just realized that the second-to-last chapter of the book has a character contemplating an oak tree in her own front yard. I was unaware of that significance a few minutes ago, honestly.
Sawdust is now thick in the air outside my window. The tree is about three-quarters the height it was when I started this. Being a tree-removal-expert still appears exceedingly dangerous, but so far they're all still alive.
Go To Post
Also thinking: Wow, I wish I'd kept my sons home from school so they could watch this. A wood-chipping truck, a elevated-lift crane, a skid steer, and chainsaws! My one-year-old especially would be in toddler heaven right now.
And: in this age of ascendant e-books, I can't help wondering how much pulp this one dead tree has in it, and how many pages of an actual real non-electronic book that equates to. How many pages have I written while under the shadow of this particular tree in the last three years? Will reading e-books actually save trees, or just kill West Virginia mountains, since e-book readers aren't exactly solar powered?
And: How cool must it feel to be fifty feet high, in a small bucket lift, wielding a chainsaw? Or how terrifying?
(On cue, here comes one of my neighbors with his two-year-old son to watch as the remainder of the now branchless tree is slowly lopped off.)
And: wow, I hope none of that lands on my house. I trust that these guys know what they're doing. They're insured. I'm insured. It's all good, right?
And while on the subject of dead trees: Just yesterday I received my box of hardcovers of The Revisionists! It's a real book, and it's officially coming out in less than two weeks! I've had some softcover, non-proofed galleys for a few months now, but nothing beats seeing the real hardcover. (Sorry to sound old-school and pro-real-book, but there, I've revealed my partisan preference.) I'm very excited to share The Revisionists with the world, and I'm glad that it's already receiving some good reviews, with rumors of more to follow. On the week of publication, my publisher's web site, mulhollandbooks.com, will post daily interviews, reviews, and essays by or about myself and the book, so be sure to check there starting Monday, Sept. 26. Good stuff coming soon.
I just realized that the second-to-last chapter of the book has a character contemplating an oak tree in her own front yard. I was unaware of that significance a few minutes ago, honestly.
Sawdust is now thick in the air outside my window. The tree is about three-quarters the height it was when I started this. Being a tree-removal-expert still appears exceedingly dangerous, but so far they're all still alive.
Go To Post
