Kenneth Atchity's Blog, page 203

Guest Post: Why Having a Platform May be the Only Way to Sell Books by Penny C. Sansevieri

Some years back, the industry starting tossing out the word "platform" like confetti during Mardi Gras. Everyone was using the phrase and it quickly became the word du jour. Publishers wanted authors with platform. Books by authors with a platform were easier to sell to their market and therefore, easier to promote. Problem was, everyone was using it (platform( and no one was defining it. During the first twelve months that word really hit everyone's radar I got endless questions from authors about what a platform was. No one really understood it or why they needed it.

Truth was, five or ten years ago a platform was only good if you were a high-profile non-fiction author. Fiction authors relied on their genre, their readers, and hopefully, their reviews. But having a platform was also a tricky thing because what it consisted of varied from genre to genre and was also often left to a publisher's discretion. None of it was terribly objective. Publishers, who were particularly keen on an author platform, would often select books to publish based on certain criteria but that criteria, and what their "must haves" were when it came to an author platform, were undefined and ever-changing.
Cycle forward now seven years or so. Everything has changed. Publishers are no longer gatekeepers of publishing and hence, no longer the main entity to define a platform. Now, however, other challenges emerge.

Not only do we live in a world where anyone can publish but we also live in a world where even if you can't write a book (or don't have time) you can hire someone to write it for you - and voila: suddenly you're a published author. There is an inherent problem with this model which is this: in order to gain any kind of attention for your book, you're going to have to have a platform.

I see this on author calls all the time. I often get authors who come to me with books they've written or had ghosted and they have zero momentum online. Meaning little or no blogging, very little in social media, and in some cases, no website. Now, don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with writing a book, having one ghost-written, or publishing a book if you're a platform virgin. But you must realize that not having a platform will present you as a newbie, to a certain degree, even if you've been in your market for dozens of years.

For fiction authors it's the same thing. The fiction market often relies on reviews either from professional reviewers or from readers. With the flood of books hitting the market that's become a tougher road. But if you have fans built up (yes, fans are considered a platform) and you're active on your website and in some form of social media, you're years ahead of most authors hitting the market.

So, let's break this down for you. What does it really take to build a platform? Surprisingly, not much. We often want to make a task harder than it needs to be. Truth is, 80% of the authors I either meet at events, speak to over the phone, or write me personally are just lost when it comes to this area. So lost in fact that most of them just do nothing. Feel like you belong to this crowd? You're in good company. Lack of understanding often brings inaction or, in some cases, the wrong action.

What is a platform, really? To break this down, a platform is not who you know but who knows you. When you think of it this way you'll understand that a platform is really a series of actions that get you in front of your reader. To use another analogy they are the legs of the table you stand on that raises you above the crowd. What will your "legs" be? But wait. If you run ads are they considered "legs"? Well, no. While I can't comment on the effectiveness of ads for your particular market, I do know that consumers don't favor them. They do, however, favor organic activities. What's organic? It's when a reader finds your content naturally. When it's not pushed on them in the form of an ad. Organic could be a blog post you wrote, your social media, guest blogging you've done, etc. Consider these:

Social Media: Of course I was going to start here because it's the easiest and simplest way to reach your reader. Well, ok, maybe for some it's not. Social media requires work but most authors misunderstand what I mean by "work." It doesn't mean you need to work every social media platform out there. It means you need to find the one (or several) that you feel best serve your market and use them consistently. By consistently I mean daily. Post one thing, engage and move on. If you can spend hours noodling with social media that's great, but if you can't, do a few really effective things and move on. Being productive and busy aren't the same things. If you spend two hours on Facebook cycling through your friend feeds without posting or commenting (maybe you hit Like) you've just wasted two valuable hours of marketing time. Social media doesn't always require the kind of time you think. More isn't better, it's just more.

Blogging: Here's another, often misunderstood marketing tool. Blogging is (or it can be) the single best way to grow your platform. Why? Because it's your voice and your expertise on your site. Do you need to blog daily? If you can, that's great. If you can't, that's fine, too. Blog twice a week. The problem I see with people trying to throw a lot of content out there just for the sake of pushing content is that most of it is garbage. Have you noticed this recent trend? Lots of people writing lots of stuff, but much of it isn't worth your time. Don't be one of those people. When it comes to blogging, less can be more. If you're writing something that's incredibly helpful, insightful, or engaging but you feel you can only do that twice a week, that's fine. Frankly, I'd rather see one thing that totally inspires me, rather than 10 things that don't. For fiction authors, don't cop out on this, either. You can write in character if you want, give away snippets of your book, discuss some unique ways to do book research or talk about the publishing industry because so many of your readers may be writers, too.

Goodreads/Library Thing: It's becoming more apparent that the way to find readers is to go to where they are. These two sites have millions of readers and in an upcoming piece I'm going to write about how to work these platforms to your advantage. Though know this, much like social media you should be on there daily if you can be, or a few times a week if that's not possible.

Speaking/events: We all know that bookstores are shrinking and so is event space, but if you want to do speaking it's a fantastic way to draw in an audience. If you aren't on the speaking circuit and don't know places where you can do events or talks consider some unique sites. I've written a lot about author events in non-bookstore venues such as Hallmark or card stores, restaurants, kitchen or cooking stores, grocery stores or markets, gyms, gift shops, etc. If you have a book that ties into one of these areas, or perhaps one I didn't mention consider going after them for an event. Likely they've never done a book event in their store so you'll have to educate them. Offer to bring your own books (selling on consignment often works well in these venues) and if doing a talk isn't in the cards because of store traffic, consider just getting a table and signing books. But, in either case, bring your mailing list sign-up sheet and encourage folks to give you their email address. Offer them something as an incentive to sign up. I never, ever, ever do a single signing or speaking event without bringing a sign-up sheet and giving folks something for free to encourage getting an email.

Website/mailing list: Everyone who writes a book needs a website. Period, end of story. If you think your book will sell well without one, you are mistaken. And look, I know that when you publish it seems that everywhere you turn someone has got their hand out for money. Yes, if you hire good people to do great work for you it will cost you money. But that's really the ticket: hire good people to do great work. Your website doesn't have to be this mega-fantastic site but it should be well-designed (read: please don't design your own site, create your own book cover or cut your own hair. I've done all three and it wasn't pretty). You should have a mailing list sign-up. I know you may have a million reasons why you don't want one but I'll give you one major reason why you should: Platform. When you capture emails you are making your website work for you. It not only becomes your 24/7 sales tool but your re-marketing tool. Our newsletter (which we've had for years) has become one of our #1 ways to market. We get in front of our reader every two weeks with helpful, insightful information and they remember us. How will you get your reader to remember you?

Blockbuster world: I've written pretty extensively on why I feel we need bookstores and why I don't want them to close but the biggest reason I think bookstores are important is that we don't want to live in a blockbuster-only world. Imagine what it would be like if the only bookstores were in Wal-Mart, Target and airports. What would that mean for your book? Well, likely it would mean that if you weren't a blockbuster, your book would never be on any of these shelves. You may argue that even with stores your book isn't on any shelves. That's true for a lot of us, and even with Barnes & Noble and a lot of independents it's hard to find a home for your book on a bookstore shelf. This is why platform is even more crucial. Consumers are driven by big names and those big names are driven by their platform, in some cases their readers. Consider the success of certain books from unknown authors that were entirely reader-driven. Welcome to the new world of the blockbuster. Reader engagement is crucial - now more than ever you must engage with your reader. You can do that via your blog, on social media sites, in places like Library Thing and Goodreads and via speaking events and your mailing list. Readers are gold, they are your platform.

Now it's very likely that you read through this piece and thought, "my reader isn't in any of these places." I'd be surprised if that was true but if you are sitting in a very niche market or have devised other ways to get in front of your reader and grow your platform, then good for you (and please share these in the comments section of this article)

The point is that developing your platform is a fancy way of saying: "Get in front of your reader as often as you can." Figure out how to reach your individual reader, and you've now figured out how to build your platform. In an age where everyone can publish (and it would seem that everyone is) the thing that will define you and separate your message from the noise will be your platform. Without it, yours may be the best book that no one has ever read.

Write: Quotes Available on Amazon

Memorable Words from Writers and Other Creators

This serendipitous collection of quotes spans inspiration, the creative process; the imagination; language and style; wit and entertainment; and what writers have to say about success, failure, editors, critics, readers, and audiences. An indispensable addition to your writer's book shelf.

MERCHANDISING YOUR STORY

In today's competitive creative marketplace, the reality of selling your story--whether it is fiction or direct from life--takes more than just writing it down and waiting for someone to notice your genius. It takes a fully dedicated approach, a savvy business mind, and, more than anything, understanding exactly how the business you are trying to break into works. The fantasy of waking up one day and suddenly being on the best-seller list is unfortunately not the reality. Dan Brown was virtually an unknown until The Da Vinci Code, and now his earlier works are finding themselves on best-seller lists too. With a little luck, and a lot of hard work, you too can be a successful story merchant--someone who's not only a good storyteller, but also believes in his or her story enough to make sure it finds its market.

The starting point to success is how you think about your story from its inception. At Story Merchant (www.storymerchant.com), Atchity Entertainment (www.aeionline.com), and The Writer's Lifeline (www.thewriterslifeline.com), we think of our clients as storytellers, not as novelists or screenwriters. The biggest mistake many writers make is thinking of themselves as only a novelist, only a game inventor, only a comic book writer, only a screenwriter for film or TV. While of course it's not a poor choice to dedicate your time and your craft to the medium you are currently most adept at, our most successful storytellers hone their skill set and learn to write in all formats, or for all formats. This means crafting a story with a high concept that is adaptable to all media. A high concept is a one-line pitch that describes your story (prehistoric mega-shark terrorizes California coast - Steve Alten's Meg [book trilogy, screenplay, videogame]).

The ability to wear both hats means more success for you in this business. AEI client John Scott Shepherd wrote the screenplays for the films Joe Somebody and Life or Something Like it, which AEI produced for Fox. He's also found success in the publishing industry with his novels The Dead Father's Guide to Sex & Marriage (Pocket Books), and Henry's List of Wrongs (Rugged Land), optioned by New Line Cinema. In addition, Shepherd's television series meet with critical success. Just like any of the most passionately successful storytellers, John learned there's more than one way to tell stories. You can learn that too.

The second key is to think of your story, and yourself, as a brand that is sellable to New York and Hollywood. A brand is a product that is a household name, like Levi's or Windex, except in this case we're talking about Steven King and Steven Spielberg, James Michael Pratt ("the master of moral fiction"), Noire (“the queen of urban erotica”), or Governor Jesse Ventura (I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed, Do I Stand Alone?). When you hear the name Steven King, you know it’s about horror and suspense. You must think about yourself as a writer and the expectations of your readers in this same way. What is your brand? What are you selling to the public? Are you the person who writes those fantastic historical romances? The person who writes the mysteries centering around one character (a la Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series) or the person who creates surreal fantasy for the big screen like Tim Burton? Also don’t forget to study market trends and see what’s hot right now. Aspiring book writers, fiction or nonfiction, especially should be aware that women make up seventy percent of the book buyers.

While the writing itself is the first step, the next step is being collaborative--taking notes from people who are familiar with the marketplace, and being able to improve your work; the final step is promotion and publicity. There are numerous things writers can do to spread the word and garner media attention for their product. Successful publicity can lead to brand name status:

• Securing a well-connected agent or manager is key, as they know who to talk to and how to spread your name in the industry.


• Hire a publicist. They can help you land radio or TV spots, get you interviewed in newspapers or magazines, coordinate book signings, and much more.


• Do you have something educational to share? The Learning Annex is always looking for new teachers. This avenue is a great way to share your knowledge and contribute to the world. There are Learning Annex locations in many cities across the U.S., and their bi-monthly catalog (a good place for ads!) reaches 2 million people.


• Come up with a marketing scheme. Start a website! Get your link sponsored on other websites. Write emails! Send an email to friends, family and co-workers about your product, and ask them to pass it along to everyone they know. You'll be amazed how fast word of mouth spreads!


Remember, even Shakespeare had to schmooze Queen Elizabeth to get support for his plays, and the ancient playwrights Aristophanes, Sophocles, and Euripides had to raise money each year to mount their plays competitively in the Great Athenian Festival. It takes serious effort and business savvy to thrive in this business of taking stories to market.

Above all, you must believe in your story. Romantic notions must fly out the window if you have any desire to succeed in this business. As much as writing is a solitary exercise, the business is a collaborative enterprise, and writers must be prepared to take constructive criticism, re-work plot lines, develop and adapt their tale to fit the needs of the marketplace. Remember, you are not just a writer, you are a Story Merchant.


__________________
With more than forty years’ experience in the publishing world, and over ten years in entertainment, Story Merchant Ken Atchity is a writer, producer, teacher, writing career coach, and literary manager, responsible for launching dozens of books and films. Based on his own teaching and writing experience, he has successfully built bestselling careers for novelists, nonfiction writers, and screenwriters from the ground up.

SEVEN WAYS TO DIE BOOK TRAILER

Seven Ways to Die

by William Diehl, Kenneth Atchity

Manhattan murders--by the book.

Kenneth Atchity and Author Larry Thompson Host a Panel Discussion on Legacy vs Direct Publishing at ThrillerFest 2013

Demossa Gallery Presents Kathryn Jacobi’s “Organic Fractiles,” July 21 – October 20

Read Press Release Here

 



















Demossa
Gallery . 949.500.2107. art@demossagallery.com . demossagallery.com




KATHRYN
JACOBI: ORGANIC FRACTILES




“I
saw a friend’s first drawings on scratchboard. I was immediately intrigued.
Drawing with an etching needle or special sharp, spade-shaped nib to scratch
white lines through a prepared ink surface over a clay ground, I found a
medium that was highly satisfying. It gave me the advantage of a full range
of tonality between dark and light values, while still using a tool that felt
comfortable and totally natural.

In
these drawings, I can move the tool over the surface just a small distance,
with the movement of my hand anchored in one place by my wrist. I move the
stylus in short, parallel lines, which usually forms a curved plane. At the
end of each series of strokes, I move my hand and continue, building up the
volumes and directions slowly, deliberately, and yet without a preconceived
plan of how the drawing will emerge. I find this practice exciting in its
abstraction, whereas my other modalities of work are almost always figurative
and determined. These abstractions have a definite pattern of emergence. The
forms are almost always organic, and mimic the process of creating fractals
on a computer. Each form becomes a variable that is added to and developed to
become part of a much more complex whole.”

Kathryn
Jacobi is a classically trained contemporary realist painter, printmaker, and
photographer who has been exhibiting in galleries and museums throughout the
United States, Canada, and Europe.

Kathryn
was born in Manhattan, New York. She attended UCLA, UC Berkeley, and
California State University Northridge, where she received her BA and her MA.
Kathryn presently lives in Santa Monica and has a studio in Los Angeles.








Exhibition
Details

 See
the online exhibition at Demossa
Gallery

July 21 – October 20, 2013

For more information,
please contact ART@DEMOSSAGALLERY.COM

Yoga Gives Back "Thank You Mother India" Malibu Fundraiser - September 21, 2013

Story Merchant Books Snowblind Five-day Free Giveaway 7/29-8/2!!

There is a wolf in me... fangs
pointed for tearing gashes... a red tongue for raw meat... and the hot lapping
of blood — I keep the wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the
wilderness will not let it go.

from
WILDERNESS by Carl Sandburg




PROLOGUE

His mother saw him staring and
turned her eyes away.

He
could see she was afraid. Afraid of his hunger. Afraid of the wrath of the
silver-bearded Father.

The
night wind howled over the sod roof, moaned at the icy window. Three days had
passed, and still the old man had not returned. They feared, again, he would
come back with nothing. The traps had been covered in snow. They had no bait
left — they had eaten everything.

On
the table the sacred candle burned brightly. The candle could only be burned
when the Book was being read. This was a Law of the Father. The Law could not
be broken.

The
eight-year-old boy read the Book aloud:

"What
are human beings, that you make so much of them, that you set your mind on
them, visit them every morning, test them every moment?"

The
boy paused, gazed at the candle's dancing flame. The Father had said the words
of the Book would fill his empty belly. If he did not learn them, he would not
eat.

In
his mind he repeated the words he had read. What are human beings...

He
looked down at his mother. She sat on the caribou rug, on the dirt floor, in
the light of the flickering flame. Her dark skin glowed warmly, her hair hung
black as night.

How
could her belly grow so large when they had no food to eat?

The
Father had taken her from an Inupiat village, on an island in the Arctic sea.
She had long ago learned the language of the Book, but when the Father was out
on the hunt, she would speak to herself in a tongue the boy did not understand.
When he questioned her, she would point to the scar on her face, the scar from
the Father's knife.

The
boy was not allowed to know her words. The Book would tell him everything. The
Book was all he would need.

He
turned a page and read another passage.

"A
mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble, comes up like a flower
and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last. Do you fix your eyes on
such a one? Do you bring me into judgment with you?"

He
paused again, gazed absently at the flame, his lips moving in silence. Still
the hunger gnawed.

He
looked again at his mother. She was stringing tiny blue snail shells on stiff
threads of sinew. The shells would adorn the sackcloth doll that rested on her
lap, a family heirloom whose ivory head had lost its amber eyes.

She
noticed the boy staring. Again she looked away.

His
hunger had turned on itself, clawing in his belly like a ravening wolf. He fed
the wolf the words of the Book.

"Why
is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who longs for
death but it does not come, and digs for it more than for hidden treasures, who
rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave?"

The
boy stopped reading. He closed the Book. His pulse pounded, his hands trembled.
The wolf would not be sated.

He
stared until his mother finally looked at him.

For
a long moment she peered into his eyes. Then she rose to her feet, holding her
swollen belly, and went to the window. Out in the cold night, wind-blown ghosts
of snow whirled over moonlit tundra.

Surely
he would not return tonight.

She
walked to the table, leaned over and blew out the candle. The sod house fell
into darkness.

The
boy waited anxiously.

His
mother's hands were always warm. Even in the cold she wore no gloves. She held
his face tenderly, then took his trembling hand and led him through the
darkness of the room.

Faint
gray moonlight fell across the bearskin bed. His mother lay on her side and
pulled him down to her, speaking the strange, forbidden words.

She
opened her dress, lifted out a pale, pendulous breast. His hands groped
hungrily. He pressed his wet mouth to the dark aureole, his strong teeth
seizing the nipple. The boy sucked ravenously. Soon, warm gorging milk flowed
forth, bathing his tongue, filling his mouth, seeping out over his chin. He
sucked the breast and lapped the milk, and held her body tight.

Minutes
swiftly passed, the boy's hunger unrelenting. At last he pulled away, panting,
his open mouth dripping spittle. Slowly, his languid eyes opened.

He
froze, gaping into the morbid light of the moon.

"What
is it, Job?" his mother asked. She turned to the icy window.

Outside,
in the darkness, the Father stood staring, his starving eyes glaring like a
wolf.




1.

Sunlight flared off the glistening snow,
blinding her path to the turn. For a flashing moment, fourteen-year-old Kris
Carlson couldn't see the flag. She cut too late, displacing snow instead of
arcing the curve, and for a few frightening seconds lost her balance, nearly
spilling over the icy curl. She recovered quickly into the flat, her new
stiffer skis gaining speed and stability for the run into the next turn. With
luck, she'd pick up the lost seconds in the final sprint. She'd have to. Six
points behind the fifteen-year-old downhill leader, Claudia Lund, she couldn't
afford another mistake.

The
next turn, even tighter than the last, glittered with surface ice, sheered to a
sheen. Kris leaned deep into the arc, adjusting her radius in the middle of the
turn with a subtle twist of her ankles. Her shoulder banged the flagpole as she
cleared the twist, hopping into a quick series of steep moguls, her knees
bobbing like a set of springs.

Final
turn. She knew this one, she'd skied it in her mind a hundred times. She heard
her father's voice: "Load the tail, skid the shovel." There was a
fine line between going all out and not making any mistakes. It was a line
she'd have to cross. She banked full speed into the long turn, loading up her
tail, building critical power for the final sprint.

Kris
shot out of the turn at record speed. The crowd roared — she had it locked.
Soaring into the final run, she hugged her knees and schussed for the finish.

A
grin grew across her face. Her dad would be at the bottom. He was always there,
waiting for her.

She
wanted nothing more than to make him smile.

*  *  *

The old moose trickled a bright red
trail of blood in the snow. Hunks of flesh had been torn from its body, its
matted fur glistened with sweat. It lumbered into the narrow ravine, tottering,
weaving, out of breath, stopping at last at the frozen bank of the surging
Sawtooth River.

Ice
floes churned and heaved in the current with a roar like muffled thunder. The
moose drew a kind of power from the sound, the vibrations rising up through the
animal's trembling limbs. The surge of strength suffused its body, steeling the
beast for battle. The regal moose raised its crown and turned to face the
wolves.

Loping
lightly over the shelf ice at the shore, the five silver, silken hunters
quickly circled their prey. They snarled, salivating, growling guttural and
wild. The moose whirled, stumbling, its labored breath trailing dragon clouds
of fog. They had circled before, and the bull had escaped. Now they were
closing in for the kill.

The
dark-eyed lead wolf lunged, tearing a gash in the great beast's rump. Another
seized its leg, its razor fangs cutting deep. The moose groaned and scooped its
towering head, impaling the animal in its tangled rack. The wolf yelped,
staggered back. The moose charged, stomping, its pounding hooves crushing the
cowering wolf's ribs.

The
pack backed off. The wolf was dead. The moose trotted off up the frozen shore.

Snow
fell softly in the windless ravine. Ahead, high above the rumbling Sawtooth, a
black wooden bridge spanned the gorge. The moose clambered up the craggy slope
as the wolves resumed their hunt.

*  *  *

Kris was traveling with her father
and her seven-year-old brother, Paul, in her father's red Chevy pick-up, coming
down through the mountains from Garrison Pass. Her new skis rattled in the bed
of the truck. Kris had kept on her lilac snowsuit, zippered to the neck; her
black hair hung straight to her shoulders, her bright blue eyes were smiling.
She had won the Women's Junior Downhill race, first place in the girls'
twelve-to-fifteen year age bracket, setting a personal best on the half-mile
course down the north slope of Dome Mountain. The ski resort, on the edge of
the Alaska Range, fifty miles from their home in Healy, always held the first
downhill races of the Spring season. Kris was already looking forward to the
next. She had her eye on the Alaska Alpine Championships.

"Dad?
Do you think Mom will come to the Winterhaven trials?"

Her
father studied the oncoming road through the falling veil of snow. "She
won't want to miss it, Sweety. Not after we show her what you won today."

Paul
sat between them, twisting the trophy in his small hands, trying to unscrew the
tiny gold skier from the mount.

"Pauly!"
cried Kris, pulling the trophy away from him.

"It's
a boy, it's not a girl," he said.

Kris
examined the figure. "You can't tell," she said.

"I
can tell," said Paul.

Kris
ruffled his hair with her hand. He grabbed her wrist, pretended to bite it,
growling. Kris tickled him.

"No
no no!" he shouted, squealing with laughter.

Kris
turned back to the road, a smile on her face. A black bridge appeared through
the falling snow.




2.

"The 'woo' bridge!" Kris
exclaimed.

"'Woo'
bridge!" echoed Pauly.

The
truck rolled onto the bridge, and a resonant "woo" sound rose up from
the tires. All three passengers grinned, staring into the white wall of snow as
the deep bellow of the bridge filled their ears.

Then
the blood drained from their faces.

The
colossal moose came charging out of the whiteness directly toward them. Kris's
father instinctively slammed the brakes and pulled the wheel. The truck
careened across the bridge, just missing the bloody, frothing bull, sliding
past it through a madhouse of leaping wolves. He hammered the brake, but the
ice had them. They continued to slide, smashing through the guardrail and out
over the gorge.

Kris
screamed, a high shrill scream of unblinking terror, as they dropped through
the air toward the river of ice.

The
truck pierced the tumbling floes with a bone-crunching jolt. Kris's head
bounced against the dash, her body flung wildly as the seatbelt grabbed. She
glimpsed her father's bloody, vacant face as the truck plunged headlong into
the frigid water. They plummeted swiftly, sinking in the current, the cab
raging with the inflowing torrent.

Paul
screamed and gurgled as the water engulfed him. Her father tossed about, limp
and unconscious. Kris tore at her seatbelt. The water rose quickly to her
chest, neck, chin, mouth —

She
was underwater, the truck tumbling in the current. The snowsuit miraculously
kept her from freezing. Feeling blindly, she found the buckle, unlatched her
seatbelt. Pauly clawed at her side. She opened her eyes to see him, and the
frozen water clamped her eyeballs with icy talons. She saw her brother
thrashing in the glacial murk. She reached for him, fought to undo his
seatbelt. Her eyes went gelid, seared with the cold. She undid the belt, then
turned, grabbed for the door handle. The door was jammed. She yanked on the
lever, it wouldn't budge. The window crank, too, was stuck. The door had been
crushed when they'd broken through the rail.

Kris's
lungs burned. Her vision darkened.

Out
of the dark came a glimmer of gold. She grabbed the trophy, slammed it against
her window. Once. Twice. The third time the window shattered. She scrambled out
quickly, shards of glass tearing her snowsuit, frozen fingers of water gripping
her. She reached back through the window for Paul.

He
was gone.

She
peered into the murk, her eyes stinging, the icy water clawing her corneas.
Groping wildly, she could not reach her brother.

Kris
was out of breath.

She
pushed away from the truck, pulled frantically for the surface, ramming hard
into a ceiling of ice. Unable to see, she groped along, feeling for a gap. Her
hands fell on the snaking roots of a tree trunk. She climbed the roots, an ice
floe pounding at her back. At last she emerged from the teeth of the river,
gasping, coughing, screaming for air. She crawled off the log onto the broad
snow surface of a massive floe.

Pitch-black
night had fallen in the middle of the day. Kris could not see — her eyeballs
had been frozen into rocks by the cold. With a violent shiver, she collapsed,
and the raging Sawtooth carried her away.

Two hours later, in the river town
of White Circle, Kris Carlson's body was hauled from the ice.




3.

They fear me. I have torn them in my
wrath.

They have
no hunger these men who hunt with dogs.  They tear me from my mother's
womb and drag me through the snow. They gape at me with their mouths. They
strike me with their fists. They mass themselves against me. They seize me by
the neck and dash me to pieces. They cast me into the mire, and I become like
dust and ashes. My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with
heat.

Let them
hope for light but have none. They'll never see the eye of day, the eye of day
is shut. I know there is no light. I know freedom comes with blood. I know the
wolf. The wolf will not betray me.

I slash
open their kidneys and show no mercy. I pour out their gall on the ground. I
burst them again and again. I sew sackcloth upon my skin. I eat flesh like a
wolf. My strength is in the ice. My strength is in my loins. My strength is in
the muscles of my belly. I make my tail stiff like cedar; the sinews of my
thighs are knit together. My bones are tubes of bronze, my limbs like bars of
iron.

I am the
firstborn of Death.

These men
are full of fear. They will know my power. They will die, just like the rest.

All of
those who fear the wolf will perish by my hands.

I will eat
them. All of them.

*  *  *

In the clear, cold, aurorean night,
across the frozen tundra, three Inuit dog sleds glided over the snow. The
stampeding teams of Alaskan huskies pumped clouds of steam into the brisk night
air, while two Inuit mushers ran, rode, and pushed the sleds behind them.

In
the first sled, Shakshi, a large Yakuutek hunter with high Mongolian
cheekbones, leathery, wind-burned skin, and an icy black moustache, locked his
dark eyes on his wheel dog, Tiuna, whose silver tail hung low. Roluk, the huge
Siberian lead dog at the head of the team, threw a glance back at the
freeloader, yapping in complaint. Shakshi shouted a command, yanking his
tugline. The dogs came to a halt.

The
second and third sleds drew to a stop behind him. The musher of the second,
Anokuk, a broad-faced Yakuutek with a rifle over his shoulder, turned his
slitted eyes behind him. The third sled, with its full gangline of panting
dogs, was riderless.

Lashed
to the sled was a giant cage.

Shakshi
dismounted. He walked up the line of his dogs, slowly, menacingly. When he came
to Roluk he paused; like a priest giving benediction, he touched the lead dog's
head with the back of his hand. The dog barked sharply, once. The musher
continued slowly down the other side, past the swing dogs, the team dogs, the
heavy pullers in the middle of the line. He paused at last beside Tiuna,
staring down at her. The wheel dog whimpered, sullenly. She knew she had offended.
Shakshi leaned over and smacked her — a wallop on her rump. Tiuna snapped back
to life.

Shakshi
returned to his sled, eyeing his comrade. Anokuk nodded back toward the third
sled. A guttural groan like the sound of an animal emanated from the giant
cage.

The
two hunters approached warily, Anokuk un-slinging his rifle.

The
cage, tightly lashed to the sled, was made of thick, interwoven saplings.
Inside, barely visible in the feeble light of the moon, a massive form lay
bound in hides and chains.

The
creature stirred.

Shakshi
nodded to Anokuk. The narrow-eyed hunter raised his rifle barrel, aimed through
the bars, and fired.

The
shot rang out across the tundra. The dogs grew silent. Shakshi and Anokuk
glanced at one another — the groans had stopped.

The
hunters drew close to the bars, peered into the darkness of the cage. A blood
red tranquilizer dart had stuck through the pile of hides. The mammoth body lay
still as a corpse.

Shakshi
nodded to his comrade, and the two men returned to their sleds. The dogs jumped
to their feet, barking with freshened vigor. Tiuna, of all of them, looked most
ready to go. As he mounted the whalebone runners and reached for his tugline,
Shakshi noticed something on his sled. A hide had blown loose. Beneath it, the
lifeless eyes of a Yakuutek stared out at him. A chunk of the dead musher's
cheek was missing, gouged from his face. Shakshi touched the wound with his
gloved hand. Teeth marks scarred the torn flesh.

Shakshi
covered the head, lashing the hide securely to the sled. Then he gave the
command to his dogs and they bolted into the night.




4.

Fairbanks International Airport had
just come into view when the air traffic controller's voice came over the
headset. "Charlie Five-five, this is Fairbanks Tower, do you read me,
over?"

Josh
Marino recognized Dean Stanton's voice, gravelly and low like the grumbling of
a lion. "Roger, Fairbanks," Josh replied, "this is Charlie
Five-five, requesting landing, over." He pictured the cotton-haired old man
sitting in the tower, his crumpled brown-bag face and heavy-rimmed glasses, a
cigarette dangling from his lips as he growled into the mike.

"Charlie
Five-five, drop to twelve hundred and turn right zero-three-zero. You have
Runway Three."

"Roger,
Fairbanks," Josh answered. "When are you gonna quit smoking?" he
wanted to add, but didn't. The old man will probably die with a cig in his
mouth. "Descending to one thousand two hundred feet," Josh repeated.
"Turning right zero-three-zero for the straight-in to Number Three,
over."

The
twenty-four-year-old pilot flew his company's single-engine Cessna back and
forth from Anchorage to Fairbanks so often that hearing Dean Stanton's voice
was like hearing the subway driver call out your stop. "Charlie Five-five,
you're cleared for landing." Josh wore a khaki jacket, high leather boots,
and a belt-sheathed jackknife. His tousled black hair stuck out in feral
profusion from his red headband and his over-size earphones. He worked for a
small electronics company down in Anchorage, but still kept his one-room
apartment in Fairbanks, still considered the central Alaskan city his home. He
was working toward his Masters in electrical engineering, and flew back to take
classes at the University of Fairbanks on Saturday mornings twice a month. And
he taught some classes at a local school, too, though that was more a labor of
love than anything else.

Josh
adjusted the flaps, grabbed the control yoke in his left hand and eased the
throttles back with his right. The plane banked and angled down toward the
broad stretch of runway ahead. The snow had been cleared and the black asphalt
glistened. I could land this baby with my eyes closed, he thought, and for a
moment, he actually tried it. One second the runway was fast approaching, the
next second everything went dark. A shiver of fear shot through the pilot; his
eyes popped open despite himself.

Must
be how my students feel, he thought, and wondered if he could teach them how to
land a light plane. This would be quite a feat even with their eyes wide open —
considering the fact that his students were blind.

*  *  *

Dean Stanton watched the Cessna 207
Skywagon roll to a stop on Runway Three, then removed his glasses, rubbed his
eyes, and crushed his cigarette out on the linoleum floor. Behind him stood
David Adashek, the Fairbanks Chief of Police, a large, rock-chested man,
bursting from his jacket and tie. Adashek was scratching his gray-haired head,
staring down with a grimace at the collection of smashed butts scattered around
Stanton's feet.

Stanton
noticed him looking. "Cleaning crew'll get 'em. Albert and Ace —
Spic'n'Span. They get 'em every night."

"Why
don't you just find yourself an ashtray, Dean?"

Stanton
lifted the headset off his ears, laid it around his neck. "FAA won't allow
ashtrays." He pointed to a sign next to the door. NO SMOKING.

Adashek's
eyebrows went up. He scanned the rest of the room. Three other controllers were
at work in the tower; all of them were smoking. The place had a heavier haze in
the air than the strip bar on Wolf Run Road. "I thought you boys had to
follow the letter of the law in here."

Stanton
lit up another one and blew out a lungful of smoke. "How long you been in
Alaska, Chief?"

Adashek
nodded wearily. The ‘80’s seemed like a lifetime ago. "Long enough to know
I shouldn’t ask," he said.

He
stepped up to the broad window, his eyes squinting into the arctic light. Josh
Marino's tiny white Cessna was taxiing off the field. Beyond him, far off on
the horizon, silver clouds were forming above the snowy peaks. Adashek stared
at the mountains, and for a long moment, didn't speak.

"It's
been two hours since they touched down," he said at last. "What do
you suppose is going on out there?"

Stanton
leaned back in his swivel chair, folded his hands behind his head.
"Knowing Jake, he's probably trying to make a deal on some furs."

"Knowing
the Yakuutek," said the Chief, "he better not be looking for any
bargains."




5.

The Yakuutek hunter pointed his
rifle at Jake O'Donnell's head. Jake's eyeballs were wrenched to his temple,
locked on the tip of the barrel. Not much more than a four-inch gap between the
cold steel and the red-haired pilot's brains. This made using the brains an
even more difficult task than usual.

"Say
something, Donny! He's gonna kill me, for Chrissake!"

"Say
what?" asked his copilot. Donny was facing the other Yakuutek, who was
holding a gun to Donny's chest. "I been talkin'. Nobody's
listenin'!"

"Tell
'em I ain't lyin' goddammit!

"He
'ain't lyin'! Goddammit."

The
hunter pressed the barrel of his gun into Jake's ear. Jake shuddered. Then,
slowly, he turned his head, looked up the barrel into the Inuit's eyes.

"I...
I told you. I 'ain't got the goddamn money!"

The
hunter didn't speak. He wiped his brown hand down his shaggy black moustache.
Was this fella angry or just trying to make up his mind?

"Believe
me, amigo. It's the truth, so help me God."

The
barrel didn't move. The Inuit's eyes stared deeply into Jake's. Jake struggled
to take in a breath. If the gun hadn't unnerved him, the man's stare certainly
did.

Jake
glanced at the big cage lying on the snow under the right wing of the Goony
Bird, his aging twin-engine DC-3. Inside the cage, the mountain of a creature
lay barely visible, asleep under its cocoon of chains and hides.

"Look,"
Jake said in a calmer voice, "you can keep the son-of-a-bitch. We'll send
somebody back with the money."

"Yeah,
that's right!" chimed in Donny. "Keep the fucker. We'll let the
Sheriff collect him himself."

The
two big hunters held steady.

Jake
shot a nervous glance at Donny. "I don't think they want to keep
him."

Donny
looked at the cage. "Can't say I can blame 'em. Fucker don't look too
friendly."

A
voice crackled from the empty cockpit.

"Hey,"
Jake said, suddenly lighting up. "I bet that's the Chief now!"

Dean
Stanton's voice continued sputtering from the radio. The hunters looked mildly
curious... or suspicious — it was hard for Jake to tell.

"That's
him, ain't it, Donny?"

"Yeah,
that's Adashek all right. I can tell by the voice."

"He's
the badge with your money," Jake said. "We can talk to him, he'll
tell you all about it." Jake began slowly backing toward the door to the
plane. The hunter followed him with the barrel of his gun.

"Come
on," he said, leading him slowly back. "Right up here, we'll talk to
the man himself, I swear to God."

Donny
started moving with Jake, then stopped abruptly. His hunter had poked the
barrel of his gun into Donny's considerable belly. Donny raised his hands in
surrender. "Okay, okay... you're right, you're right. It's only the Chief
of Police, no big deal, just a whole big pile of money waiting for you, waiting
back there with your name on it and all you gotta do — " he suddenly
gasped as the man again jabbed his gut with the rifle. Donny coughed, put his
hand on the barrel, eased it gently back. "Okay, I'll shut up."

Jake
was backing up through the doorway into the plane, the hunter following him
with his gun. Stanton's voice was still crackling through static on the cockpit
radio. "Whiskey Four-O — ... do you... over."

The
hunter followed Jake through the cockpit door into the nose of the DC-3, his
gun held to him like metal to a magnet.

"Nice
and easy," Jake said, reaching for the radio mike. He slowly unhooked it
and adjusted the frequency. Then he thumbed the button and spoke to Dean
Stanton.

"Fairbanks
Tower this is Whiskey Four-O-Three, over."

Jake
watched the hunter's black eyes as the air traffic controller's voice came
through in reply. "Whiskey Four-O-Three this is Fairbanks Tower. We read
you loud and clear."

*  *  *

Dean Stanton handed his microphone
to Chief Adashek.

"Are
you all right, Jake? Did you find—"

Jake's
static-broken voice interrupted him. "Just fine, Chief, except for the .22
your friend here's been pointing in my face for the past half hour. Apparently
you and your Eskimo friends had a little miscommunication."

"I
don't understand," the Chief said.

"Well
neither do I!" Jake shouted. "Mr. Yackety-Yack here thought he was
supposed to collect his reward money upon delivery of the prisoner."

The
Chief glanced uncomfortably at Stanton. "It's not money he's looking for,
Jake."

"What?!"

"There's
a Yakuutek man in jail here for manslaughter. If we get the prisoner back here
alive, their man will go free. That's the arrangement we made with the
tribe."

"Manslaughter,
huh. Gee, that's great, that's really great. Tell me, Chief, who'd the guy kill
— a pilot?"

"If
you just explain to him—"

"Goddammit,
you explain it to him! He sure as hell ain't listening to me!"

Adashek
glanced at Stanton, who shrugged his shoulders.  The Chief raised the mike
to his lips. "Shakshi, are you there? Can you hear me?"

Adashek
waited, but heard no reply. "Is he there, Jake?"

"Yeah,
he's here. He just don't talk much."

"Then
listen to me, Shakshi, please. It's very important that you do not cause any
further delay. We will release your friend when the prisoner arrives here
alive. That was the deal. I urge you, he is extremely dangerous and must—"

A
howl came over the radio, followed by a blast and a burst of static.

"Jake?
Do you copy?"

There
was no reply, just the steady crackle of static. The Chief looked frightened.
"Whiskey Four-O-Three, do you copy, over."

Stanton
took the mike back from him, played with the frequency. "Whiskey
Four-O-Three this is Fairbanks Tower, do you read me, over."

Nothing.

Adashek
and Stanton looked at one another.




6.

Jake's face had gone white. He
stared speechless at the radio. The hunter had slammed it with the butt of his
gun, knocking it loose from the console.

Jake
looked up at him. "That little yell o’ yours is the most you've said all
day."

The
Inuit, standing bent in the low doorway, wiped his long moustache again,
glaring at Jake.

Jake
looked past the hunter into the cargo hold. It was crammed full of bags,
crates, packages, and mail. "Look, Shocky, or whatever-your-name-is, I
don't know what happened out there to your friend, but you captured this
goddamn lunatic and now me and my partner gotta take him to the Chief. So why
don't we see if we can strike ourselves a little bargain here."

Jake
moved gently past him into the cargo hold. He pulled a large box out of a sack
and ripped it open. "It's coming on Christmas, Shocky. Why don't we
celebrate a couple weeks early?" Inside the large box was another box
wrapped with ribbons and gold paper. Jake tore it open and pulled out...

A
Dustbuster.

He
held it up for the hunter, turning it in his hands. "Whaddya think,
Shocky? Your wife, maybe? Tidy up the igloo real—"

The
Inuit swung his rifle, batting the Dustbuster, crashing it against the wall. He
anchored the gun on his shoulder and advanced toward Jake.

Jake
crawled backward in terror, stumbling over the mounds of baggage and boxes.
"Wait a minute!" he cried desperately. "I’m sure we can work
somethin' out!"

The
hunter aimed his gun.

Jake
grabbed a stuffed duffel bag and hugged it to his chest. "Donny! Help!
Somebody! Please!"

Shakshi
noticed something and relaxed his hold on the rifle.

"What...
what is it?" Jake stammered.

The
Inuit was staring at the top of the duffel bag.

Jake
looked at the opening. A small furry white tail was sticking out.
"What...this? This here?" Jake clawed open the bag. The Yakuutek's
face widened in amazement.

A
litter of half a dozen snow-white fur balls spilled out onto Jake O’Donnell's
lap. They couldn't have been more than a few weeks old.

The
Yakuutek stared at them, his mouth agape. This proud hunter from the Arctic
Circle had apparently never laid eyes on a cat.

Jake
held one out in his trembling hands. "You like the kitty, Shocky? She’s
one o’ Lily's litter. Lily is Frank Dieter’s cat. We were taking 'em back to
the pound in Fairbanks."

The
Yakuutek hunter set down his rifle. He took the tiny creature into his arms as
if some great miracle of the Earth Mother had been handed him, a precious gift
from the White Spirit of the North. A small smile crossed his face, a smile of
awe that Jake thought he'd probably not forget for a long, long time.

"You
all right in there, Jake?" he heard Donny shout.

"Yeah,"
he called back.

He
watched the Inuit cradling the kitten. "What do you say, Shocky. Wanna
trade the monster for the kitties?"




7.

The snowman had no head.

Three
children, bundled in parkas and scarves and boots and gloves, were on their
knees rolling a ball of snow across the white-blanketed schoolyard. They
stumbled over each other like puppies, the sound of their laughter echoing
sharply off the high brick wall of the schoolhouse.

Kris
could hear them from the parking lot. She was sitting in the car with her
mother, Linda Carlson, a 42-year old widow whose raven-black hair had already
begun to gray. Linda was talking to her, but Kris was no longer listening to
her words. Carried away by the echoing shrieks of the children, she had drifted
off to another time and place, far away in a distant corner of her memory,
where her tiny brother Paul was searching for a carrot he'd dropped in the
snow.

Gradually
she became aware of her mother speaking her name.

"You
see, honey, that's exactly what I'm talking about."

"What?"
said Kris irritably, turning from the window. She wore a stylish pair of
sunglasses that reminded Linda of pictures of her own mother from the 1950's.

"Now
don't get defensive. You weren't listening, that's all."

"I
was listening."

"You
were a million miles away."

"No,
I wasn't," Kris mumbled. In her mind she saw Paul gleefully holding up his
carrot.

"I'm
not going to argue," said her mother. "We've already decided about
this."

"You
decided about it."

"You
had your say. I listened. I determined that you're just giving up. I won't let
you do that."

"Mom,
I'm eighteen years old. I can make my own decisions. I always have to do it
your way."

"That's
not true. You didn't want a dog. Did I force you to get a dog?"

"I
don't like dogs," Kris said emphatically. "And they don't like
me."

"Honey...
the Burton's Shepherd didn't know you, that's all."

Kris
rubbed her hand nervously. "I don't want to depend on an animal like
that."

Linda
looked at her daughter. She reached out, took one of her hands tenderly in her
own. "It's okay to admit you're afraid of dogs. There's nothing wrong with
being afraid." She continued to hold her daughter's hand, gently caressing
it. "Don’t you think that might be what's happening here, too?"

Kris
pulled away. "Spare me the psychotherapy, Mom."

"You
loved the cross-country. What's so different about this?"

"What's
wrong is that this is what you want. You couldn't care less about what I
want. You're treating me like a child."

"Well,
maybe if you didn't act like such a..." She stopped herself. "Someday
you'll thank me, Krissy."

"Right,
Mom. So original."

Linda
sighed. She yanked on the door handle and climbed gruffly out of the car. Kris
heard her walk to the trunk. She's probably forgotten something, Kris thought.
She's always forgetting something. She didn't used to be like that...

"Kris,
where's your bag?" She was rifling through the messy trunk.

"I
put it out, Mom. Did you take it?"

"I
thought I told you—. Oh. Here it is."

Linda
slammed the trunk shut, walked around and opened Kris's door.

"Give
me your hand."

For
a long moment, Kris didn't budge. Then she suddenly remembered something, the
reason she'd finally agreed to come here at all. She reached for her white
cane, took her mother's hand, and climbed carefully out of the car.

"Mom?"
she asked as her mother shut the door. "Do you see a Beetle in the
lot?"

Her
mother looked at her, puzzled. "A beetle?"

"Yeah,
you know, the car, the old Volkswagen Bug."

"Oh,
uh..." She scanned the parking lot. Next to the schoolyard, where the
children were jamming a stick nose into the snowman's eyeless head, she spotted
a rusty, mustard VW Bug.

"Yes,
over there, there's a yellow one in the corner."

Kris's
heart skipped a beat.

"Why?"
her mother asked. "Whose is it?"

"Oh...
nobody," said Kris. Her mother eyed her inquisitively as they headed into
the school.




8.

"I wish you'd sit down and
relax." Andrea Parks had been watching Linda pace the floor since she'd
come into her office.

"I'm
fine," said Linda.

"You
don't look fine. You look worried."

Linda
stopped walking and turned to her friend. Andrea, as always, looked cool,
casually elegant, and efficient. She wore a short white blazer, a fitted skirt,
and a pale blue silk scarf beneath her short blonde hair. Sitting, legs
crossed, on the edge of her desk, she looked like a woman in complete control
of her life.

Linda
had felt that way, once. She wanted to feel that way again.

"What?"
asked Andrea. "What is it?"

Linda
shook her head. After a moment she started to speak, but was interrupted by the
ring of the telephone.

Andrea
reached across her desk. "Director Parks. Oh, hi George." She raised
her finger and nodded to Linda, indicating the call would be short.

Linda
turned to the window that overlooked the training room. A fifty-foot-long
simulated ski slope dominated the enormous room. Slick white carpet covered the
slope, with a handrail along one edge and safety nets mounted under each side.
Two blind children, not more than ten years old, were clinging to the railing
halfway down the slope, their skis splayed out awkwardly beneath them.

At
the bottom, loudly coaxing them on, stood a compact, muscular African-American
woman with extremely short-cropped hair, wearing Spandex and bright red
high-top basketball shoes. Linda had seen the woman before at the school.
Andrea had said she was a veteran of Iraq. She was surrounded now by half a
dozen children of various ages, all in skis, flopping about like penguins while
waiting their turn on the hill. Linda could not find Kris among them, and
wondered if she was still in the waiting room.

The
Blind Learning Center was the only one of its kind in the entire state of
Alaska. The school was widely renowned for the range of its programs and the
quality of its well-trained staff. Many of the students' families had moved to
Fairbanks from other parts of the state so their children could regularly
attend.

Linda
and her daughter lived in the town of Healy, at the northeast corner of Denali
National Park. Fairbanks was only 70 miles away, an easy drive up Highway 3
along the frozen banks of the Nenana River. Linda had made the drive a thousand
times. She was a part-time social worker carrying a case load at a community
mental health clinic in the city. A year after Kris lost her sight in the
accident, she'd begun taking her along on the commute, leaving her for
cross-country lessons at the school while she went to work at her job in town.
It had been good for Kris, she'd thought. It had helped her to forget.

"Well,
at least you've stopped pacing."

Linda
turned.

Andrea
was hanging up the phone. "Won't you please sit down?" she said.

Linda
shrugged. She took a seat on a Wassily chair beneath a framed poster of a sand
beach rimmed with palm trees.

"I
want you to stop worrying," Andrea insisted. "Kris had a great time
cross-country skiing with us."

"She
did," said Andrea. "But lately she's been... I don't know — pulling
back again. She won't take even the slightest risk. It's like she's lost all
her self-confidence."

"You
know that's not the least bit unusual at this stage. It takes years—"

"It's
been four years since the accident, Andrea. She's stopped making any progress.
She sits around moping, feeling sorry for herself. I can't seem to do anything
right. I'm walking on eggshells."

Linda
stood again and walked to the window. She watched the kids on their skis,
tacking their way down the make-believe hill. "You didn't know her
before," she said thoughtfully. "She was so... exuberant. So full of
life. Just like her dad."

Andrea
left her desk and walked over to stand by her friend. They'd known each other
for three years now and the two women had grown close. "I'm sorry,
Linda," she said. "I know how you feel. But it takes time. You
know that better than anyone."















Copyright © 2012 by Michael Abbadon
All rights reserved.
 

12 Hints for Rekindling Your Creative Spark

by Dr. Ken Atchity
Reprinted from Writer's Digest

Sometimes the struggle to publish can drain even the strongest creative dynamo. Here's how to recharge your creativity, to keep your career going...and going...and going...

When you began your struggle to establish a writing career, you were no doubt highly motivated. The joy of challenge, the lure of creativity, lured you into your dream.

But now you've struggled for so long that you may not be feeling that same joy. You may not be feeling it at all. What once seemed so promising now seems like folly at best, madness at worst.

What's happened? You've allowed the struggle to overpower the hope and positive energy you began with. You've forgotten that the creative process follows a natural cycle, from concentration to abandonment. The cycle begins when motivation leads to work; which, when not punctuated with appropriate rest periods, leads naturally to exhaustion; which leads to frustration; then to depression; then, ideally to reassessment and renewal. If you're pursuing a "creative" career, the process of keeping yourself motivated, like the challenge, is endless.


So what do you do when you're not feeling motivated? Try the following:

Remotivation Rule #1: Keep moving forward despite your moods. You cannot allow achievement to depend on mood. If you always must be in a good mood to accomplish your work, then it's probably time to consult a therapist. You haven't grown up. Grown-ups have to get the job done no matter what mood they're in. Imagine a firefighter throwing down the hose because he's no longer in the mood, or a super Bowl game dependent on a quarterback's moods, or an Olympic gold medal contender announcing she's not in the mood to skate in the finals. Edmund Burke said, "Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair."

If Rule #1 fails because the meeting with your agent went badly, or because you stared at a blank computer screen for an entire week, you apply...

Rule #2: When things get tough, take a vacation. But do so in a carefully limited way. Say, "I need three days off." At the end of three days, you're likely to feel much better. If not, try a few more days off: "I need another week away from this project." Never decide to abandon your project when you're tired. Things always look worse when you're tired. Remember that you're taking a vacation only from your work, not from your commitment to the work.

The moment you're officially on vacation, allow this to percolate in your mind:

Rule #3: The difficulty you are experiencing is normal -- and necessary. Writing is the highest expression of human creative potential. So how could it be easy? If it were easy, everybody would be doing it (instead of just talking about doing it). Sometimes writers have a hard time with the stress simply because they haven't realized their stress is necessary. It's not simply par for the course; it is the course. I once spoke on a panel with the late Louis L'Amour. he had just published his 93rd novel, and said to the audience that night, "I feel I'm finally beginning to master my craft." Afterward, one writer told me she was quite discouraged by L'Amour's statement. "discouraged?" I said. "You should be elated! What that tells you is that no matter how long you live or how many books you write, you'll always feel challenged by this endlessly challenging craft."

What better way is there to live than with the assurance that your work will provide you with endless discipline and demands for excellence? Doesn't it make more sense to congratulate yourself for having the courage to write than to berate yourself because you haven't "succeeded"? If you're making progress, you're succeeding. Now you understand what St. Catherine of Siena meant when she said, "All the way to heaven is heaven."

Rule #4: Don't doubt yourself. Identify the negative influences that have caused your resolve to falter. Maybe a well-meaning relative made a remark about how painful it is to see you wasting your life pursuing a dream of being a writer. Maybe the doubting Thomas is your own dark angel -- the little voice inside that tells you to forget about a writing career.

Either way, it's time to refurbish your self-confidence. You may have to reevaluate the amount of time you're putting into your writing, making adjustments that will help you feel more comfortable about the effort you are putting into your writing career. You may also have to remind yourself that what other people say can't affect you unless you allow it to. One way or the other, it's time to talk to yourself, asking the various parts of your mind, "What's going on in there?"

Lack of self-confidence is for all of us the greatest enemy. No matter how successful you become, you'll see -- it never goes away, but the successful person has managed to move forward despite his or her lack of self-confidence. Self-confidence increases when you continue to act (in this case, write) with no regard for your insecurities.

Rule #5: Face your fear, and make it your ally. According to popular anthropological accounts of the Malaysian Senoi tribe, a child dreaming of being chased by a monster would be told that the monster was, instead, his friend and that he should turn to face the monster the next time he's chased in his dream. We all know by heart that crises, when confronted directly, provide opportunity as well as danger. The first step is to acknowledge and face the fear, remembering David Viscott's observation (from his book Risking): "If you have no anxiety, the risk you face is probably not worthy of you. Only risks you have outgrown don't frighten you."

When a client or student tells me he's filled with anxiety, I assure him that not only is it a good -- and normal -- sign that he's afraid, but that he should try to be more afraid. The writing flourishes when you face your fear, owning it as yours. If you dare to turn the doorknob behind which the pain lurks, your fear can become a positive force. The hero's fear becomes a powerful ally, making his entire being alert and engaged.

Rule #6: Associate with positive people, and stop associating with negative people. Nothing is more helpful than a positive support group, and nothing more damaging than constant negative reinforcement from "friends" and family. Make whatever adjustments are necessary to reduce or eliminate your contact with the naysayers.

The positive people in your life are the hero's allies who've encouraged you to pursue your dream no matter what. They are your true "saints," inspiring you to go on living to the utmost of your ability. The philosopher-poet Johan Wolfgang von Goethe said, "If you treat people the way they are, you make them worse. If you treat them the way they ought to be, you make them capable of becoming what they ought to be." The positive people are those who treat you the way you have imagined yourself to be, at your best. Which leads us to...

Rule#7: Take responsibility. When one of my artist clients told me, "I never get personally involved in my own affairs," I realized how often creative people try to remain detached from their own commitment -- a defense mechanism with all-too-limited effectiveness.

I call this "magic thinking": "If I'm real good, work hard, be patient, the world will honor me eventually, and I've been good, worked hard, so now I'm waiting for the world to honor me." The world hardly ever works this way. Most successful people have struggled long and hard, and endured through multiple failures before achieving their success.

Rule #8: Take charge of your own thinking. You can control your own mind better than you may believe right now. Not all the time, but as you practice, more and more of the time. When you think, "I am succeeding at being my best self," you are succeeding. Motivational experts agree that you must see your success, be able to envision it internally, before you can experience it in your outer life. It helps to remember that you can't fail at being you; you're the only one, in fact, who can do that -- which means that everything you do is important, even being depressed!

Rule #9: Let go of the wrong kind of control. You can only do what you can do, and then you'll have to let fate take over. Control what you can do; don't try to control the rest. Even the most successful people can't control everything -- so why are you upset about things you can't control? The things you can control include work you can do in the next hour, or today, and calls and letters that will help you market your work.

Rule #10: Try to figure out what you really want -- and start living as though you already have it. Function follows form. If you commit yourself to the form of your optimal lifestyle, it will follow in function, but function follows only when your commitment is truly in place. Important to your remotivation agenda is reaffirming your commitment to writing. I call this fine-tuning. Your career will profit from fine-tuning at every stage.

Be careful what you wish for, though, or you're likely to get it. A screenwriting client called to tell me that she'd gotten her wish: She'd been hired by the staff of a successful series. But she'd forgotten to wish for a successful, intelligent series. now she was paying for her oversight with ten-hour-a-day tedium.

You've gotten past fear and returned to action and concentrated on the details of your work. Now, it's time to conclude your remotivation vacation with:

Rule #11: Congratulate yourself and celebrate! "Let's drink a toast to folly and to dreams," writes Paul-Loup Sulitzer in his novel The Green King, "because they are the only reasonable things."

Recognize your courage. After all, you've freely decided to take this unsafe road; you will never be choked with the tears of regret shed only by those who lament "the road not taken." the creative path, as we know by heart, is the difficult path, the path of anxiety and despair and failure, as well as of challenge and elation and triumph. You deserve self-respect for the courage of your commitment (even when it doesn't feel like courage to you at all). You can't control receiving respect from others; you can control receiving it from yourself. But if all else fails, there's...

Rule #12: Try just "coasting" for a few days. Focus on the present rather than on the future. "If worse comes to worse," an actress friend told me once, "I'm happy now." It's hard for creative people, who probably work alone without regular validation from the world, to keep from living in the future. It's hard not to do this. But you can give yourself the gift of the present, when the present is actually satisfactory on most levels required for life: enough to eat, a place to live, friends and family. Don't deprive yourself of life's simple pleasures. Meditation helps. Exercise helps -- especially long walks to new places. Vacations help. These breaks in routine, by taking you "out of yourself" temporarily, bring you into contact with the present, allowing you simply to be here now. Most of the time, when this happens, you'll be able to regain your perspective.

Awesome Gang Interview - Where Awesome Readers Meet Awesome Writers

by Vinny O'Hare

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
At this point I’ve published over 20 books, and have a half dozen on the drawing board.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The Messiah Matrix, a romantic thriller about the origins of Christianity, was inspired by my years as a student of the Roman classics and observations of the parallels between the Roman Catholic Church and the Roman Empire.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
If writing with a stopwatch running (to make sure I do my hour a day) is unusual, well, then yes I do indeed.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Virgil and Dante have been a huge influence, and Melville: “to write a mighty book one must have a mighty theme.” I think The Messiah Matrix, at the very least, has a mighty theme.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on a family memoir.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
It’s very hard to know the answer to this, but Facebook is my very favorite because it’s so user-friendly. Check out the Messiah Matrix Facebook page–and LIKE it please.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Work a little every day, or a lot every day, but every single day; remembering the ancient poet Hesiod, who said, “If you put a little upon a little, soon it will become a lot.”

Embrace this career that allows for a lifetime of improvement. What other career can offer that?

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Go for it.

What are you reading now?
I just finished reading a non-stop action sci fi thriller by Russian Sergei Yakimov, and hope to help get it published in the U.S.

What’s next for you as a writer?
I am thinking about another novel about the Vatican, a novel about the Millennial generation, in addition to the memoir and more nonfiction books for writers to go with my WRITE series.

What is your favorite book of all time?
Homer’s Odyssey.