Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 240

"Leave Me Alone!" ~ Is Unlimited Freedom Good For Us?

I happen to live in what's called the United States of America but I consider myself a citizen of the World.

The U.S. has always put out the line that it's a free country…

Most Americans now feel hampered by what the combination of party politics and corporate greed has done to limit true freedom.

But, what is true freedom?

Is it doing whatever the hell you feel like doing?

If that were the case, no one would ever get a ticket for running a red light…

Does true freedom have something to do with working within a structure that helps you release your potential?

As a writer, I need to impose some structure on my creativity. If I didn't, words the meaning of which when or if then never would sense make exampling for :-)

I've even been known to create a scene-by-scene outline for a book and then, as I do the actual creative writing, lacerate the outline, sever its limbs, cut into its flesh, and mutilate its form.

Still, if I hadn't outlined first, my finished book might have resembled the patch-worked body of Frankenstein.

So, I think the best expression of freedom–freedom to release your maximum potential–comes when you have some basic structure or form established within which to create.

Therefore, I like traffic lights. I even like taxes (the principle of them, not their current distribution). I also like the formal dance of dating instead of the animalistic breeding some folks crave.

What I absolutely do not like is unlimited freedom to do whatever the hell my body and emotions seem to always be demanding of me. Sure, when I was twenty-something, I thought that was what life was all about–get what you can before it's all gone…

Now, in my sixties, I realize that the most valuable possessions in life come after long, hard work–work done in a way that abides by principles that structure the release of my creativity in ways that have endurance–work that lasts long enough to get me up that mountain of aspiration to the peak of satisfaction–satisfaction that also endures…

Another thing I do not like is political/corporate power structures that beguile with promises of unlimited freedom and deliver mass slavery to cycles of consumption that never quite satisfy, never give lasting peace or security or tranquility…

So, yes: "Leave me alone!" But…

Please do give me the social structures that protect my freedom to create…

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Tagged: crisis, freedom, humanity, justice, peace, world, writing

Rewriting While You Read ~ We All Do It …

What? We all rewrite what we're reading? How in the world can I propose such an idea?

Matter of fact, I proposed it in two posts on my other blog: ReadWriteReadWriteReadWrite… & What's It Like Inside When You Read A Book?.

In the second post just mentioned, I gave a little formula to help explain what I mean:

"Reading is to Writing as Hearing is to Speaking."

Then, I asked a question:

"Do we always hear exactly what the other person's saying?"

So, when we read, do we always get the meaning the author intended when they wrote the words?

In the case where we don't hear what the other person's saying, there are quite a few factors that can change the meaning as it travels from their mouth to our brain; one of the strongest being our own brain. We capture words with our ears and our brain reaches in and adds its own interpretation.

Sometimes, the change from spoken word to perceived meaning is as great as what the person at the end of the circle of whispered words says–almost always completely different from what the first person said…

Whether spoken or written, words are some of the slipperiest entities humans deal with.

As far as written words go, there is the common rewriting we can do when the book is old and the language has grown in a new direction.

But, what about a book written not long ago? Why would a reader's brain insist on reinterpreting the meaning the author intended?

[My muse insisted I insert this sentence: "I certainly don't mean that a reader can never understand anything about what the writer has written..."]

I wrote this post mostly to get you thinking and I'll end it with a statement you may completely disagree with:

I think the reader's rewriting of the book the author has written is totally natural and our world would be boring as hell if it didn't happen :-)

What do you think?

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Tagged: author, book, meaning, reader, reading, writer, writing

Self-Publishing Can Be Just As Creative As Writing

I could say creative writing is right-brained and publishing is left-brained; writing is artistic, publishing all business. I could say that and I've heard it said by some "experts" but, even though I did just say it, my experience of both realms forces me to say it ain't so.

For twenty-some years I wrote creatively and paid scant attention to publishing. I used Lulu.com to get my books published but never saw many sales. In fact, all my books except the one I'm working on now are free to download. I could apply what I've recently been learning about publishing and help them sell but I consider them my practice books, possibly well written but not as important to me as Notes from An Alien.

Even Notes from An Alien, when it's published in April and can be purchased for cash, will still be available for free. One ultra-creative thing I've learned about self-publishing is that Free helps Sales–check out the article Giving It Away on Forbes.

There's the whole argument raging in the hallways of the Internet about traditional vs. self-publishing but I'll have to leave the particulars about that issue for a possible future post. All I'll add right now is that, if you decide self-publishing is what you want, definitely check out FastPencil!

So, what have I learned about (self-)publishing that makes it not just some business activity that follows the creative joy of the writing discipline?

Well, the first truth that hit home in my study and activity to promote my forthcoming book (and promotion is critical, 'cause, if no one knows about it, it won't sell), the first creative activity that publishing demands is forming relationships with people.  And, relationships, whether you form them in person or online, can be just as creative to begin and sustain as the partnerships authors have with their characters ( see my previous post :-).

If you were trying to find a mate in your personal life, you'd either play the field or, at least, study the field before you committed yourself. That takes creativity.

If you're looking for a set of characters to populate a book, the process may be more "mystical" or artistic but you'd still be interacting creatively with potential characters.

And, when it comes to finding the audience for your book (and, you'd better start looking for them before or during the writing of the book), it's not just some dry business-metrics activity. You have to get out there and flirt with the people, find out who responds, and start acting magnetic toward the best catches…

I could go on with the parallels of creativity in writing and publishing but blog posts are best digested when served in small portions. For more detailed info on publishing creatively, check out the list of links on Publetariat.

Have some experiences where you learned how to be creative about publishing?

Have some questions about why self-publishing might be better than traditional publishing?

Have some jokes about the pitfalls of creative writing/publishing?

Please, do share in the comments :-)

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Tagged: book, fiction, promotion, publish, publishing, self-publish, self-publishing, writing

Can An Angel Be A 51-year-old Guy from Colorado?

My answer to this post's title is, "Yes!!"

I'm not sure about the meanings of "angel" that include the winged variety but the ones who live up to the root meaning of angel, Messenger, are alive and well; and, one of them, in the guise of Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick–husband, father, son, brother, author–from Southwest Colorado, has given me an angelic gift that can only help me in my never-ending efforts to promote my forthcoming book, Notes from An Alien.

I met Joel in the forums of BestsellerBound, "…a place for independent authors to connect with readers."

That was months ago and he seemed like a great person. He even shared some feedback with me about my book :-)

Then…

Last month, he dropped an Angel Bomb. He offered me and 62 other authors a chance to be included in three Anthologies that would have the first chapters from our books along with pictures, bios, and Web links. And, not only did he take on all the work to produce these e-books, he's distributing them as widely as he can! And, they're Free!!

I uploaded them to this blog and I'll put the links at the end of this post. But first, a few words from Joel himself:

"Book marketing, it turns out–immediately–can be quite a chore. It is not always something Indie authors can make a great deal of time for.  All of us Tweet, and Facebook, and link in other places like crazy, but, visibility is something that is not easily generated, with those short bursts.

"I wondered for a long time, what good effort would provide the highest visibility. Free books seem to get lots of attention. Many people seem tempted to at least sample free items when they are available. Yet, even that can be a crowded arena.

"All that wondering led me in a very natural direction; the great forum at www.BestsellerBound.com , that is a growing group of really fine people, all with a similar problem as mine. I guessed they could be collected, in a massive promotion that could be unique.  I could not imagine any other display with such appeal. All I needed to do, was ask.

"They responded, in droves. It has been more fun, putting all those authors together, than I expected. And a lot less work that anyone might imagine. (But, leave that part secret…we don't want too many copycats.  :-)"

~ Joel

Joel has four novels to his credit…

And, here are those Anthologies the Angel Joel created:

{Give them a little time to load into your browser so you can download them}
Volume One
Volume Two
Volume Three
I'd *love* your feedback about this angelic promotion gift in the comments :-)

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Tagged: author, book, promotion, publishing, self-publishing, writer

What's The Relationship Between A Writer & Their Characters?

Here I go again, treading into dangerous territory. Last post, I put my thoughts about the proper function of fiction on the line. Now, I'm going to expose some my beliefs about the writing process itself.

I'm calling this dangerous territory because the word "danger" comes from roots that mean the "power of a lord or master". And, the last thing I am is some kind of lord, master, guru, or expert. So, putting my thoughts and feelings about writers and their characters out into the communal space of the Internet is dangerous because it might seem like I think you should believe what I say. In the last post, I mentioned that my thoughts would probably make some folks want to argue with me and it will probably happen this time to. Good thing I'm brave :-)

So, let's get to it–writers have characters. Where do writers get those characters? Why do so many writers talk about their characters as if they were real? And, even more amazing, how in the world could an otherwise rational writer say, with heart-felt conviction, that one of their characters made them change what they intended to write? If you're not a writer and don't know anything about writers, you'll either have to take my word that writers really think their characters can change their minds or do a bit of Googling…

I should qualify what I'm talking about just a bit. Obviously, we're considering fiction writers and, maybe obviously, we're dealing with serious writers–the kind that can't not write; those people who risk their social lives by continuing to engage in an activity that seems miraculous to non-writers. You can tell a serious writer, no matter the maturity of their craft, because they refuse to give up on their writing no matter how difficult it becomes.

I want to quote Sonia Simone here because this determination of writers to persevere comes from what's called a growth mindset; and, in just a minute, I'll be bringing in a real master/guru (who some folks would call exceedingly dangerous) to explain the source of a growth mindset.

Says Sonia: "All babies and small toddlers have a growth mindset. If you've ever watched a baby learn to walk and talk, you've seen the growth mindset in action. They get frustrated, sure. But giving up is never an option, even for a moment. They're driven by that quest for mastery. No one fails to learn to walk or talk because we get depressed and think it's too hard or we aren't 'talented' enough."

No, I don't think all serious writers are babies, though they do seem to have a deep childlikeness at times. The reason for the quote is that writers have to struggle with characters to create what we read. They don't just get born with some weird talent to create fiction that seems real–they work very hard at it, sometimes fight with their characters, usually have to change and grow personally because the characters are spookily right.

So, where in the hell do these characters come from? I believe they live in what Carl Jung (the potentially "dangerous" guru I mentioned) called the Collective Unconscious. For now, let's just say the characters live way, way deep inside the writer's mind. What's truly weird about this character-creation process is that, even when a fiction writer "borrows" traits from people they know or even puts a real-life person in their work, the final character revealed is unique and clearly their own person.

How does a serious writer live anything like a normal life when things like this are going on in their heads? Some don't live anything like a normal life. Some "control" the effects of relating to their characters with drugs. Some take refuge in spiritual or psychological realms that "explain" the process. Some create brilliantly for a short time then flame out like a meteor…

If you're a writer, please share your thoughts and feelings in the comments…

Last thought: Watch a writer take a photo of a criminal and create their own character from it :-)
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Tagged: author, character, fiction, humanity, relationship, spiritual, spirituality, writer

What's The Writer's Job? ~ Recording Or Creating?

I'm venturing into dangerous territory with the title of this post…

Let me clarify the exact bit of territory I want to defend.

First, when I ask if the writer's job is recording or creating, certain easy and obvious answers come up:

* Journalists mostly record, though they can do it creatively.

* Essayists and article writers can slide back and forth between recording and creating.

* Fiction writers create, though there may be a bit of recording in some of their work.

In this post, I'm only going to talk about fiction writers and the specific territory I want to defend is this:

Even if a fiction writer uses real life settings, or even, at times, real life people in their work, they should always have the creation dial set at max and the recording dial turned way down.

Some of you might consider that last sentence as being too obvious to need any discussion.

Some of you might want to start an argument with me.

I'll address my defense to the people who want to argue. The rest of you might wonder what the heck there is to argue about. Fiction is creation, and that's that. Well…

Some fiction writers feel that their job is to record life; maybe do it with some creativity, but capturing what exists and rendering it is their prime function. I, almost violently, disagree.

I'll include a link here to an article on Naturalistic Literature but not as any sort of proof of what I want to say. It's merely to give you an example of the worst type of fiction writer–not necessarily worst as far as how they use words (they may be quite literary) but worst because of what their writing says about humanity.

Naturalistic literature gives what some folks might say is a true picture of the human condition, an almost scientific recording of the plight of certain people. Well, even a highly creative fiction writer might include a rather reportorial rendition of someone in their work; but, if they are true creators, they'll find a way to infuse what may be sordid or terrifying conditions with a sense of underlying hope or faith. Let me try a short, and simplistic, example:

Take a character who's a day laborer, beats his wife and children, and discovers he has terminal cancer.

The naturalist would merely record the conditions and have the character die off. The reader would receive no more value than if they actually knew such a person and stood by and watched the man come home every day, beat his wife and kids, then die of cancer.

The creative writer could take the same character and use their circumstances to show any number of human principles that could raise the man's actions and death to a level that could inspire the reader–possibly to help abused women and children, or investigate the relationship between anger and cancer, or at least serve as moral food for thought.

My firm belief is that fiction's proper purpose is to help humanity raise its sights, improve its situation, and strengthen its resolve to make life really matter…

I'm not trying to advocate some sort of sterile, moralistic fiction. We still need a damn good read and we don't need a book telling us how to live our lives. Still… Showing the reader that even the worst conditions can hold some promise for improvement, even if the characters fail miserably to attain that promise, is, to me, a job that fiction writers should always be working to master.

Would you want read a book in which the characters always fail at life?

Would you like to read a story that had a few characters who failed but you still had your feelings affected in a way that helped you, in your own life, to understand or heal or help?

O.K. That's as far as I can take my foray into this dangerous territory; at least, in this post…

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Tagged: faith, fiction, humanity, story, writer, writing

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Tagged: publish, publishing, reading, self-publishing, writing

Read > Write > Publish > Repeat = A Wonderfully Strange Life

I'll start explaining the formula in this post's title with the word "strange". Its history shows it meaning, "from elsewhere, foreign, unknown, unfamiliar".

A Strange Life…

So does reading then writing then publishing then repeating the process create a life that's unfamiliar, unknown, foreign, and from elsewhere?

Ask any serious writer :-)

The reason I started this little explanatory formula with "reading" is because I'm in agreement with the folks who say the best training for writing (besides writing itself) is lots of reading. Of course, reading might also be the research that writers often do–even the kind of "reading" they do in their own minds when they invent characters and worlds.

This reading of one's own mind isn't all that hard. It is strange, though, because it usually doesn't involve words. It's the heart reading what the mind is saying from its depths.

So, then comes the writing. If you aspire to create a wonderfully strange life, I suggest you not read a bunch of books about writing before you actually do a whole bunch of writing. In fact, the formula should have a little feedback loop between reading and writing: read>write>read>write, etc.

Then, publish. This doesn't have to be normal publishing. Since the word means, "to make public" and public means, "open to the community", the community you publish to could be as small as a group of friends.

Then comes repeat. If you want a truly wonderful life that constantly surprises you with the unfamiliar, that leads you to the unknown, that introduces the foreign, and entertains experience from elsewhere, you have to get a cycle of read/write/publish going.

Think of a coffee house. Imagine the person who reads books, then shares their experience in their own words. Every time you visit, they have a new story. Pretty soon, they're telling their own stories. By the way, one of the original meanings for the word "write" was "paint".

So, there they sit reading their own minds with their hearts and painting verbal pictures that inspire the little coffee house community.

The first people who led a wonderfully strange life may not have had coffee, but they had their community. They spoke heart-felt words that captivated their friends.

They were our human family's first authors…

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Tagged: author, book, humanity, publish, read, write

Read > Write > Publish > Repeat = A Wonderfully Strange Life

I'll start explaining the title's formula with the word "strange". Its history shows it meaning, "from elsewhere, foreign, unknown, unfamiliar".

A Strange Life...

So does reading then writing then publishing then repeating the process create a life that's unfamiliar, unknown, foreign, and from elsewhere?

Ask any serious writer :-)

The reason I started this little explanatory formula with reading is because I'm in agreement with the folks who say the best training for writing (besides writing itself) is lots of reading. Of course, reading might also be the research that writers often do--even the kind of "reading" they do in their own minds when they invent characters and worlds.

This reading of one's own mind isn't all that hard. It is strange, though, because it usually doesn't involve words. It's the heart reading what the mind is saying from its depths.

So, then comes the writing. If you aspire to create a wonderfully strange life, I suggest you not read a bunch of books about writing before you actually do a whole bunch of writing. In fact, the formula should have a little feedback loop between reading and writing: read>write>read>write, etc.

Then, publish. This doesn't have to be normal publishing. Since the word means, "to make public" and public means, "open to the community", the community you publish to could be as small as a group of friends.

Then comes repeat. If you want a truly wonderful life that constantly surprises you with the unfamiliar, that leads you to the unknown, that introduces the foreign, and entertains experience from elsewhere, you have to get a cycle of read/write/publish going.

Think of a coffee house. Imagine the person who reads books, then shares their experience in their own words. Every time you visit, they have a new story. Pretty soon, they're telling their own stories. By the way, one of the original meanings for the word "write" was "paint".

So, there they sit reading their own minds with their hearts and painting verbal pictures that inspire the little coffee house community.

The first people who led a wonderfully strange life may not have had coffee, but they had their community. They spoke heart-felt words that captivated their friends.

They were our human family's first authors...

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Many Readers, Many Opinions ~ Who To Believe & Why...

Authors often solicit opinions from beta-readers--folks who read and comment before the book's published. Thing is, different readers have very different opinions ! Who's right? Which comments need to be heeded?

In my own experience, with my pre-publication edition of Notes from An Alien, I'd have to say all the readers are right and I must "heed" all the comments.

All the readers are right because they're giving their own thoughts and feelings and, even if they're lying, that's their response and it's "valid"--not necessarily right, but valid, since any author will get a certain percentage of feedback that's what the reader thinks the author wants, not what that reader really feels.

Heeding all comments doesn't mean taking action on all comments. Though, even the comments the author thinks are flat wrong can still inform them about their readers' psychology.

With my book, I've often asked someone who thought it needs major work what they think about people who say the book is just fine. The nearly invariable response is: "Go with your gut." Makes me wonder why they said the book needed work. Still, each person's opinion is completely right for them...

This whole area of reader feedback is endlessly fascinating to me. It supports my contention that every reader is re-writing a book as they read. I even wrote a post about that-- What's It Like Inside When You Read A Book?

If there were some ultra-objective way to get the one, "true" reaction to a given book, there would be no individual readers and the World would stop spinning :-)

If you'd like to read my book before I publish it and give me a bit of feedback (you get a free copy), I'll give you the option of having your name (or, alias) placed in a Special Listing in the book; maybe even a two-line Bio and Web address :-)

Have any experience in this area of human endeavor? Do, please share in the comments !


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