Dave Brigham's Blog, page 19

What's In a Nom?

Last December, I published my first book, a collection of short stories called "(C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity." The fruit of 10 years of labor, the book was originally subtitled, "True Stories of Fake Things That May or May Not Have Happened." The 15 stories carry the unnamed narrator (AKA, me) from high school through his late 20's, as he discovers punk rock, goes to gritty clubs, fights off perverted street people, survives three Butthole Surfers gigs...

I'm Here Now

Not long after my editor's job at Webnoize was vaporized by a tornado of bad management decisions, in November, 2001, I began renting the domain name DaveBrigham.com. I didn't do much with it at first, but I viewed the site as a place that would serve both as a personal blog and a space to promote my freelance writing career.

I took a little time around the 2001 holidays to just relax, and after the turn of the year, I began looking for a new job. I interviewed for a position at the New...

Party! Party! Party!

I love a party as much as the next 46-year-old father of two young kids who never gets enough sleep. I like to throw back a few beers, talk over loud music until my voice goes hoarse, and pretend that I'm not going to be awoken the next morning at an ungodly hour by one or both munchkins jumping on my bed.

I'm just not used to being the reason for the party.

But before I published my book, a collection of short stories called, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity, my wife and her mother talked about having a launch/signing shindig for me. And I agreed it would be a great idea. I still think it's a great idea, although it seems a bit weird.

Being held this Saturday, April 16th, the party celebrates the fact that after 10 years of on-again, off-again work, I finished my first book. It's also a good excuse to get together with people I haven't seen in a long time, as well as those who I see more frequently.

And, of course, sell (and sign) some books.

It's going to be similar to my wedding day, in that I'll know almost everybody there, and they'll all be there to see me. I don't always know how to handle congratulations and praise (and, who knows, maybe the odd brickbat), but, hey, there are worse problems in the world, right?

I'm trying to not get too anxious about reading in front of the 45-50 people who will be there. I've recorded a few short readings and posted them on Facebook, but sitting in front of my computer is much different and much less stressful than standing on a stage with a microphone.

I think I'm going to read from "Son of a Son of a Tyler," a story about a guy who claims to be the bastard son of Aerosmith front man (and "American Idol" judge) Steven Tyler.

I'll report on the event in my next post, which likely won't come for 10 days or so, as my family and I are going to NYC for four days next week.

The Fudge Factor

I like fudge. Love it, actually. Except when it comes in book form.

You know what I'm talking about: memoirs and nonfiction narratives that go off recipe, adding funky ingredients like compressed time frames, characters who don't exist in real life and out-and-out lies.

I read Augusten Burroughs' Running With Scissors many years ago, and, while I enjoyed the book, I had a feeling that there was no way everything in the book could be true. I wondered how Burroughs could recall entire conversations in their entirety. Events seemed too contrived.

Yes, I know he relied heavily on the memoirist's favorite tool, the dog-eared and yellowed journals of youth.

Burroughs maintains the book is 100% accurate, despite settling a lawsuit filed by the family with whom he lived during part of his childhood, claiming that the author had made things up in the book.

I have no idea where the truth lies (how's that for putting two words together?), and will grant that Burroughs is free to recall events of his childhood as he sees fit. While he agreed to call his work a "book" instead of a "memoir" in the author's note, he says he didn't change a word.

On the Fudge Factor scale I'll give Burroughs a 3 and the benefit of the doubt.

The scale ranges from 1 (just a smidge) to 10 (James Frey).

I haven't read Frey, so I can't review his books, but I think we all know that his attempts at memoir writing were dipped in a whole lotta fudge.

I also haven't read Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal. This is the book that Aaron Sorkin turned into the screenplay for "The Social Network," and for which the screenwriter won an Oscar.

I have, however, read Mezrich's first nonfiction work, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions.

Mezrich was brought to task for that book by the very people he chronicled. According to an article in the Boston Globe from June 25, 2009, several MIT grads who were part of the crew that took on Vegas, "found much of their tale unrecognizable."

Mezrich faced the same criticism for his Facebook story. An article in the New York Times from July 19, 2009, refers to The Accidental Billionaires as "nonfictionish."

I liked "The Social Network," but couldn't help wondering while watching, "How much of this is made up?" I realize that screenplays are different than books. But can Mezrich be happy knowing that people watching the movie based on his book are sitting there wondering what's real and what's fantasy?

Obviously he doesn't care. This is what he does. And for his efforts, I'm giving him a Fudge Factor of 7.

Why do I care?

I wrote a book that's a memoir/fiction hybrid. But I've never called it anything other than a collection of short stories ((C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity). Truth be told, however, for a while the book's working subtitle was "True Stories About Real Things That May or May Not Have Happened."

But that was just for fun.

I get angry when writers lie to me. I don't like it when they are greedy, deciding that in order to sell more books they need to make stuff up, rather than just tell people what happened. Truth is stranger than fiction, yet somehow too many authors get confused when working on nonfiction books, and think they need to get creative, instead of just telling their story.

I could've tried to pass my book off as a nonfiction work. Memoirs are hot these days. Many of the characters in the book are based on real people. Many of the events that take place actually happened. One of my friends who is portrayed in the book told me that he can't recall exactly which stuff in there is true and which is made up.

Even I can't remember sometimes exactly what happened in real life, and which stuff I cooked up. But I'm not interested in selling you fudge.

The Circuitous Route

My first concert was Rush w/ Riot (not to be confused with Quiet Riot) at the Hartford Civic Center in 1981. In the ensuing 30 years (oh, man, I just realized as I'm writing this that I've been going to concerts for 30 years....), I've seen countless bands, both big-name acts (The Police, Green Day, The Pretenders) and lesser-known lights of the music world (Phantom Tollbooth, Operation Ivy). I've been to civic centers, theaters, rock clubs, high school auditoriums, parking lots and basements to see bands rock out.

I love music. About 10 years ago I wondered whether I could list every band -- headliner and each and every opening act -- that I'd ever seen. I couldn't do it, but my effort was not in vain. As I thought about all the shows I'd seen, I recalled funny or crazy or stupid things that had gone on during the show, or on the way there, or afterward.

I started writing these things down. Some of them eventually made it into my first book, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity -- such as the time some friends and I got ripped off while trying to scalp Echo & the Bunnymen tickets in Boston -- and others didn't -- like the time my friend Ken and I chatted with members of Dream Syndicate after their show at the long-defunct Channel club in Boston.

I decided that I needed to turn these memories into fiction. I won't bore you with the details of writing and rewriting these stories, but I will tell you that there were times over the 10 years it took to get the book from concept to publication that I thought about giving up.

I don't have the best work ethic when it comes to writing, as evidenced by the fact that I got excited recently when I rewrote the first paragraph of my novel-in-the-works...and then promptly ignored the second paragraph until, well, let's just say I don't have an answer for that yet.

But as I worked on "(C)rock Stories," I began to think of it as my writing legacy, or at least part of it, and possibly the most important element. I've written plenty of stories over the years, some I'm proud of, some I want to disown. But "(C)rock Stories" brings together two things that I'm most passionate about: music and writing.

So I stuck with it, knowing that I had to finish no matter what. I have a problem with making plans and not following through on them. When I was 22, for instance, I told myself I had to be in a band and put out some records before I was 40, because I so enjoyed my time playing in a band in college.

Well, I never fulfilled that promise to myself. But I think of the completion of my short story collection as a way of giving myself some peace on that account.

So, with a novel hovering in my subconscious, I need to do what I did when I found myself lounging too much instead of finishing "(C)rock Stories:" I need to make a schedule and stick to it. I don't want it to be 10 more years before I get another book on the market.

So now it's time to get to the second 'graph.

Inspiration, Part 2: Sister Fey

My favorite character in my book, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity, is a Southern punk rocker named Scarlett from the story, "Sister Fey." A hard-partying, tough-talking spitfire, she's based, like just about every character in the short-story collection, on a real person.

In the original draft of the story, I used her real name, as well as the name of her band.

In the original version of this post, I mentioned the woman's name, as well as the name of her band. My lawyers have forced me to delete this info.

Her name was ________, and I met her in Athens, GA, while on a road trip with three of my friends. She was in a band called _______, and was, from what little I can recall of her due to my drunken state while in that fine rock 'n' roll town, a real hoot. We drank together at well-known Athens hangout the 40 Watt club, after which I went outside and puked. Despite also being three, or possibly four, sheets to the wind, she tried to comfort me. In her smoky, slurring Southern drawl, she cooed, "David, you must feel better. You've already vomited."

Then she hopped in our van and directed us to a party in a quiet, residential neighborhood. I recall going into the house for a short time, but then going out to the van to pass out. That was the extent of our acquaintance.

When I began revising the story for the book, however, I realized that I had to develop _______'s character. So I changed her name and turned her into a bit of a psycho, and ran with it.

The story gets a bit cartoonish, but it was a blast to write (well, it required a LOT of editing to get it where I liked it, felt it made sense and was worth reading). Some day I hope to get back to Athens; maybe I'll ask around for ________.

Fake Memoirs In the Age of Facebook

I started writing my recently released debut collection of short stories, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity, roughly 10 years before it was published.

In 2000, I was working as an editor for a digital media company that covered the convergence of music, movies, TV and video games with the Internet. The job kept me busy, but in my spare time I conducted frivolous web searches for people I knew from high school and college, wondering where they were and what they were doing. I had little luck finding these people, or any information about them.

At the same time, I began writing rock-related short stories based on true events from my life. I wrote 17 or 18 of these stories and emailed them to a group of 40 or so friends and family, mostly just for the fun of it.

In their initial iterations, the tales that comprise (C)rock Stories mentioned many of my friends by their first names. Most of these friends I was still in touch with, and I knew they wouldn't mind being used as fictional characters. A few friends, however, were these same people whom I'd been unable to track down online. They were also the ones whose relationships to the unnamed narrator (AKA, me) in the series of stories I was developing were the most complicated.

I hadn't seen or heard from them in years, and frankly, I didn't expect to ever be in contact with them again.

Fast forward to 2008, by which time I'd finished rewriting the 15 stories that would eventually end up in my book. During the year, I joined Facebook, which was a great way to stay in touch with friends and family who are flung across the country. Alas, it was also a great way to reconnect with the friends with whom I had so long ago lost contact.

So I faced some decisions: do I leave the names of these friends in, or do I change them? Also, should I change the stories so they don't reflect too negatively on these friends?

I chose to change the names and alter the stories. I didn't make wholesale changes, but I wanted to make sure that I didn't leave in stuff that might upset my newly rediscovered friends. Yes, I censored myself. I stand by that decision. Since the audience, at least initially, for the book, is largely friends and family, I didn't want to roil the waters too much. There was plenty of bad language, bad decisions and immature behavior to do that.

With my next book, a humorous novel-in-progress about corporate espionage and space aliens, I'll leave behind any concerns about offending people I know. I'm gonna let my imagination loose...what a concept for fiction.

Inpiration, Part 1: While Our Guitar Gently Weeps

During my one and only visit to New Orleans in March 1988, I saw more street performers than you could shake a voodoo stick at. There was the older bald guy with a shaved head who stuck his tongue out and swiveled his hips. The mime who moved only when someone put money in his bucket. But my favorite was The Songwriter From Outer Space.

He was young like my friends and I were, but much hipper. He solicited song ideas from the crowd and then made up songs on the spot that revolved around that theme. I used to remember what he sang about, but it was so long ago, and so many more important thoughts, like, "Hmm...do I want paper or plastic?", have entered into my mind in the ensuing years, that I can no longer recall.

I don't really remember what he looked like, either. But I knew that I wanted him in my book, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity.

For the sake of fiction, though, it was better that I didn't remember, and just went ahead and made up his shtick. I gave him a Morris the Cat t-shirt, Buddy Holly glasses and bell bottoms. I had him make up a song about donuts.

And for his dramatic foil in the story, I gave him a father named Johnny Wallet. For this character I borrowed a misheard name from a New Hampshire auto mechanic who fixed the van that I eventually drove down to New Orleans (his name was actually Johnny Warwick, but because he was missing a LOT of teeth, I didn't suss out his name until about the 5th or 6th telling).

Johnny Wallet's character, well, that I stole from a street magician I saw in New Orleans, and, again, a few years later in Harvard Square. Mean, dirty and thieving, he has no respect for his son.

I got really into these characters, and toyed with the idea of blowing them out into a novel. In the short story, the Songwriter and Johnny Wallet fight over an heirloom guitar, and we get some sense of why. But I wanted to explore their family history, and circus sideshows, and revival meetings and 19th century snake oil salesmen. I started expanding the story, and may some day get back to it.

But for now, their story is short. And, I think, pretty funny, and crazy and fun to read.

I've Got to Work Harder

I never thought I'd get rich off my first book, a collection of short stories called, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity. I paid my money to Booklocker, including some extra for a second proof copy (my bad) and figured I would make that investment back within a few months, maybe six at most.

I have 154 friends on Facebook, so I foolishly figured that at least 100 of them would buy my book right out of the chute, and then I'd work a little bit to sell another 50 and -- BANG!! -- I'd break even.

From that point on it would all be gravy, I thought.

Well, it turns out that despite my near-constant pushing of the book on Facebook, and the efforts of many friends and family to share my links on the site with their networks, after nearly two months, I've sold only 31 copies. More copies might have sold through Amazon and other outlets, but I won't get those figures for a while. So for now, I'm going with 31.

Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely grateful to the people who've bought my book. And even though all of them are friends or family, they will definitely learn something about me through their reading of the book.

But I'm realizing that in order to sell more books -- and I'm shooting big here, looking to move 500 copies by the end of the year -- I have to work harder. And I shouldn't rely so much on Facebook. That's one of the reasons I joined Goodreads.

So if anybody reading this has ideas about how and where to promote my book, I'm all ears. And if I do ever get rich off this book, I'll buy one of those fancy ear trumpets so I can hear you even better.