Gary Hoover's Blog - Posts Tagged "fantasy-island-book-publishing"
Does An Author Need to Look Like an Author?
Does an author need to look like an author? I don’t have a tweed sports-coat. None of the sports-coats that I do have feature leather elbow patches. I don’t have a bookshelf with neatly arranged leather-bound first-editions. If a photographer asked me to rest my chin in my hand and gaze contemplatively and just slightly away from the camera, I don’t know if I could do it without laughing. I’ve often thought I could look more intelligent with just the right hat . . . but I hate hats.
That’s just not me.
It takes a man with a strong character to look dignified sitting in a fiber-glass flamingo – most will just look goofy. Clearly I don’t have a strong character. But here’s the thing: How many people enjoy looking at photos of dignified people? I just performed a highly scientific experiment. I googled images for “man with pants falling down” and got over 36 million results. A similar search for “Hemingway looking dignified” returned 21,00 results.
The simple fact is people would rather see goofy than dignified, and I think that actually touches on a real point. I think too many authors spend too much time trying to make themselves look smart or special when they should be trying to entertain their readers.
Oooops. That was almost a serious point. I’ll try not to put too many of those in this blog.
Does an author’s blog need to look like an author’s blog? That’s the problem I’ve been wrestling with. Everybody keeps telling me I need a blog, but I’ve never been comfortable with the idea. My thoughts aren’t golden nuggets.
My thoughts usually tend toward the juvenile end of the spectrum.
When my wife and I were conferring with my son’s 5th grade teacher, she commented: “I really enjoy having Ryan in my class. His sense of humor is not that of a typical 5th grader.”
“That’s funny,” my wife replied. “Because his father’s sense of humor is exactly that of a typical 5th grader.”
Am I not cut out to be an author . . . or do I just need to suck it up and play the role? Is that what everybody else does? I remember, when eReaders first started to come out, one of my first thoughts was: “Hmmmm, so I can read the crap that I’d never be caught dead reading in public . . . and no one will be the wiser.” Are back issues of Mad Magazine available for Kindle yet?
So now I’ve got a blog . . . I’ve avoided it as long as I can. Even I’m not interested in reading about what I think. Why in the heck would anyone else? Would a string of references to slang terms for farts make a good blog? Let’s see:
Butt Trumpet
Trouser Cough
SBD
Sphincter Whistle
A Kiss for the Kaiser (my grandfather’s favorite)
Cut the Cheese
Flame Thrower
Toot
Baking Brownies
Kill the Canary
Air Biscuit
Why do I feel like Bugs Bunny about to get yanked off stage with one of those comically oversized hooks? You know, the kind that yank him away and just leave his hat hanging there in mid-air? Good thing I don’t wear hats.
Land of Nod, The Artifact
That’s just not me.
It takes a man with a strong character to look dignified sitting in a fiber-glass flamingo – most will just look goofy. Clearly I don’t have a strong character. But here’s the thing: How many people enjoy looking at photos of dignified people? I just performed a highly scientific experiment. I googled images for “man with pants falling down” and got over 36 million results. A similar search for “Hemingway looking dignified” returned 21,00 results.
The simple fact is people would rather see goofy than dignified, and I think that actually touches on a real point. I think too many authors spend too much time trying to make themselves look smart or special when they should be trying to entertain their readers.
Oooops. That was almost a serious point. I’ll try not to put too many of those in this blog.
Does an author’s blog need to look like an author’s blog? That’s the problem I’ve been wrestling with. Everybody keeps telling me I need a blog, but I’ve never been comfortable with the idea. My thoughts aren’t golden nuggets.
My thoughts usually tend toward the juvenile end of the spectrum.
When my wife and I were conferring with my son’s 5th grade teacher, she commented: “I really enjoy having Ryan in my class. His sense of humor is not that of a typical 5th grader.”
“That’s funny,” my wife replied. “Because his father’s sense of humor is exactly that of a typical 5th grader.”
Am I not cut out to be an author . . . or do I just need to suck it up and play the role? Is that what everybody else does? I remember, when eReaders first started to come out, one of my first thoughts was: “Hmmmm, so I can read the crap that I’d never be caught dead reading in public . . . and no one will be the wiser.” Are back issues of Mad Magazine available for Kindle yet?
So now I’ve got a blog . . . I’ve avoided it as long as I can. Even I’m not interested in reading about what I think. Why in the heck would anyone else? Would a string of references to slang terms for farts make a good blog? Let’s see:
Butt Trumpet
Trouser Cough
SBD
Sphincter Whistle
A Kiss for the Kaiser (my grandfather’s favorite)
Cut the Cheese
Flame Thrower
Toot
Baking Brownies
Kill the Canary
Air Biscuit
Why do I feel like Bugs Bunny about to get yanked off stage with one of those comically oversized hooks? You know, the kind that yank him away and just leave his hat hanging there in mid-air? Good thing I don’t wear hats.
Land of Nod, The Artifact
The Great Pretzel Blog
Fellow author, Connie J. Jasperson always comes up with great blog entries. As I was discussing her latest (http://conniejjasperson.wordpress.com/) with her and some other authors, I commented (some might say ‘whined’) that I can never come up with any good blog topic ideas. And then – in an act of stupidity that rivaled that of Charlie Sheen when he decided he didn’t need writers . . . or a hit show to continue raking in bucks by the truckload – I suggested that if someone would throw out a topic, I’d write a blog on it.
Connie responded with one word:
Pretzels.
Pretzels?!?!
Are you &^%$^$#@ kidding me?!?!
How am I supposed to write a blog about #$@%$#@% pretzels? I mean, sure, I could probably string a few hundred words together, but will they illustrate the sort of thoughtful insight that my readers have come to expect from me?
So my first stop was Wikipedia. You can find anything online, can't you? I remember discussing that concept with a friend once. I made the comment: "It's great that nobody has to feel alone anymore. I'll bet you can find a facebook group of just about anything. I'll bet that if you find yourself feeling a little . . . odd . . . because you find Miss Piggy sexy you can go on facebook . . . and find a group for that.”
. . . and sure enough, right after I said that, I looked it up, and THERE WAS ONE. I am now one of 7 proud members: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/gr...
Wikipedia tells me pretzels are from Germany. The thing I remember most about the time I was in Germany wasn't the Alps or the history or the architecture. I remember that they had Hogan’s Heroes . . . dubbed in German . . . on the TV. Is it just me, or is that really funny? I mean, if the Germans made a show depicting Americans as complete buffoons, I don’t think I’d want to watch an English-dubbed version of that show . . . (though I guess that could possibly explain ‘Jersey Shore’).
One of the other things I remember about Germany was an American themed cafe in which . . . everyone dressed like Fonzie. No wonder people in other countries hate us. They’re jealous of our prowess with women and our ability to start juke-boxes with a single punch.
I was at an American themed restaurant in Italy once also and, while they weren’t dressed as Fonzie, they did create the appropriate mood by hanging Norman Rockwell paintings on the wall . . . and blaring Led Zeppelin. I can’t complain about the food, though. I had a ‘hot-dog’ - which was a sublimely spiced sausage on an Italian roll with sliced mozzarella, tomatoes and arugula.
Can you imagine the shock and despair an unfortunate Italian tourist must feel when he stops at his first hot-dog cart in Manhattan and says: “Am I to understand that the limp gray . . . thing you just pulled out of that fetid water will not be served with arugula?”
But I’m afraid I may be drifting off the main topic. What were we talking about? Oh, right, Germany.
My wife and son (Linda and Ryan) recently returned from a trip to Germany. Ryan, it seems, is quite fluent in German. He often speaks German around the house, but we always just assumed he was making up words in an effort to annoy us and find words that allowed him to spray spittle in our faces.
. . . but it turned out he was quite good, and he had many conversations with native speakers . . . including a point at which Linda and he were waiting in line at the airport and he was jabbering in German behind Linda’s back – to the great amusement of the Germans in the vicinity. We still don’t know what, exactly, he was saying, but I suspect it was something along the lines of: “By the time these stupid Americans find out we were really the ones behind: ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ it will be too late."
Anyway, by the time I got to the reference to Tycho Brahe in the Wikipedia pretzel article (seriously, check it for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretzel) . . . I knew that author had the same problem I did . . . THERE'S JUST NOT THAT MUCH TO SAY ABOUT %$#@^%$ PRETZELS.
Tycho Brahe, now THERE’S a blog topic! Why couldn't you have suggested that, Connie? There's a guy who advanced our knowledge of the universe, but what do we remember about him? That’s right, he was the guy who died because he refused to pee even though he really had to go. Who hasn’t used that one on their kids at one time or another? “Come on, why don’t you try to pee before we get in the car. You don’t want to end up like Tycho Brahe, do you?”
Do you know who else accomplished great things but is only known for one stupid, embarrassing thing? William Howard Taft.
Did you know that Taft was the ONLY person to ever be President AND Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? How amazing is that? What an accomplishment. Wow.
But what do we remember about him? That’s right, he was the big, fat guy who had to have a special, over-sized bath-tub built in the white house.
Isn’t that sad?
I happen to be a fan of a nicely presented Ho-Ho myself. Does that mean I'm doomed to be known as 'the fat guy'? Does that mean that no matter how many literary accolades I accrue (What? They have a Pullitzer for fart-jokes, don't they?), people will remember me as: 'You know, that portly fellow who always had crusty, dried wing sauce in his beard.'?
Hmmmm, you know what? I may stand corrected. Pretzels may be more interesting than I originally thought . . . when you really study and get to know them the way I have.
http://landofnodtrilogy.com/
Connie responded with one word:
Pretzels.
Pretzels?!?!
Are you &^%$^$#@ kidding me?!?!
How am I supposed to write a blog about #$@%$#@% pretzels? I mean, sure, I could probably string a few hundred words together, but will they illustrate the sort of thoughtful insight that my readers have come to expect from me?
So my first stop was Wikipedia. You can find anything online, can't you? I remember discussing that concept with a friend once. I made the comment: "It's great that nobody has to feel alone anymore. I'll bet you can find a facebook group of just about anything. I'll bet that if you find yourself feeling a little . . . odd . . . because you find Miss Piggy sexy you can go on facebook . . . and find a group for that.”
. . . and sure enough, right after I said that, I looked it up, and THERE WAS ONE. I am now one of 7 proud members: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/gr...
Wikipedia tells me pretzels are from Germany. The thing I remember most about the time I was in Germany wasn't the Alps or the history or the architecture. I remember that they had Hogan’s Heroes . . . dubbed in German . . . on the TV. Is it just me, or is that really funny? I mean, if the Germans made a show depicting Americans as complete buffoons, I don’t think I’d want to watch an English-dubbed version of that show . . . (though I guess that could possibly explain ‘Jersey Shore’).
One of the other things I remember about Germany was an American themed cafe in which . . . everyone dressed like Fonzie. No wonder people in other countries hate us. They’re jealous of our prowess with women and our ability to start juke-boxes with a single punch.
I was at an American themed restaurant in Italy once also and, while they weren’t dressed as Fonzie, they did create the appropriate mood by hanging Norman Rockwell paintings on the wall . . . and blaring Led Zeppelin. I can’t complain about the food, though. I had a ‘hot-dog’ - which was a sublimely spiced sausage on an Italian roll with sliced mozzarella, tomatoes and arugula.
Can you imagine the shock and despair an unfortunate Italian tourist must feel when he stops at his first hot-dog cart in Manhattan and says: “Am I to understand that the limp gray . . . thing you just pulled out of that fetid water will not be served with arugula?”
But I’m afraid I may be drifting off the main topic. What were we talking about? Oh, right, Germany.
My wife and son (Linda and Ryan) recently returned from a trip to Germany. Ryan, it seems, is quite fluent in German. He often speaks German around the house, but we always just assumed he was making up words in an effort to annoy us and find words that allowed him to spray spittle in our faces.
. . . but it turned out he was quite good, and he had many conversations with native speakers . . . including a point at which Linda and he were waiting in line at the airport and he was jabbering in German behind Linda’s back – to the great amusement of the Germans in the vicinity. We still don’t know what, exactly, he was saying, but I suspect it was something along the lines of: “By the time these stupid Americans find out we were really the ones behind: ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ it will be too late."
Anyway, by the time I got to the reference to Tycho Brahe in the Wikipedia pretzel article (seriously, check it for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretzel) . . . I knew that author had the same problem I did . . . THERE'S JUST NOT THAT MUCH TO SAY ABOUT %$#@^%$ PRETZELS.
Tycho Brahe, now THERE’S a blog topic! Why couldn't you have suggested that, Connie? There's a guy who advanced our knowledge of the universe, but what do we remember about him? That’s right, he was the guy who died because he refused to pee even though he really had to go. Who hasn’t used that one on their kids at one time or another? “Come on, why don’t you try to pee before we get in the car. You don’t want to end up like Tycho Brahe, do you?”
Do you know who else accomplished great things but is only known for one stupid, embarrassing thing? William Howard Taft.
Did you know that Taft was the ONLY person to ever be President AND Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? How amazing is that? What an accomplishment. Wow.
But what do we remember about him? That’s right, he was the big, fat guy who had to have a special, over-sized bath-tub built in the white house.
Isn’t that sad?
I happen to be a fan of a nicely presented Ho-Ho myself. Does that mean I'm doomed to be known as 'the fat guy'? Does that mean that no matter how many literary accolades I accrue (What? They have a Pullitzer for fart-jokes, don't they?), people will remember me as: 'You know, that portly fellow who always had crusty, dried wing sauce in his beard.'?
Hmmmm, you know what? I may stand corrected. Pretzels may be more interesting than I originally thought . . . when you really study and get to know them the way I have.
http://landofnodtrilogy.com/
