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20 Reasons to Become a Published Author of Fiction

Every blog has at least one top ten reasons or top 20 reasons or top whatever reasons list, so I figured my blog should have one, too. So this is my list. It’s probably the silliest list you can find. If you found this list in the murky sea called the internet, hi from the other side! Have a satirical cookie! They’re free and they really are chocolate chip, not raisins.

Ahem, and here we go.

Lily’s Top 20 Reasons to Become a Published Author of Fiction

Written in both Canadian and American English for everyone’s reading pleasure.

#20. You’re totally in love with poverty.

You’re not just casually dating poverty. This isn’t casual sex. You’re way beyond any “firsts” protocols. You and poverty now use the bathroom in front of each other and neither of you have any modesty left. Modesty is gone. You’re sharing toothbrushes when you can afford to split the cost of minty toothpaste.

#19. You look forward to having that one meal per day.

Just thinking all kinds of food you can’t afford inspires you to write bible-sized novels and epic poems.

Ode to Chocolate Mousse Cake. Thy velvety ribbons of brown gold, how I love thee…

#18.  Never knowing if you’ll get any money for your next royalty check gives you the biggest thrill.

Bread crumbs for breakfast? Dried-out cheese for lunch? Crackers for dinner? All the cool kids are doing it!

#17. Editing is like, the most fun thing evah!

It’s more fun than a root canal, which is also a lot of fun.

#16. Your Mom does all your editing for free.

Along with cute little smiles and nods and “that was interesting, dear” or “I never thought about it that way before.”

Reason #15. Your Mom said it’s the best poem/short story/novel she has ever read and she’s always known you were going to grow up to become an award-winning writer the moment you were born.

Seriously. A photo of the Nobel Prize is on the wall next to your naked baby on a bear rug pics, because they didn’t have Snapchat in those days.

#14. Your Mom is never wrong.

Never, ever, and you have the scars to prove it.

#13. Grandma’s already paying your rent so it’s not like you really need to get a paying job.

The future can wait. Priorities.

#12. Your characters talk to you more than your friends do.

Who needs friends? You have fictional characters you can manipulate every day without feeling any guilt!

#11. Your dreams every night are about your characters and eating food.

Fast food. Take-out. Pizza. Chinese. Whatevs.

#10. Your characters have a more interesting sex-life than you do.

But don’t tell Mom.

#9. Your characters are funnier than you are.

Self-explanatory.

#8. Your characters are better looking than you are.

Hey, why bother competing? Just give in to the insanity.

#7. You know how to write complete sentences… when you feel like it.

You know?

#6. The Oxford Comma.

It’s not just grammar to you, it’s a way of life.

#5. Punctuation. Is. Your. Friend.

You have to be careful, though. When making lists, use a colon : before listing one, two, and three. See what I did there?

P.S. Number 5 could also be used in a Top 20 Things to Never Say on a First Date list. Trust me on this one.

#4. Real-life murder is illegal but if you write about a fictional murder, at worse it doesn’t sell, and you won’t go to prison.

Everyone wins.

#3. Fictional violence.

Again, no prison.

#2. You are a writer, but what you really want to do is telemarketing, because Grandma isn’t paying your rent.

It’s okay. All writers are liars. We won’t say anything to Grandma.

And now for the grand finale, number one reason to become a published writer of fiction!

#1. Because… reasons.

Thank you! Leave a star rating at the top.

The post 20 Reasons to Become a Published Author of Fiction appeared first on The Neon Vagabond Scroll.

The Ash Garden Memory One

“If you remember the 60’s you weren’t there.” – Robin Williams (A few others have been credited with the quote, but no one seems to remember who said it first. I guess they were all from the 60’s).

I don’t remember the 60’s because I wasn’t born yet. However, as I work on self-editing The Ash Garden, I’m consistently held back by memory flashbacks. They’re not bad, most are rather funny. This is the disadvantage of writing a story that’s based on my own experiences. Again, the flashbacks aren’t bad, but they do cause me to pause a lot and say to myself, “Oh, yeah, I remember when that happened.” And then I have to mentally force myself to get back into the frame of mind for the story. You know, the zone

So I decided to share the memories that readers will recognize in The Ash Garden whenever it’s published.

Years and years ago, I was hanging out with friends. One guy, a friend of a friend, was also a drug dealer. We were all stoned AF. So me being stoned, I asked him, “How did you become a drug dealer?” I thought it was an ordinary question at the time, just making conversation.

He gave me a weird look and replied, “I kinda fell into it.”

We all laughed hysterically. You fell into it? What happened? Did you trip over a baggie of weed? How does that work? We couldn’t stop laughing.

The drug dealer’s reply is used in Chapter 3 of The Ash Garden. Every time I think about that one line “I kinda fell into it” I laugh and laugh. It’s still the funniest thing to me.

I guess you had to be there. I’ll post more memories as I think of them.

I’ve been also thinking about the cover preview for The Ash Garden. I like the concept, but it still feels empty to me. So I’ve been thinking about incorporating the apple tree illustration that will be in Chapter 3.

Something like using the thorny vines I designed around the stage for the apple tree. It makes sense in my head.

Here’s a quote that will before the apple tree image, just to give you a bit of context.

“Go ahead and dance around the apple tree, maybe it will drop a clue or two.” – The Ash Garden, Chapter 3

Funny how I can explain parts of the writing process, but damned if I can explain the art process.

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A Hell of a Year End for Heroes

It’s not December yet, but it feels like the end of the year 2016. Closing a chapter in cultural history and saying goodbye to icons who made life worth living.

I thought about writing memorial posts, celebrating each life, but I kept changing my mind. I have two major projects I still need to finish and they take my full concentration. It’s been such a hellish year that I lost track. Then I checked. I haven’t published new material since May. May? It’s only been since May? I thought it was longer. So then I realized…

I have all the time in the world.

When I was about 11 or 12 years old, that’s when I really started to get into music. When all my female classmates were gushing about New Kids on the Block, I was looking around to see if anyone else listened to Skinny Puppy or Black Flag. I was influenced by people outside of school and much older than me. Outside of school, I felt like the youngest and finally starting to catch up. In school, I felt like the oldest, waiting for everyone else to catch up to me.

In retrospect, I realize I was a bit vain, but then, aren’t all pre-teens? Rhetorical question.

In 1991, I watched Hardware with friends for the first time. Someone in the group pointed out (literally, with a jabbing finger at the TV screen), “That’s Lemmy!” Who? I had listened to Motorhead so many times at that point, but never really took the time to remember names. Lemmy Kilmister, founder of Motorhead, played a small part in Hardware – the water taxi driver. For a low-budget film that packs a punch in a post-apocalyptic world, it was the perfect part for him.

Side note: Iggy Pop plays Angry Bob in Hardware, the radio DJ. “And now for the good news. There is NO fucking good news!” Classic. I highly recommend watching Hardware.

I grew up and came of age during a time when it was common to have a vibrant freak subculture where drag night was a regular thing and everyone went to a Rocky Horror Picture Show at local small theatres. (Toilet paper, anyone?). And this is where David Bowie is a huge influence.

He was gay without being gay. Bowie just did his own thing, consequences be damned. He blazed a path for anyone to follow. He set the bar high. See, Bowie made it okay. No one was a failure because no one could ever be weirder than David Bowie. He was a rebel, a pirate, an alien, a goblin king with an infamous bulge, an incredible artist. Then he fell to earth, and I’m still stunned by the realization that Bowie was, in fact, mortal.

At the risk of sounding self-depreciating, I’m a white girl nobody from Canada. I’m not putting myself down, merely being honest, in order to explain my appreciation for Prince. I’m a small woman, or, petite as the extremely polite would say. I don’t care. I’m just me. Prince, who created so much art and one of the few pop artists who won an Oscar, was only 5 ft 2.

He was a tiny man living in a big man’s world. For years, as an afterthought, I’d tell myself, if Prince can get away with it, so can I. Prince was a standard for me, for a long time.

I no longer have that standard, and that’s a very hard thing to accept.

By the way, I was often the only one in my group of friends who appreciated Prince. Good luck trying to explain Prince to a bunch of punks, goth rockers, and metalheads.

One of the cities I’ve lived in is Montreal. In that city, Leonard Cohen is everywhere. Everyone in Montreal has a Leonard Cohen story, so here’s mine. I lived in an apartment that was previously rented by a woman named Aviva, who happened to be one of Leonard Cohen’s former lovers. Whenever I told people my address I was always asked, “Doesn’t Aviva live there?” She was well-known and rather eccenctic, straight out of Montreal’s long-gone bohemian art scene. And I always said, “No, Aviva doesn’t live here anymore.” I had to say that so many times I wrote a song about her called, Aviva Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, to the tune of Punk Rock Girl by The Dead Milkmen. I lost the song I wrote years ago. I never saved my many writing scribbles until 2003, which was when I started taking my writing seriously.

This blog post is all over the place. But, then, so am I.

I guess I just wanted you to know that I’m still here, fighting to survive 2016. I would love nothing more than to say, hey, it’s okay, I’m the next trail blazer, the next poet laureate, the next best thing ever.

But I won’t lie.

I don’t know my future. I don’t even know what I’m doing right now. I take things one day at time and hope for the best. I’m just… still here.

The post A Hell of a Year End for Heroes appeared first on The Neon Vagabond Scroll.

TWD, Supernatural, and the Seventh Season End

I have a theory I like to call the Seventh Season End. So far, I’ve seen the same phenomenon happen with TV shows ranging from The Walking Dead to Supernatural, so I can only conclude that this is a recent trend. And by recent, I mean in the past 6 years.

The show gets to the seven seasons, and it feels finished to me. The overall story arc has completed a circle and I don’t want to know more. I’m satisfied at seventh season and that’s it. Anything after just feels like beating a dead horse.

Supernatural is, in my opinion, an amazing hit or miss show. Many episodes have been so mind-numbingly predictable to me that I actually said dialogue or events in my head right before it happened. I understand that kind of experience can be a lot fun for some people. For me, I find it indulgent, patronizing, and encourages self-entitlement.

The experience is simple. You just have to know what happens next, right? So you watch what happens next and say to yourself, “I knew it all along!” Meanwhile, the writers/director/producers/cast/etc, were playing you. They’re banking on your self-indulgence. They’re expecting the audience to take great pleasure in playing the “I told you so” game.

Being fair, I do feel everyone involved with Supernatural is doing the best they can. However, I honestly can’t tell if it’s suppose to be a mockery of all things supernatural or if they really expect you to take it seriously. Hit or miss.

The first four seasons are a hot mess. Season five starts with a wonderful bang and, for a moment, I thought they finally got their shit together. But, there were still some hits and misses. Good episodes, and completely ridiculous episodes. (Were Sam’s glittering crocodile tears really needed?)

Again, being fair, it’s extremely rare to find a TV show that doesn’t have both hit and miss episodes. Even Buffy, one of my all-time favourite shows, had some hit and misses. So I’m not bothered by that. Not every show can be perfect every episode. This is a big reason why I’m very seletive about which shows I’ll watch.

By the end of Supernatural season seven, the whole show completed a circle. I was satisfied with that. I felt no need to watch another episode. The circle is two brothers go through hell with funny times along the way, hunting demons and monsters, because that’s the family business. Then, all angels fall. Now they’re going to have to hunt angels instead of demons, for however long they manage to stay alive. That was enough for me. A bittersweet ending to the Winchester saga.

Of course, because I had been catching up with the show on Netflix, I can see there are four more seasons and the show still isn’t finished. So naturally I clicked next episode, season eight. Back to hit and miss. I’m done with the show. I just don’t want to watch it anymore.

Don’t get me wrong. I get it. I see the appeal. The bromance thing, mental porn for girls, as well as catering to a fanfiction crowd. I’m not in love with Sam and Dean, but that’s just personal taste. I’m not a part of any fanction crowd, either, so I’m just not their targeted audience. I accept that. I can only be myself.

I started watching Supernatural because I was tired of not getting any of the jokes I saw posted on social media. I get the jokes now, and sometimes it’s amusing, and I’m done.

Now, The Walking Dead, in my opinion, is brilliant. It’s a prime example of how to do a TV adaption of a comic book. The production is very well-done. I’ve been consistently amazed by how the show manages to skate along a thin line between fans of the comic book and fans of the show who never read the comic book before, uniting both groups as the TWD audience. Everyone involves gets a big kudos from me. And I’m done with TWD.

(Side note, I’m still iffy about AMC’s Preacher. So far, not so good. Might get better, might not, I don’t know yet).

I knew who was going to die in the TWD season 7 premiere. I’ve known all along. I wasn’t surprised or shocked. It was more like, finally. I don’t like playing the “I told you so” game. I’m intolerant of anyone who gets smugly superior with the “I knew it” bullshit. Of course you knew it. All the clues were given away in the season 6 finale. I don’t care that I, or anyone else, knew it all along. It doesn’t make me feel good and I don’t appreciate anyone assuming superiority for knowing what was already given away over six months ago.

(No, I’m not going to give it away for those who haven’t watched Season 7 Episode 1 yet).

I love TWD, I do. Like I said, amazing production. As a fan of the comic book, a fan of the TV adaptation, a big fan of horror, I’m definitely a part of their targeted audience. But it’s finished to me. A circle was completed. Granted, a messy, bloody, and horrific circle. TWD was never meant to be an easy fairytale. It’s about surviving a world gone horribly wrong. That’s the whole point.

I don’t like how season six played out. The finale was so anti-climatic for me that I actually yawned. I don’t agree with the manipulative cliffhanger tactic that reeks of spoiled self-indulgence. Yes, it happens to be extremely popular and many are going to tune in no matter what the writers decide to do. At this point, they could turn TWD into a Disney animation and rabid fans will still watch it.

I don’t care.

I won’t be watching another episode until it’s all uploaded to Netflix, if I still want to watch it by then. I’ll probably end up being behind the times by many years, if social media doesn’t send me spoilers, I still don’t care. Season seven premiere was enough for me. It’s a Seventh Season End.

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Diversity, Or Lack Thereof

I’ve been dealing with a lot lately. When I was almost finished my new bog launch, I got a call. My father passed away at only age 72. Sure, he wasn’t a young guy, but it was still sudden. So I’ve been trying to work on things, went ahead and launched my blog anyways, finished both illustrations and text for The Ash Garden, Chapter 1. I haven’t been all that productive, for good reasons. I’ve been taking longer breaks than usual, trying to hold on to my concentration.

Netflix is always a nice distraction, where I can tune out for an hour or two. But, one snag. I’ve caught up with all TV shows that I want to watch. Supernatural, Jessica Jones, Stranger Things, The Walking Dead, Oh, and Deadpool‘s finally been added. There doesn’t seem to be much left of interest. For now. It’s bad timing for me.

I decided to watch a movie that I’ve seen on Netflix, Hush, a thriller (or maybe horror, I don’t know, I didn’t get that far) where the main character and the prey is deaf. It honestly didn’t look that good to me, so I kept ignoring it. But, here I am, in desperate need of distraction, so I thought, what the hell? It might be good for a laugh.

And… oh bloody hell. The main character was too stupid to live, which kinda pisses me off, because it reinforces the false stereotype of “deaf and dumb.” Not cool, Netflix, not cool at all.

I’m hard of hearing. For me, it’s not a big deal. I happen to know a lot of people who are hard of hearing or completely deaf. When you have an impairment like that, instincts become much stronger. You know that feeling of creepiness and hair raises on the back of your neck, and you just know if you turn around, whatever you find is going to make you scream? Yeah, that feeling. I have that feeling all the time, 24/7. After living with hearing loss (how can it be a loss when you never had it in the first place?) for thirty-seven years, I’ve long since learned to curb that feeling, and only act on it when I know something is definitely wrong. That’s where visual clues come in handy.

I stopped watching the movie after about ten minutes, and here’s why. So the character is cooking or cleaning in the kitchen, and the killer (who’s wearing a Michael Myers’ style mask) dances past a very tall and very see-through window. He’s in sight. He’s right fucking there. She turns, faces him, and keeps on cooking, completely oblivious. Why? Because she’s deaf. And why? Because deaf people are dumb with no instincts whatsoever, and deserve to be stalked and murdered by a Michael Myers poser.

Pisses me off.

Okay, now that I’ve written all of that, I can finally see it is a little bit funny. But that’s not the point.

My point is, this movie was obviously written by someone who has no clue what it means to be deaf. It’s very similar to screenplays that have Transgender characters yet straight actors are hired for the part. Or, and in my opinion, I find this far worse, when “token” actors are hired to make it look like a diverse cast. The token gay guy, the token Chinese guy, the token Black guy, the list goes on.

But that’s not what pisses me off. What pisses me off is that we have done this before. And it’s exhausting. You want to see a good movie with a deaf character? Go see Children of a Lesser God, 1986. That was exactly 30 years ago.

There’s a huge gap going on. The audience wants more diversity, because there’s been an extreme lack of diversity for 20 to 30 years now. But if writers who know nothing about the subject write about it, then comes acoss as fake, because it is fake. Writers write what they know. The question isn’t, why is there such a lack of diversity? The question is, why aren’t the writers who can write diversity getting hired?

Food for thought.

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New Blog Coming

I'm just trying to figure out how to add...

On Being Canadian

Originally posted on August 22, 2016

I’ve been thinking a lot about being Canadian lately. The Tragically Hip are no more, Gord Downie has gone home for a well-earned rest. And I have a book to illustrate.

(In case you missed the update on Facebook, I’ve decided to finish The Ash Garden first as an illustrated novel,  and it’s coming along nicely).

Canadian publishing works very differently in comparison to American publishing. In fact, you really can’t compare. They’re two different worlds. It’s a different country, which I say with a shrug. Canadian publishing is all about you know in Canada, what you do that’s Canadian, and where you’re from. Literary fiction by an author born in St. Catherine’s, Ontario, who writes about trees native to Eastern Canada, for example.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Canada. I’m proud to be Canadian. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world. I’m glad we have tons of support and funding for local Canadian arts. But the truth is, Canadian publishing is limited to, essentially, the Canadian landscape, in whatever medium the creator chooses (books, poetry, etc, etc). As a result, I’ve never felt any confidence to publish my work in my own country. Sad? Perhaps. But that’s just the reality of being the kind of person who marches to a different drumbeat. I wouldn’t be surprised, and I have seen evidence, that similar struggles exist for many different creators, in many countries all of the world.

And I’m tired. Since social media was introduced and became popular, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve apologized for my Canadian-ness. (Oh, sorry, that wasn’t a typo, we spell “centre” with an “re” not a “er.”) I’m tired of being treated as if I’m stupid, naive, a bad speller, and I couldn’t possibly know what’s going on in the country that’s right next door. Yeesh.

I’m tired of omitting the “u.” I’m tired of being un-Canadian.

Okay, so I’ll never make it big in Canadian publishing. I’m cool with that. It’s something I accepted a long time ago. But, really, in an online world where any two-year-old can Google that shit, I don’t think I should have to work so hard at being un-Canadian just in case there’s one person out of billions who doesn’t immediately get that reference.

I have a point. This isn’t a mindless rant post. Really. Thank you for your patience.

The Ash Garden had a lot of Canadian references. A lot of those referrences were edited or deleted, mostly by The Publisher That Shall Not be Named. I would like to attract an international audience, but I don’t think deleting Canadian references was the best thing to do. I feel removing those references has just created a mess. I wrote the first draft in Canadian English, and no matter how The Ash Garden is published, there will be Canadian-ness woven throughout the story. And I won’t apologize for that.

I also won’t apologize for the fact I’m creating, with help of an artist, a comic book set in Tennessee. That’s the story of Cottonseeds. I have a vivid imagination that’s more of a curse than a blessing, and so, I can set story in Tennessee, with references to Tennessee and a crapload of research. (Another shrug).

I will, however, say sorry in casual conversation. The word sorry is in my Canadian blood. I can’t help it. If I cut you off in line or pass by you in a doorway, I will automatically say sorry.  (No, no, I’m sorry, please, after you).

I leave you with one of my favourite I am Canadian commercials.

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Trees

Originally posted on November 14, 2014

A couple of blocks away from my apartment building there was a massive tree whose root grew so big it broke apart the sidewalk. The broken section was like a pointed mountain, straight up and down. It was a serious hazard. Personally, I couldn’t walk on that broken sidewalk at all. So I took the scenic route.

Instead of uprooting and destroying the tree, the city simply paved a smooth ramp over the root so the tree can now safely continue growing under the sidewalk.

There’s always another way. No need for extremes. No need to scream any political agenda, no matter how well-intentioned that agenda might seem.

Don’t scream. Whisper. Only then will the trees hear you.

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How to Start a New Blog

Yeah, I misled you here. Sorry.

In 2005, I started a Google blogger account because a friend told me that’s how you get started as a new author. Fast-forward eleven years, and I’m right back to where I started. My old blog is still out there, floating around cyberspace.

imgur

I used my blog for a lot of randomness. My posts alternated between promotions, writing lessons, and rants. It became a chore. After a while, I stopped linking the blog to my website. I gave up on it.

I’m going to be brutally honest. I can’t stand blogs. Or rather, what blogs have become. Back when, it was simple. You have something to say, you wrote about it. Believe it or not, over ten years ago blogs were 100% about content. Book reviews, movie reviews, useful articles. Now it seems blogs have become a platform to launch egos. Some are insecure egos, some… aren’t.

I know, I know. It’s not everyone. It’s just a large majority giving the rest of us a bad name. And it sucks.

But you know what? I don’t care. I love writing as much as I love art. Writing on a regular basis helps to keep my brain muscles in shape. I love connecting with like-minded people who also love writing and art, whether they’re a reader, writer, or an artist. I care about my friends.

If you’re reading in hopes of discovering ZE SECRET, you’re going to be disappointed. I won’t be posting any lessons or how-to manuals. If you’re reading to enjoy my funny/rambling/sarcastic/ranting posts as I hammer out stories and art, then I welcome you. If, by chance, what I do inspires you to do your own thing, whatever it happens to be, then I will be flattered and honoured to call you a friend.

So, long story, er, longer, this is me and this is my (non) blog. Comments welcomed, rants appreciated, and respect rules.

Oh, and by the way, I’m Lily.

Nice to meet you.

P.S. Spare a moment, scroll up, and leave a rating at the top, thanks.

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