Nick Shamhart's Blog, page 10

Fan Mail

I received this letter from a reader and I wanted to share it with everyone.

Dear Mr. Shamhart,

I just finished reading Raven and I liked it. I like what you’ve done with the series so far, but the reason I am writing to you is the beginning of chapter 18 where Raven talks about soldiers going through hell.

I served in the Gulf War with the 3rd Armored Division. I did my time, served my country, got my education and got out. I still read a lot of military fiction though, but most of it is just people being shot and tanks blowing things up. That’s war; sure, I’ve been there and done that. None of it seems to get into what it’s like to be a soldier like you did, or maybe it’s just the books I have read haven’t. Those few pages in Raven did more to describe what it is like to have fought in war better than any of the other war novels I’ve read. Just a few pages! Thank you for that. You are absolutely right, soldiers will see hell and it will never leave them. I still hate it in the summer when my lawn mower overheats because it makes me gag smelling that stupid burning oil smell. It’s been over twenty years but it still reminds me of the oil fields burning.

I don’t know if you ever served, but anyone who has in the military or police, anybody who sees the shittier side of people, should be able to identify with Raven’s words. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Brandon

 

Why did I share this with you all? Because this is why I write. This is what separates and defines the differences between artists. I don’t care one lick for awards, rankings and bestseller type nonsense. Those are just marketing labels and handles used to sell people a product. I do not want to sell the world a product. Everyone is trying to sell you something nowadays. I just want to tell stories that readers can identify with, and if Brandon enjoyed just a few pages so much that he took the time to write me a letter, then I have done my craft an honor.  Thank you, Brandon, and thank you all.

 

**I contacted the writer of this letter and he was flattered that I wanted to share it with the world, but he asked that I remove his last name and military rank for his privacy.**

Living Symbols

At a stoplight I looked across the intersection to see a large Black man driving a white SUV. I am a large White guy driving a black SUV. The point? When the light turned green and we slowly passed each other, for a split second, from a bird’s-eye-view, we were the coolest Yin Yang symbol in Cleveland!!!

Wobble Wonkers!

Language is inherently fluid, but I see generational and cultural slang as a sort of dam to that flow. Instead of allowing myself to be swept away in the asinine argot I plan to invent my own slang. Who knows, perhaps in another year your teenager may be saying some of Nick’s new words?

I find “lol” and “lmao” to be truly representative of our culture’s lassitude. So, from now on if something is funny I shall say, “Wobble Wonkers!” which in a few months will devolve into “W Wonkers” then “W Wonk” perhaps an urban revival into “Wobbizzle Wonkshizzle” but eventually it will be just like the half-assed aforementioned slangs and be typed “WW!”

Erosion

Most days I feel like a boulder just sitting in the surf. Please don’t think I’m attempting to ascribe the characteristics of a rock’s solidity onto myself. No, that is not what I mean. It just seems that everywhere I turn: out on the roads, among the throngs of shoppers, moms at the parks with their kids, my kids, even so far as social media sites that so many people are in a rush, a hurry, move it asshole! Now Now Now! You’re in MY way!

And there I am, standing all but still, watching them pass. A rock just letting the tide slap-up and wash around it. The water keeps rushing past it, hurry hurry, only to have life pull the speeding mass right back out to sea. Water that was in such a frothing rage moments ago to sweep past the boulder is now further back than the rock. The universal bitch of it is that every time the water pushes past the rock, coming and going, it takes little pieces of stone with it. A fleck here, a pebble there, until at some point that rock that stood, minding its own business, watching the world rush about in its always futile, redundant race to the shoreline, has been eroded away with the water and swept up in the tide…..

Math Sucks!

There are currently around 311 million people* residing in the USA. That’s a hard number for a person to perceive, so let me help. If you could say, “Hello” to everyone of them, on some sort of revolving conveyor belt, as they passed you – one “Hello” per second – it would take you almost 10 straight years just to get through the greeting process…and that’s not taking into account your need to eat, sleep and go to the bathroom.

My countrymen and women are not doing so well on general knowledge tests and as each year passes they do worse and worse. Let’s just take a look at some more numbers shall we?

1 in a 1,000 Americans say they read. But this is generalized, mind you. When pushed as to frequency and quantity of reading this one in a thousand gives vague responses like newspapers and magazine articles.
1 in 10,000 Americans are classified as Avid Readers. Keep in mind you are now an avid reader if you can manage to read one book for pleasure a month.     

So that means that 31,100 books are being read per month in the USA for leisure purposes. But, I have to add a little here, because, though I’m not polishing off the five a week I could in my twenties before I had kids, I’m still reading more than one book a month. I say there must be others like me out there. Maybe half of the avid readers are consuming more than one? For an even number let’s say 50,000. That looks better, more impressive, huh? Americans read 50,000 books per month for fun.

Now our good friends at the Bureau of Labor Statistics claim the average American watches 2.7 hours of TV a day. This number is down actually thanks to social media like Facebook and Twitter, because more folks are scrolling stalker-like through their Ex’s profiles and posting pictures of their lunches. I remain dubious as to if that is better than Survivor and Sports Center.

But let’s compare that 50,000 we felt so pleased with moments ago to the number of hours spent watching TV. Though we know better, I say remove those 31,100 pesky Avid Readers from the equation. If they have time to squeeze in a book a month, how much TV can they be watching? *Wink Wink*

That leaves 310,968,900 average Americans watching 2.7 hours of TV per day = 839,616,030 hours of TV watched per day! Then per month = 26 Billion hours of TV! or 26,000,000,000.

Anybody else feel that 50,000 books per month just took one hell of a pride nosedive?

*All the statistics in this article are averaged from multiple sources. Welcome to the digital age where every organization – private and publicly funded, runs polls and surveys with varying results and accuracy. The mean results are not meant to be mean (oh the wit), but for your eye-opening edification. Besides if you want an APA bibliography it would be longer than the bloody article, so just enjoy. Oh alright at least one link http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t01.htm

It’s a good thing Bill Joel stopped at the 90′s

The scariest aspect of living in this day and age is not that mental shock of, What the hell happened to the world!? No, what’s really terrifying is the answer, not the question. Go to Yahoo.com, don’t click on anything, just let it sit there on their homepage, and look around. What do you see? A visual assault of commercials and the most asinine news coverage as it scrolls through ludicrous headlines.

What’s in a Name?

Memorial Day, I have to be honest, as a boy – no, even to this day – that term did and does not really hold much significance to me. When you’re a child the value behind it is that long weekend preview feeling of summer that is right around the corner – barbecues, picnics and parades. It’s a dalliance or perhaps a diversion at best.

After the Civil War when  individual communities held their own memorials to the fallen on different days…well, that certainly has some poignancy behind it – even for the youth of the time. Imagine standing on the same late spring weed-chocked ground that your father or older brother bled out on. But even for those souls neigh approaching two centuries gone Memorial seems such a paltry misnomer, to me.

Sacrifice Day, has too much of a Shirley Jackson feel. Day of the Fallen, would exclude those fortunate souls who serve and then return. Yet, both would be better descriptors to delve into the meaning of the day. Sadly the term I feel is most fitting allows for one of our few minimally capitalized holidays to be commercialized like all the rest, Honored Warriors Day. It truly covers the significance, but I can already see the UFC banners waving high, can’t you? Sad.

I suppose my best advice is to honor the fallen warriors who sacrificed so much for you  everyday, and not just once a year. To my grandfathers, to my friends, and to all of yours who serve and served have a wonderful Memorial Day.

Smut vs Novels

Steven Spielberg makes movies, right? But by that logic, so does the pornography industry.  Would anyone be audacious enough to group Spielberg flicks in with pornos? I wouldn’t.

So I’m asking the book world, as both an author and a reader, don’t group smut in with the real novels. It’s insulting to those who put their hearts, minds and souls into their work.

For the Wolves

It is very difficult to be a writer for the wolves. Not the literal Canis lupus or some overdone werewolf lycanthropy nonsense, no. I write for the figurative wolves. My fans  and readers are the wolves out there among the sheep.

As a fellow wolf I understand that wolves want to think for themselves.

Wolves have a hard enough time listening to the advice of other wolves, let alone trying to shut out the blather of the sheep, “Bah bah bah boobies. Bah bah  booty. Bah bah boom!” It’s the hardest, coldest truth in business - sex and sadism always sell.

Silly sheep saw sex sold said surely sounds like a seller.…..try saying that five times fast!

So, as a wolf I applaud all of the wolves out there that want to make up their own minds. Please, keep thinking for yourselves and I’ll keep writing stories that make you think.

On the Horizon

Balance series fans, I’m glad to note that Zeus The Balance: Book Three is currently in the editing/test reading phase. I don’t believe in that whole line it up in a good week when other new books in the genre aren’t coming out. The books are done when they are done, I’m not playing games. So, I hope to have Zeus in stores by the end of summer.

Now, there will still be eight Balance books, but I needed to work on something else between books three and four. Something lighthearted. Believe it or not, I’m working up an outline for a romantic comedy. Don’t worry that is not a capitulation to the market masses. I do have a fully entertaining story, told in my style and not just some attempt to pull in a different demographic. But, I know many of the readers have sent me emails saying, “I told my friends they have to read the Balance books, but I get, ‘Oh I don’t read that type of book’.”

I know the world now judges a book not only by its cover but by its genre as well, sad but true. Alas, readers, now when you hear that response you’ll be able to rebut that Nick Shamhart also has a romantic comedy available, too.  Hopefully that will be in stores by the holiday season ’12.