David Mark Brown's Blog, page 41

Working in Pajamas on Promissory Commission

I've been promised big money when my book deal goes through.  From a reliable source – myself.  And my slice of the pie keeps getting bigger.  Today I worked hard to earn my 2% as head internet marketing specialist and another 2% as publicist.  I've also been working for flat fee (on futures of course) as social media consultant and graphic designer.  I've promised myself over $3000 in editing fees.  I even gave myself a friendly little sum for fashion consulting (my hair was getting a bit t...

Welcome to ReEfeR PUnK

German movie poster

What if natural fibers like hemp had won supremacy over petroleum in the 1930′s?  What if the marijuana tax stamp act of 1937 had never been passed?  What if cannabis had never been dubbed marijuana, as a racial slur against Mexicans?  Our fuel would be ethanol. Our textiles would be blends of hemp and cotton rather than cotton and polyester.  Our paints, plastics, cosmetics, food and countless other consumables would be petroleum free.  What about our path out of the...

That's right, cage matches for manuscripts

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome by Richard Amsel

How many people decide whether or not the public will like a book before the public even gets a vote?  Maybe a publisher, editor, and agent?  These people are professionals who stake their careers and livelihoods to some extent on knowing what the public will like, and certainly they are often right.

But is it efficient to have so many steps between writer and reader?  We have all heard the stories of books being rejected repeatedly before eventually ...

quest for money and integrity

I have been embroiled in the process of discovering where my talents and desires intersect what the world wants to read, ie. the commercial book industry.  My first project was admittedly a labor of love stemming from my deep felt needs and desires to communicate truth about human nature.  The problem was and is, I don't know how to label it for the consumer market.  I don't know how to market what I have written.

Some of the struggle has been to understand the market and the semantics of...

If a character tree falls in the forest…

AsherDurand-Forestmorninglight

You would think that I would have diagramed the lives, motives and phycological profiles of my characters before I began the first draft of Blood Vines.  Instead I find myself doing it now, before I begin the third rewrite.  While it is a bit easier to picture my characters now than I image in would have been over a year ago, it am guessing the process of writing the novel has been made much more difficult by waiting until now.

Hmmm.  Good thing good logic is not ...

Academic or not, work it all the same

While slopping up superbly done over-medium eggs with my "Park Potatoes" this past Saturday morning at the Park Cafe with a friend, I was enlightened to the nature of publishing a scientific study.  Low and behold, it is much the same as publishing anything else.

My scientist friend described his writing process of identifying and connecting the reader with the provocative and overarching question that his paper would address and then the challenge of infusing the professional paper with the t...

Can happy, well-adjusted people be writers?

A Young Student at His Desk: Melancholy by Pieter Codde

Much of my life has been spent in pursuit of melancholy – the romantic kind that drove young people like Sylvia Plath to early suicide or death.  Yes, I am a moron.  But so often the successful writer is portrayed as a tortured soul with never a moment's respite from inner demons or outer strife.

In many cases this may be true.  But much like seeking humility drives it away, thirsting for personal tragedy is stupid.  And unproductive...

Story is the Only Way to Live

Poe's the Spectacles by Byam Shaw

By the age of twelve I can remember imagining that my life was a movie.  Sometimes I would take several cuts of a simple course of events like jumping down from my bunk bed, moving around a chair, swooping a binder off of the desk, spinning and then opening the door until I did it just right.  Then I would click off the camera in my head and think, "that was a good shot."

Besides making me crazy, this sort of imagination created in me a sense of life as story. ...

the role of mystics in writing

Henry Nouwen

I doubt it is a coincidence that many of the best written contributions from the Christian tradition have been mystics.  Christian mystics have, after all, always advocated for the deep and innate need of man to know the heart of God.  And as Henri Nouwen (a recently deceased contemplative who impacted many, to say the least) so aptly put it, "To know the heart of God, is to know God."

So what, you might add.  Well, even the broadest Christian tradition holds to the tenet that...

Passing time while the snow flies…

Credit: Ralph Langendam

Lying here listening to the varied bleeps and buzzes of my hospital room in the recovery ward of the University Hospital in Salt Lake City, it occurs to me that I have real wisdom to pass along before it be too late.  After buzzing for the nurses assistant currently on duty, and then waiting a few minutes for Clara to bounce along the hall in search of a pen, which I now slowly spin in my clammy hands in order to read the advertisement along its shaft, "Flomax…"  and s...