Ryan Parmenter's Blog, page 46

The Go-Again

The shovel hits something solid, and it clangs in way that makes my teeth hurt. I dig out around the lockbox, throwing more dirt on the pile next to my dead accomplice. The firelight from the torch planted in the ground flickers over his cold face, an orange glow morphing against black shadows on dead flesh. I exhale condensation, but none seeps from Randall’s corpse. The heat has already left him. His clothes are pooled around what remains of him.

Kneeling, the cold dirt beneath the worn denim covering my kneecaps, I pull off my work gloves. I dig into the dirt around the box. The dirt goes under my nails. I shiver. My thumbs rub the rusty metal of the box, freezing cold and damp. The thing smells like well water.

Randall had said it more times than I could handle: Be sure.

Somewhere in the trees above, a bird cackles. My throat still hurts. I had screamed when it happened to him. I had screamed until I couldn’t.

The box comes out of the dirt easily enough. It cannot weigh more than a heavy book, and I hear something slide within it. I scrape weeds and roots from the top, brushing it clean. By the light of the fire, it looks golden. But I know that in daylight it would be the color of blood.

I fall back to a sitting position, still holding the box in both hands.

“The devil,” he had said, “will let you live your life all over again.”

“Especially if you got it wrong,” I had said.

I set down the box next to the planted torch. Bending down to open my pack, I open the flap and draw out the bottle of Myser whiskey. I twist it around in my hands, studying the label.

“Thirty-five hundred dollars,” I mutter. A single chuckle escapes me. “Ridiculous.”

I tear the foil from the bottle’s mouth and twist the corked cap. The cork pulls from the mouth with a shallow popping sound. I tilt the bottle to my lips. An initial sting is quickly smoothed over by a rich flavor. A healthy dose falls down my throat, and a warmth hits my stomach.

The box glimmers, reflected firelight on its lid.

Randall had been fifty years old. About my age. The dead body draped in his clothing appears to be a boy of grade school age.

A tingling sensation runs through my limbs. Once again, I bring the bottle to my lips, tilting it and enjoying the second gulp. When I was a child, I thought that this must be what magic tastes like.

 

****

 

In the dingy little tavern, Randall had said, “When you open it, you will have it all to do over again. You can make better choices, fix your mistakes, and love the the ones who got away. It will all happen quickly. But every wish you have ever had–every desire–will come true.”

I had said I did not want to risk my soul.

“What have you got left?” he had asked.

A muted television hung from a cobwebbed corner showed a science program, the Big Bang exploding into the Universe, continually expanding in a fractal pattern.

“How do you know?” I had asked. “How do you know it works?”

He had smiled at me. The evening before, in the motel, sirens wailing from outside, he had sat in the corner chair. “What does it matter?”

Sitting on the corroded, split cushion in the booth furthest from the entrance, I had looked up through wet eyes. “It matters because I do not want to go through torture again if it fails.”

Randall had said, “Greg, that would be up to you. Wouldn’t it?” He had paused, looking away. He had turned back to meet my eyes. “Be sure.”

“I can’t do worse than I did in this life.”

Randall had smiled, neon light through the blinds slashing his face like war paint.

“How do you know about this thing?” I had asked. “The go-again?”

Randall had said, “This wasn’t my first time around.”

 

****

 

My grandpa’s den smelled like cigars. Grandma washed dishes in the kitchen after Thanksgiving dinner. My belly was full of turkey and potatoes and corn. My gut stuck out beneath the suspenders my ma had strapped on me. I climbed onto the office chair, my legs wobbling, my sneakers scuffing the cushion as the weight shifted. The casters snagged on shag carpet, and I caught my balance. My hands slapped against the glass doors of the locked cabinet. My young breath fogged the glass, seeing the ornate glass bottle within. I had been to enough school that I could make out words now. I made out the word “Myser” through the fog. I turned to see my grandpa scuttling down the hall toward me, swearing.

 

****

 

At the casino with my wife on our honeymoon, she placed a black chip on the felt square wearing the number 7. A rosy-cheeked rogue came between Sherrie and I, dropping his strong palm on my shoulder, squeezing it. I smelled the familiar stink of drink. His other hand, I could see, squeezed my wife’s shoulder.

“It always stops where you’re most happy.”

I met my wife’s eyes, which glimmered in the colorful lights all around us. She guffawed, and the head between us squinted with a stupid grin. I laughed, shrugging as he squeezed my shoulder again.

The white ball tumbled into the Roulette wheel and skittered until settling into a groove in number 7, red.

Sherrie shrieked, tossing the man’s arm from her shoulder and lunging to embrace me. That night, we bought him more drinks than I could match. That was the first night I remembered meeting Randall.

Now I’m sure I met him before.

 

****

 

“Greg,” Sherrie had wept. “It’s gone. All of it.”

The store had closed. Everything we had sold could now be bought for less money through a computer.

Already, I was thinking, crocodile tears. She never wanted the store to work. Our partner, Randall, seemed to have unlimited funds. He would brush it off. But it was a huge blow to my savings and to my ego.

This was before I found out that Sherrie was sleeping around.

 

****

 

I watch my reflection distort on the lockbox. The dead of night has cut through me, and I feel nothing but the awkward heat before the onset of numbness.

I pull the work gloves back on. The work gloves are mostly silhouette. Even so, I can make out stray droplets of blood in the fabric.

I set the box back down, again grabbing the bottle of Myser, pulling the corked cap and tilting it to my lips. It tastes of anachronism. I was never supposed to have it.

 

****

 

Killing my wife was easier than I thought it would be. Once I got my hands around her neck, there was no turning back, and I just tried not to look at her eyes as they went red and dead. Even though I was fairly sure she was dead, I stabbed her in the chest with a kitchen knife a few times for good measure.

The police would look for me first. I didn’t make much of an effort to cover anything.

I met Randall at the car he had waiting around the block. I slid into the passenger seat, pulling the door closed with what felt like the last of my energy.

“You want the go-again,” he said. He was not asking.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure I got it wrong this time.”

He sniffed. It might have been stifled laughter.

“Be sure.”

 

****

 

In the dingy little tavern, Randall had said, “I got him. The son of a bitch Sherrie was sleeping with.”

“He’s gone?” I had asked.

“He’s gone,” he had said. “One more victim of this faulty cycle.”

“Who–?” I had started.

“He’s gone,” Randall had cautioned. “Now let’s go get that drink you always wanted.”

 

****

 

The reflection is almost impossible to see now. Wind ruffles the clothing on the small body that was Randall. The torch is burnt down to a flickering ember.

I toss the bottle into the woods, watching it tumble, spilling thousands of dollars worth of whiskey into the pine needles and dirt.

I pick up the box, not even saying a prayer, and pry it open.

 

****

 

The doctor pulls me from the womb. I’m screeching. They chop the cord.

 

****

 

When I’m seven years old, I meet a boy in my class named Randy. At recess one day, Randy tells me that he’s in love with Sherrie.

 

****

 

I gulp the Myser whiskey stolen from my grandpa’s den cabinet on Thanksgiving. It feels like poison in my belly. I toss the rope up around a tree branch and pull both ends, looping it and pulling a knot. Fading sunlight pours down through the limbs.

“We’re going to fly!” Randy yells. “We’ll be like superheroes. We’ll live forever.”

“Be sure,” I say.

I offer Randy a gulp from the bottle, but he says, “I’m not supposed to.”

“Do you remember me?” I ask.

He looks worried. Then he grabs both strands of the knotted rope, hoisting himself off the ground and swinging forward, his knees bent and legs lifted off the ground.

While he swings, I drop the bottle. I pull a rock from the ground, dirt getting under my fingernails. The rock is cold and sharp and heavy. As Randy swings back toward me, I swing the rock with both hands and hit him in the face. The noise is a dull crack. He goes to the ground, blood all over.

I crouch over him and pound his face again and again, screaming until I can’t, knowing that if I let him live, he will grow up and ruin my life.

When Randy is well dead, I toss the rock to the ground. I reach into my bookbag and pull out a red lockbox that I got for my birthday. I open it, and stow the bloody rock inside.

I dig a hole with my bare hands and shove the lockbox into the dirt, covering it and burying it completely.

As I tie the noose, I think about how Randall had said that the last time hadn’t been his first time around. Maybe next time, he’ll kill me.

I pull the noose around my neck, tip-toeing on Randy’s fallen body. I step off, gritting my teeth painfully as the rope constricts around my throat, imagining the bodies of two dead seven-year-olds in grown men’s clothing in the dark woods in a future that may never come around.

Do Questions Exist?

Prerequisites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology

OK, now that we’re caught up, let’s dive in:

Kermit the Frog (D-NY) once said, “It’s not easy being green.”

He had me at, “It’s not easy being.”

Let’s raise some big questions and then not sufficiently address them: What is stuff? How does stuff differ from junk? In what ways should sundries be considered distinct from oddities?

And where, in fact, are we, if everything is only relative to everything else? And what separates facts from the truth? Do all questions have to end with that squiggly thing.

Considering the fallacy of antecedents, this subsequent barely has a chance. It would be nice if we could all just agree upon some set rules for logic, but it seems that for every stranglehold of empiricism there is a free-for-all of stipulations. Every argument must begin with, “If one accepts that…,” not counting the arguments that don’t.

The discipline of Ontology even calls into question the very nature of objects. Objects are near and dear to my heart. I like to think that pillows exist, for instance. But is it a pillow, or is it a temporary arrangement of energy vibrations that makes my head comfy? Do I sleep on a soft, downy treasure, or is it simply a predominantly repeatable matrix of subatomic bullshit?

You tell me, Bill Nye. You know, if you’re not too busy re-crucifying Christ.

Here’s a good one: Do questions exist? [At this point, I have decided that this is the title of this post, so it won't seem to impactful. But what the fuck ever.]

When transsexuals are first starting out, do they need tranning wheels? Wait, that’s just a pun. OR IS IT?

It is what it is, unless it isn’t. What’s the backup plan if there is no such thing as a contingency? When a bear shits identical snowflakes but no one hears it, is there any way I could reasonably complete this thought.

I like Philosophy, even though it’s  a magnet for wishy-washy rhetoric. It’s too bad that it’s so hard to make a living as a philosopher. You have to disguise it. I’m a “writer.” Or I’m a “talk show host.” Or I’m a “spiritual leader.” Philosophy is the second most unpopular thing from Greece after the economy. Because thinking takes energy that could be spent on video games or sex or eating. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Short, sweet, pointless. Just like me.

Love you.

–R

The Unreliable Narrator as a Satirical Device

The best lies are truth knocked off axis.

This summarizes my understanding of satire.

Heightened reality is plausible. It requires minimal disbelief suspension. As opposed to unreality: full sci-fi, full horror, religious prose.

I like working in a heightened reality. I enjoy warping the understood, confounding the presumed. I relish realistic reactions to bizarre scenarios. And of course, I trade in exaggeration.

The main device I use to develop this kind of fiction is the unreliable narrator. However normal the universe may actually be, the narrator’s perception is always a variable. I can understand how some readers may find it maddening if they suspect that the narrator is not disclosing things 100% “as they are” (whatever that means in terms of fiction). However, I find the device thrilling to read and to write.

As a reader, when I encounter a first-person or limited third-person that seems to be telling me things contrary to reason or even contradictory to what has come before, I find it exciting. Sure, in some cases it may be a result of sloppy editing. But when it’s not–when it’s obviously an intentional contrast to my expectations–I tend to find the resulting static fascinating. While some might be taken out of the moment, I usually find myself drawn further in, wondering where “the truth” lies (again, in terms of “the truth” within the fiction), questioning what has come before, reanalyzing, altering my speculation about where things are headed, and ultimately, wondering what’s wrong with the narrator .

I think it comes down to the reader’s tolerance of ambiguity. Can you, as a reader, tolerate not knowing the degree to which the narration mirrors what may actually be going on (in the fiction, and rule-of-three, I’m done with these disclaimers)? Even knowing it might never be tied up as neatly as an episode of Family Ties?

When Harland says the news reporters are cyborgs, does he mean it literally, or is it his perception due to their stoic nature? I’m happy with either interpretation, which is why that’s one of the many intentional ambiguities throughout Hyperbole. Harland is Harland because of his perception and his opinions. If you don’t embrace Harland, with all of his faults, you’ll probably never like the book. And I’m cool with that. It’s one of the sacrifices you make when you create non-mass-market stuff, I guess.

And the thing is: I don’t even have to know.

What I mean is, I’m not fully sure, even a year past finishing the thing, whether there are actually cyborgs in the universe of Hyperbole. I tend to think not, but who knows? And if I don’t know, then nobody knows. And I’m still cool with that.

Does that make you uncomfortable as a reader? Does it seems like a cop-out? Does it seem lazy? Again, any of those reactions would make sense to me, but I don’t feel them.

Two of my favorite TV series, The Sopranos and Lost, conclude with huge amounts of intentional ambiguity. To me, it makes them fun to think about and to revisit. It doesn’t spoil what came before. And to me, the ambiguity is part of the charm, part of the lasting appeal. If every thread were resolved–if we found out that “the Russian” and Eloise Hawking ended up running Cheers–that would feel cheap and hollow, wouldn’t it? Knowing too much–even in the end–can be as upsetting as not getting enough information. Neatly-tied bows can be as disappointing as an empty box.

One challenge when using this device is to balance the plausible with the absurd. If everything that the narrator says is batshit insane, would the story be readable? Probably not. So finding the moments to stretch the reality, or to twist perception of reality, is part of the art. What feels right? And what is the impetus for those lapses in perception? Sometimes the reason can be as simple as wanting a punchline, but it’s nice when it also extends the meaning or touches on the themes you’re exploring.

But sometimes a fart has to turn into a nuclear explosion. The word of the lord. Amen.

Poor Summer

Take for example a poor kid. He and his family camped for a whole summer at a county campground when he was 9. It was because they had no house. They had come back from a city where things hadn’t worked out. They were now back in the general vicinity of where they’d come from, Detroit-ish, give or take 50 miles. It was 1987.

Poor kid hung out by the lake. Watched movies in the pavilion. Saw strange dogs and overheard redneck fights because tents don’t have walls. This kid learned to love Ramen noodles in a cup. He ate white bread sandwiches with Goober Grape peanut butter/jelly mix–this was peanut butter and jelly integrated in the same jar, which now seems both ingenious and repellent.

Reagan was president. Things hadn’t started trickling down.

This kid helped his parents collect returnable cans after a concert. Two trash bags worth exchanged for over $20. It was a big deal.

The kid had a tape recorder, and would hold it up to a portable radio when he heard songs he liked, like “Born to be Wild.” The sound, tin and static and treble, went through the air from one cheap electronic device into another.

One time, he got to rent a paddle boat with his sister.

He learned to make a lanyard when they held craft lessons in the pavilion. Toward the end of their stay, they upgraded from the $6/night site to the $8/night site with electricity. You could plug things in, like, theoretically, a small black and white television. Or, like the neighbors, a bug zapper.

Somehow, the parents didn’t go crazy. The kid and sister barely knew better. It was an adventure. It was sometimes uncomfortable, but it could be justified in the name of experiencing nature intimately.

One night, they showed “The Wrath of Khan” in the pavilion. There was an intermission when they changed reels.

Excursions outside of the campground in the Impala might be to a junk store or to pick up payment for the odd jobs the parents were doing. The back seat had no seat belts.

One of the cassette tapes the kid had was the soundtrack from “The Muppet Movie.” Sometimes Gonzo’s solo made the kid get all teary-eyed.

It was between the kid’s birthday and his sister’s. No one had to suffer the indignity of a birthday next to their tent home. By the time school started, they were living in a motel room. At least it had walls.

January, you cold bitch

At one point in Hyperbole, Harland notes, “The level of disinterested self-involvement all around us is, for once, reassuring.”

Lately, I’m finding it anything but reassuring. The flag should depict a grim face illuminated only by the gruesome light of a smartphone. Knowing all the while that I am guilty of the same disease that has made the zombie trope so popular of late.

America in 2014 seems to be a cold wasteland of navel-gazing shitheads. I’m one. I’m special and different, and what I have to offer is unique. Sure. Who couldn’t say that without breaking?

It’s late January, the depth of the annual cycle where I struggle not to poison myself while jumping off a bridge with a gun in my mouth. Should I die of unnatural causes, I’m sure it will be on MLK day +/- ten days. This is what I’ve struggled with my whole life, at least since probably high school. January represents all the coldness, dissociation, rejection, dissatisfaction, ennui, whatever.

I suppose it’s that I’m lonely. I haven’t so much burned my bridges as walked away disinterestedly. I’m a poor friend. I’ve let things lapse with several friends because I’ve struggled to find things to talk about. Everything feels like small talk. Again, I’m exaggerating, rounding up, but this is the idea. I struggle to form opinions about much of anything, let alone to feel compelled to express them.

So why fiction? If I have nothing to say, why does fiction work? Why would I bother?

A simple answer is that it allows me to say the things I didn’t realize I needed to express. You may have an idea, or you may not. But when you write, when you force yourself to write whether you feel like it or not, some things will start coming through. These ideas will pour out. You may not like them, and you may not keep them. You may need to rework them, or put them in the mouth of a character who’s supposed to be despicable to get away with saying them. But there they are, and they came from you, and no one else could be reasonably blamed.

January, you cold bitch.

The disease is depression, and the medicine (not cure) is writing.

I have to get writing again. I’m tired of promoting my book, and I’m tired of pulling teeth. Five star reviews mean nothing, and it’s lost in a glut of romance and vampires. I’ll keep plodding, but I’m definitely depressed at the moment. It’s very difficult to entice people to take a chance, and I’m a horrible salesperson.

So I’ll write something new and hope that momentum helps on the writing front and on the promotion front. I’ll keep going, and January will end, and February will be its own battle.

The thing is: I don’t want small talk. I want a meaningful exchange. If it means making fictional characters have that exchange, then that’s sad, but it’s the way it will have to be until I can figure out how to form real friendships again.

Welcome. Thanks for reading.

Don’t Panic … Right?

The late Douglas Adams gave us the 2-word mantra: “Don’t Panic,” and it’s a pretty good one. It is (pun dubiously submitted) universally applicable.

Here’s why it’s resonating with me lately:

I have invested a fair amount of money in getting my novel out there. I paid to have it edited, and I paid for some marketing activities that I am still sort of in the early stages of overseeing. Not to mention the cost of shipping and distributing promos of the paperback. I have one financial goal with this book: Break even. Yes, I would love to make a lot of money, but I will settle for not losing any money.

Last week, I did the Amazon free eBook promotion, and I ended up giving away about 500 eBooks over 3 days, with 90% of those being downloads within the United States. I was hoping more people would download it, but 500 isn’t bad, and I’m still holding out hope that A) a subset of those will actually read it and B) a subset of that subset will post reviews. I’m not sure what my odds are. I am told that reviews are what move indie books on Amazon. Well, that and the book being about vampires having sex. Which, unfortunately, is not what my book is about.

I’ve really tried to resist name-dropping and crass comparisons of my work with that of well-known others. I’m not above cutting and pasting clips of reviews which draw such comparisons (references to Palahniuk, Vonnegut, Amis), but saying so myself feels cheap and lowly. But if you’re not the next Michael Crichton (I’m not) or Stephanie Meyer (I’m definitely not) or at least not willing to claim you are, then how do you sell a great book in an oversaturated market to an ambivalent and distracted potential readership?

I sort of understand the fascination with erotica. There’s a few pages in Hyperbole that sort of poke fun at the genre, in fact. But the great thing is that erotica has a lot of the sensory elements of pornography without the apparent/implied subjugation of real people. So I can sort of understand why it might be popular. Not that I have any interest in spending my reading time reading about pulsating and undulating and quivering. Unless it’s got a punchline, I guess.

Nor have I produced a heart-racing story of intrigue and action. And to be honest, I don’t understand how anyone can be interested in a car chase in the 21st century, let alone one in a book. But there’s no accounting for taste or whatever.

So what the hell have I produced?

I’ve produced the darkest parts of my personality, with a lot of humor and enough of a plot to justify turning the pages. That sounds like a shitty review. I think the book is better than that, and there are reviews on Amazon that do it much more justice. But that’s what the book is to me. It really is an expression of the cynical humor I live with like a disease. It’s a manifestation of yearning and disappointment and exasperation, told through someone who’s the opposite of a Mary Sue. I had a lot of fun writing it. And I think there are a lot of people who would love reading it. The challenge, as always, is finding them and convincing them to spend a few dollars and a few more hours.

Sometimes I console myself by thinking about David Lynch’s Eraserhead. He spent five backbreaking years on that clusterfuck of a masterpiece, and it took some time after its release for it to be held in the regard that it now is (by some). I think I have produced a clusterfuck of comparable appeal. Maybe 5% of the population would love the shit out of it. That’s all I want. 5%. But how do you target those freaks?

One of the many challenges that I perceive is that my book, which rails against consumer culture in lots of unsubtle ways, has to be marketed. And I’m trying to market an anti-consumerist, counter-culture-y type thing to the very people who would balk at marketing. (How the hell did Fight Club get popular?)

So, back to word-of-mouth. How do you generate word-of-mouth? By having thousands of Facebook friends (I don’t)? By having thousands of Twitter followers (I’m getting there)? By pestering your friends and family to help you promote the thing? (I try not to hound anybody, though I welcome the mentions that friends and family have made.)

I’ve brainstormed all sorts of possibilities: Offer to donate copies to book clubs. Leave copies in coffee houses. SPAM. None of these seem particularly like the correct approach for a book like the one I’m hawking.

The marketing dollars I’ve spent are on a series of press releases. I’ve submitted 2 of the allotted 24. Which sounds crazy. It feels crazy. What am I doing?

Don’t panic.

It’s early. I’m building a Twitter following, even knowing that a very small percentage of that following may turn out to be actual fans. The free copies of the eBook have only been with those readers for a week. Maybe some of them are just starting to get into it, while others are offended by page 3 and clicking “DELETE.” I have to hope for those non-zero odds. And I have to live with myself and my neuroses 24 hours a day. Yes, even while I sleep.

That’s all. Just venting / talking myself down. If you haven’t read Hyperbole yet, please do at least check out the free sample, which is about a chapter and a half, on Amazon. I’ve reduced the price of the eBook to $2.99 to entice people who may have been dissuaded by the $5.95 price I had most recently.

It’s a percentage game with a book that’s not a romance and not a sci-fi wizard-wanding extravaganza. It’s a weird, original story that’s grounded in something pretty close to reality. It’s funny and sad and creepy and fun to read. The narrator is a complete mess, which I always find fun to read. That’s what made American Psycho more than just torture porn. That’s what made Catcher in the Rye more than an assignment in high school. Hyperbole is messy and awkward and engaging like a 30-car pile-up.

I need to connect with the rubbernecks.

Thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions for selling hard-to-place-in-a-genre fiction, please post a comment.

Dennis Rodman & Kim Jong Un: Podcast #1 Transcript

Rodman: Thanks, Glorious Leader Kim. Your palace is balls-out.

Kim: You are welcome, Dennis Redman.

Rodman: We have so much to talk about. We got so much in common. Basketball, being great, fame.

Kim: Don’t forget love for me.

Rodman: Yeah, we both love you, Your Amazingence.

Kim: Donnis and I have fun watching my train set put together by enemies of the throne.

Rodman: Yeah, that choo-choo bad.

Kim: Bad as you wanna be, Radmon.

Rodman: Nothing is as bad your goodness, Perfect Execellentiousness.

Kim: I’m hungry. We eat Pringles. Delicious America Satan treat.

Rodman: So, did you have a good birthday?

Kim: I have only the best birthday every time. All others do not have birthdays.

Rodman: What was your favorite birthday present, Un-Credible?

Kim: [pauses] I guess it was … omnipotence and being always correct.

Rodman: You know what’s really cool, though? You straight up killed your uncle, Dawg of Brilliance.

Kim: Yeah, he did things I don’t like, so I made him dead. I can make anyone dead.

Rodman: Your whole life is like a half-court jump shot, nothing but net.

Kim: Yeah, I make people die and starve. It’s pretty funny, I guess. I’m bored.

Rodman: What do you want to do, Great Magician?

Kim: [sighs] Your name like “Random.”

Rodman: You’re telling me.

Kim: Let’s double-team slave to death real quick.

[five minutes later]

Kim: I want new portrait of me.

Rodman: What should I do with that body, O Holy Beakon of All That Is Correct?

Kim: Make dinner.

Rodman: Let’s get Korean food. I love Korean food. But you know, North Korean. Not that awful, treacherous South Korean food. I mean that Soylent Green you serve here. What the fug is in that shizzat?

Kim: If you will lose again to the Royal Basketball Team, I tell you what’s in it.

Rodman: Sounds good, my man. You really are a fair leader and totally not an insane megalomaniac without boundaries.

Kim: Thanks. I can make lightning.

Rodman: Hell yeah. Like Raiden.

Kim: Raiden wins.

Rodman: Raiden wins. Every time. Fo’ sho’.

Full Release

So the first press release has gone out, and it’s too soon to tell if it will have an impact commensurate with my expense. Which is a pretty familiar position for me. It seems I’m always doing things on spec. I never know if my work or investments will be worthwhile (financially). I can do a certain amount of research and make educated guesses accordingly, but that’s about the extent of it.

Creatively, everything is “spec.” Unless you’re one of those strange breeds who creates stuff that is commissioned. I often think about what Bill Hicks says about artists who do advertisements. “Everything you say is suspect and every word that comes out of your mouth is now like a turd falling into my drink.” He died before he was offered the big bucks, but I tend to agree with the sentiment. What is the line where art becomes commercial, and does it cease to be art?

Most of what I’ve created has been done out of self-gratification. I am a big fan of my own work, which I think is required if you’re spending months or years with a creative project. So I create things that I like, or which amuse me. And in some cases, such as with Hyperbole, I have felt strongly enough about the work to think I have a shot selling it. I’m prone to mixing metaphors. So when I think about the adages, “it takes money to make money” and “time is money,” then maybe it just takes time to make money. That’s a half-truth I can get behind. And not much of a metaphor.

The point is that my creative works are never motivated by money, but I would like to see some money for them on the back end. I can’t spend a lot on marketing, and I’m not willing to create stuff that I don’t believe in just on the chance that it would sell. Whether that’s foolish bullshit or artistic integrity is a matter of perception, like so much else. As cynical as I am, there are certain principles I have to stick to in order to keep living in my skin. So no vampires or zombies or wizards or other variations on tried-and-true formulas. The real world–or a close approximation thereof–will always be ripe for dissecting. I can create my own heavy-handed metaphors without recycling werewolf tropes.

The question is not whether there are people who would or will like my work; there are. The question is whether I can make those people aware of my work and entice them to spend money on it before I run out of money trying.

I could get fired from my job, beaten near to death, and sent to prison, and I’d still be etching cartoons on the cell wall. The creativity will never stop. But the hope is that I can execute a strategy of connecting with readers and consumers before the shit hits the fan. If that sounds dramatic or pessimistic, that’s OK. To me, it’s a motivational mindset. If I pretend the end is near, I had better get on it and try harder.

The main challenge, outside of the almighty monetary unit, is to engage in a way that doesn’t reek of whoredom. I am an artist, not a salesman, and while I can’t control anyone else’s perception, I am doing my best to approach marketing as a creative person and not as a greedy sumbitch. Which maybe means I will never be successful in the sense of dollars. But at least I will be able to live with myself knowing that I’m trying to entertain people on Twitter and Facebook and even in press releases, and that there is more in my eyes than dollar signs.

If you are a creative type and you do your own marketing, what wisdom can you share?

Editorial Overview of “Hyperbole” and Rationale for Going Indie

Check out this great overview of “Hyperbole” by my editor.

There’s also a brief interview wherein I offer my rationale for going indie.

Labors of Love and the Indie Book Launch

Launching Indie Books Takes Effort.

To paraphrase the movie “Anchorman,” this escalated quickly.

I wrote a book. Great. So what? It’s been done millions of times. But I’ve only done it twice, so it’s still exciting for me. And I never published the first one. It was too rough, too dark, not ready for prime time. This new one, though, it’s dark but also funny, and I think it has elements that cynics and comedians–maybe even regular humans–could connect with.

So I decided to publish.

It was late summer of 2012. A few family members had helped me to proof the 2nd draft, pointing out typos or inconsistencies, or suggesting that I tone down the wordiness because sometimes I am wordy and cannot seem to pare down the words even though I tend to admire efficiency of language and this sentence seems to just keep going and going without adding much. Like that.

I decided it would be prudent to invest in having it professionally edited. I solicited several samples, and honed in on the editor whose work and feedback I found most helpful. I can absolutely recommend Valerie Valentine, who is thorough, helpful, and insightful.

While my editor was doing her thing, I began to focus on publishing options. I have never had the patience for hardcore research, but I did a fair bit of digging about the traditional publishing model. The big publishing houses are still around, but the ease and availability of self-publishing was hard to ignore. I knew I would have to do my own marketing (the weak link in my chain of skills), but the other positives of indie publishing convinced me: better royalties per unit, speed of getting the work to market, total control over the distribution channels.

And endless, nonstop pu$$y. Just kidding.

I got to working on a cover, since I’m a PhotoShop geek. You can still find this original, very RED cover out there in Google cache, but I’ve since grown to dislike it, especially in light of the new cover (but we’ll get to that).

So with the cover done, I was just about ready to get the thing to a distributor.

My dad, also a novelist, recommended BookBaby, having used it for one of his publications. I liked their royalty scheme and flat rate for conversion and distribution. So I uploaded everything and then worked out the kinks in a couple of digital proofs, testing it on my phone and my wife’s Kindle. At some point, it was go time, and I submitted it for release–my first novel published exclusively as an eBook. Cool.

Meanwhile, because I’m a self-referential navel-gazer, I recorded seven songs using the absurd song titles mentioned throughout “Hyperbole.” Movie soundtracks are a dime a dozen, but I had never heard of a book soundtrack, so I thought it might be a … [wait for it] … novel idea.

Sometimes I can’t even look myself in the mirror.

So while “Hyperbole” the eBook was being processed by BookBaby, I recorded and uploaded “Hyperbole: Original Novel Sountrack” to CDBaby (yes, sister company to BookBaby). For the morbidly curious, it’s on CDBaby, iTunes, Amazon, everywhere you’d expect. It is filthy and not for children, but I think it’s funny and sometimes catchy.

So then: the original eBook of “Hyperbole” launches around the beginning of November 2012. Friends and family snatch it up, which is cool. But I don’t heavily promote it, thinking, “I’ll wait until the audiobook and paperback are ready.”

Who knew it would take a whole year?

Well, it did. I had no patience for the audiobook process. I found both recording and editing to be extremely tedious. Getting good soundproofed recordings in a house with 16 scampering pet feet is a challenge I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. But I forced myself to spend at least a few hours a week on it, not rushing, trying to plod through. I finally wrapped the editing around Labor Day 2013.

Great, audiobook in the can. Now, paperback.

I investigated the paperback print-on-demand services. BookBaby offers them, and for a while I thought I would stick with them. However, after finding out more about Amazon’s CreateSpace, I realized that was the way to go for me. First of all, I found that their printing costs were almost HALF of what BookBaby was charging for comparable media. And CreateSpace being an Amazon company, the distribution options are quite robust. I also realized I had missed the boat by not making the eBook Amazon-exclusive, which allows your eBook to be promoted as a free download for a short window of time. So, I wrote BookBaby and arranged for the original eBook to be pulled from all distribution channels. I was going Amazon/CreateSpace exclusive, so I could finally take advantage of those types of promotion and hopefully reach a wider audience. Meanwhile, I uploaded and verified the audiobook on ACX (also an Amazon subsidiary). Sounded good. I was happy, and submitted it.

Having decided upon CreateSpace, I used their templates to format the interior of the book. And I created a completely new cover specifically for the paperback. I knew I wanted the cover to be the bathroom of Skizzers (the bar in the book), and specifically to feature all of the graffiti on the wall. So I went out to several local bars and took a bunch of photos of elements that I liked. I then pieced the elements and textures together in PhotoShop and created all of the graffiti, most of which comes from the list found on pages 33-35 in the paperback. Swear words were blurred as if they had been rubbed by Old Fuck’s snot. You know, to keep the kids from learning exactly what part of Steffi’s anatomy caused 7/11. I hope beyond hope that is a NYT Crossword clue someday.

Anyway, finished the cover. Uploaded everything to CreateSpace, used the rather convenient online digital proofer tool, which gives a fully-functional view of the formatted interior within about 10 minutes after uploading the source files. Caught a few formatting issues, fixed them, and re-uploaded a few times until I was satisfied enough to do a printed proof.

This is where it starts getting exciting.

So, the elite team of mercenaries spilled from the helicopter…

Not that exciting.

Submitted my files for review, CreateSpace approved, and I was able to order a print. I of course opted for express shipping, because express shipping was invented for situations like this, and I pretend I have money to burn. Two days later, I was holding the first decent hard copy of my book. It was pretty cool. It looked great. And I found about 5 typos right away.

I should note at this point that the typos I found were not due to errant editing by my editor–they were due to issues caused when I was moving type around to get it into the right format in the CreateSpace template. So, mainly things like unwanted or nonexistent line breaks, missing italics, smart quotes facing the wrong way (which makes them stupid quotes). I was red-lining the only existing book and I had really mixed feelings about it. But there’s no evil like a necessary evil.

I had solicited bookworm friends to help me test-drive the proof, and three very generous readers helped me considerably by reading the book cover to cover and identifying potential issues.

By Thanksgiving, I had fixed the identified issues and ordered my second proof.

Between the time I ordered the second proof and the time I received it, I had already found a couple more issues. How did I find these? By formatting the new eBook. That’s how. Using the KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) eBook reviewer, some of those line- and page-break issues jumped right out. So next time, I’ll know to “port” the book over to the pre-Kindle version to help me proof earlier in the process. Anyway, got the eBook in shape, and then fixed the issues present in the 2nd physical proof.

By this time, I was drinking heavily.

December, 2013. The month in which I’m writing this. Got the third and, I’m happy to say, final physical proof of “Hyperbole.” All was well. It looked good.

So all three versions of the book were being shoved out into the world. Now came the hard part: Marketing and Promotion.

Social media are the best bet for someone like me with virtually no budget. I am throwing some money at some social media aggregation and press release distribution services, but it requires active engagement with potential fans. I am having to stay on my toes, keep active, and try to find the balance between whoring myself and being generally entertaining. The idea is to keep people wanting to read what I write.

Twitter is the bread and butter so far. I am following a lot of cool people, and I’m being followed back with a decent success rate. It takes a lot of mental energy to keep coming up with decent things to share, but I think it’s good exercise for my brain. And I’m starting to connect with some new friends. I dig it.

The first press release about “Hyperbole” is scheduled to go out on Tuesday, which makes me nervous and excited. I’m very curious to see whether there is A) Any response B) Uptick in Sales C) Interest in interviews / reviews / additional publicity. I’ll be happy with any of the above, and I’m trying to keep the energy positive.

I’m just beginning the long journey of independently marketing my indie book. It’s scary and daunting in some ways, but having taken the first few steps, I realize that it’s like anything else: Put a lot of yourself into something, and you’re likely to get something back. It may not be immediate or obvious, but I think it’s coming. I’m going to keep giving, and keep leading people to my work without beating them over the head, and I think I will realize the level of success that I want. Meaning: I want to make money on a creative project for the first time in my life.

If any other writers or creators have anecdotes about their journey to getting work out into the world, I’d love to hear it.

OK, it’s Friday. Can I go drink now?

Thanks for reading.