R. Lawson Gamble's Blog: R Lawson Gamble Books, page 21

The Demise of Books

 

Growing up in the late fifties and early sixties, television was not the time consuming activity it is today. Even in New Jersey (western Jersey, y’all!) any household was fortunate to receive one channel clearly, let alone the hundreds of choices available today. As a preschooler, I had just settled into watching Howdy Doody and Roy Rogers when the television went down. My parents saw this as opportune. The television would never reappear in our household.

And so books reclaimed their position as the after-dinner activity of choice. Any evening would likely find all six of us, children and adults alike, sitting in the chairs and couches of the living room absorbed and silent, independently engaged in the  drama we found between the covers of our own books, travelers in our own worlds, together yet distant.

Such a picture would be unimaginable today. Life’s pace has quickened and the choices are many. Boundaries have become blurred: education is entertainment, games are movies, music is wallpaper. The brain is engaged at the touch of a button. And the imagination disengaged.

A book fires the imagination. In a well written book, the author sets the scene with a stroke or two of description. The reader provides the rest. This is an intimate, private process. No one else is privy to the picture the reader has created, even though they read the same passage.

A single book can launch a thousand stories, because a reader is not tethered by someone else’s vision. A reader is free to follow the flights of fantasy launched by the author’s words. This makes books unique.

Some have worried about the demise of books. Such worries are baseless. The written word may change form, indeed it will change form as it has always done – from rock etchings to hieroglyphics on papyrus to quilled words on hide to printed words on paper to digitalized words on plastic. But the uniqueness of books will remain, for it is human to wish to dwell in a world of our own creation.

Yes, the book world is changing. But in a good way. Because it’s no longer a question of how many books I can afford; the question is, how many books can I read in a lifetime?

 

 

Tagged: books, changing world of reading, digital world, electronic age, faster lives, uniqueness of books

It’s Time to Thank My Reviewers

With the Holiday Season there comes an urge to give thanks.  In the Rolodex of my brain I can flip through many names of those who reach out regularly to help make my life and those of others better. As an author, I am particularly beholden to my reviewers.

For readers, this is a brave new world. There are more books available now at low-cost or no cost than any one person can read in a lifetime. In this new world,  books are plentiful, easily found with keyword searches, and short. Readers can shape their searches efficiently and then download the book they want immediately. And when browsing free books, the reader can download a few hundred of them onto their reader and wait until another time to flip through them and decide whether or not to read them. Books are shorter now, and at 150 pages a dedicated reader can devour one or two a night.

And this is why I’m so grateful to my reviewers, regardless of how many stars they assign. It takes time to write a review, and for some, it takes a good deal of effort. It requires mental reviewing and deciding what it was that so impressed us, for good or ill, that we are making this effort.  My two published novels, THE OTHER and MESTACLOCAN, are by no means short. I don’t write short; I write the story, edit it, and the length takes care of itself. And for those who read my books, and then take the time to review them, I raise my glass.

I’ve said in past posts that reviews are the life’s blood of authors. I say now that readers who review are the future for authors. With the proliferation of self-published books and eBooks it has become the reader who decides what is worth reading. The literary agents and the publishers and the book stores no longer set the standard. They must turn now to the reader. As Penny Sansevieri wrote in her latest newsletter, “Readers have the power to drive the success or failure of books and no amount of advertising or traditional media will change that.”

And so Readers and Reviewers, I dedicate this post to you, along with my gratitude to those who took the time and effort to review my books. Withhold not your quill, for ye hold the literary world in the palm of your hand.

 

 

 

Tagged: Author, Book, Book reviews, E-book, Mestaclocan, Publishing, readers, reading, The Other, writers

History is an Artichoke

I am immersed in research. The project began over five years ago out of curiosity and has grown sufficiently to become the infrastructure for a historical novel, or maybe even a biography. History, I’ve found, is like an artichoke; a cultivated thistle with a flower of tough outer layers that protects a tender heart. My research might never have taken so long had I settled for the first outer layer of understanding.

History treats us badly. Born of  human beings, history tends to remember what it wants to remember, not necessarily what really was. It remembers historical figures according to the way the person doing the telling thinks that figure should be remembered. Not surprisingly, history works in a similar way to human memory, that is, we recollect unpleasant memories with difficulty but return frequently to pleasant ones, and each time we visit we slightly alter that memory in accordance with the emotion we are experiencing at that moment. In other words, we shape reality to fit our needs.

I am researching Zorro. Yes, Johnston McCulley’s Zorro, the Zorro of Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, the Zorro of Douglas Fairbanks, the Zorro of George Hamilton (well, maybe not that Zorro!). I am researching the life of Salomon Pico, one of ten or so historic characters posited to be the inspiration for Mr. McCulley’s so very successful novels. The Salomon Pico Zorro roamed the very valley where I live, reportedly buried his ill-gotten gains in these very hills and left skeletons of his alleged victims in a canyon just behind my house. And so I feel compelled to write about him.

Salomon Pico was just one of the many bandits who enjoyed the freedom of these hills shortly after the American Incursion and during the Gold Rush which followed immediately thereafter. During this transition, law enforcement wasn’t very effective, centers of civilization were scattered, and local Californios looked upon their own who had turned to banditry with a certain amount of sympathy (as long as you didn’t steal their gold). Among the better known of these bandits were Salomon Pico, Joaquin Murrieta, and Tiburcio Vasquez (the latter was Salomon’s wife’s cousin). But other bandits of the time were decidedly not Spanish and took full advantage of the opportunity. The best known of these was Jack Powers, an Irish Gang member from the City of New York who found  the California of the time  ripe for the plucking.

But back to Senor Pico. Salomon’s story is told as local color in a host of advertisements about the valley;  local real estate, golf courses, ranch movie locations, and chambers of commerce. The story is essentially the same; a man born to pioneer Spanish stock loses his land and family to the grasping greed of newly arrived Americans, vows vengeance, and sets off on a path of robbery and murder throughout Alta California until the area becomes too hot to hold him and he flees to Baja California where he is eventually executed.

That is the first layer of understanding.

But my research has revealed that there is much more to the story. It strikes me that we tend judge others not by a simple deed but by the justification for that deed. If there is enough justification, there is often pardon. Delving into the second layer of understanding of the bandit Salomon Pico, I have found increased potential for justification. As a former Dean of Students in a prep school of privilege, I see a similarity between Salomon Pico’s response to events and the response of my students when I found it necessary to discipline them; the stunned disbelief that such a thing could happen to them.

The climate of the time among the Californios was one of rebellion. But not just against the Americans; there had been considerable unrest in the period that followed the Mexican Revolution. Mexican governors were appointed, plotted against, and chased away. In fact, Salomon Pico’s own sister actively supported rebellions against two Mexican governors. And there was great divisiveness even among those in power. Californios found themselves on a roller coaster that yo-yo’d between power and powerlessness. Just before the American incursion Salomon was on top of the roller coaster: one of his brothers was Alcalde of the San Jose Pueblo, another was a general in the army, and his cousin Pio Pico was the governor. It all fell apart with the arrival of the Americans. Salomon had a long way to fall.

But like many of his countrymen, Salomon did try to adjust. He returned to his family and his ranch life, bitter, no doubt, but apparently conciliatory. Then came the Gold Rush and every able-bodied American male sailed to San Francisco, bought supplies, and joined a non-ending line of miners tramping across the San Joaquin Valley to the gold fields – right across Salomon Pico’s land. Soon his land was lost and his family injured. Enough was enough.

My point is this: every justification that I have found and continue to find for Salomon’s actions has come only with hours of digging into the inner layers of the artichoke. I have not yet reached the heart; there is much more to be found. But if I had settled for the outer layer, I would now have much less sympathy for Salomon. History tends to be cut and dried, a simple recitation of fact, and it has little time for human emotions and no patience for human frailty. But as I move closer to the heart of the flower I wonder from whence the bandit Salomon Pico sprang: was it from a natural evil and shallowness of soul? Or was he shaped unwitting on the potter’s wheel of events?

Tagged: Alta California, biography, history, Johnston McCulley, Novel, research, Salomon Pico, understanding history, Writing, Zorro

Write Through The Holidays

 

The Holidays not only creep up on you, they devour you. Really, there are multiple holidays tightly woven into a short span of time. I am declaring Hallowe’en part of the Holiday Season. Admittedly there is no day off from work on that day and yes, we tend to think of it as more of an event. But it requires preparation (some people decorate more for Hallowe’en then they do Christmas), the purchase of food, and entertaining guests (those little rascals!).

Viewed this way, the Holiday Season preparations and activities begin during the last week in October and carry on right through the first of the year (for some cultures and religions, even longer). Inside and out, the house decorations shift from pumpkins to gourds to pinecones and from ghouls to pilgrims to Santas while lights go from orange to white to red and green. The longest time frame to prepare is the 28 days in November. This year, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was virtually nil.

Don’t get me wrong; all of this is great fun. We need these celebrations to cheer us as the darkness devours the sun. But how is a writer to continue being productive through this time without becoming a Humbug?

Those of you with a day job, who write at night and in your spare time; read no further. This article can not help you. Clearly, you already possess the self-discipline and concentration to succeed under any circumstances. But for the rest of us: read on.

This newly described Holiday Season is full of distractions. And when we consider that this time frame is nearly one-quarter of the entire year, this festive time can only be viewed as a menace to a writer’s productivity. But most of us don’t see it this way, and therefore don’t prepare adequately. The great danger lies in the benevolent seduction of the season. Only after the decorating and parties and travel and card writing and candy eating and stocking filling and gift wrapping and Auld Lang Syne is over and done in early January; only when looking back does the writer clearly see this massive loss of productivity. And now its time for taxes. And too late for New Years Resolutions.

I mentioned travel. Travel is the death knell for writing. Writing demands concentration. Travel guaranties distraction and adverse stimulation. Train and plane travel offer some opportunities to write, between stewardess interruptions and bathroom trips. But if you drive to your relatives, as many of us do, our hands are effectively handcuffed and our brains hijacked. I have tried driving with a mini recorder to help me remember those brilliant ideas that come out of the blue. But there is risk in diverting one’s mind while driving; there are assassins out there.

The danger from travel is overt but the covert danger is the insidious infection of the mind. It is the pervasive spirit of the holiday season. It is permission to stop writing early to help the wife decorate; it’s the holidays. It’s okay to eat the chocolate kiss, or two, or three, and generate that sugar high, because when else can one do it? After all, it’s the holidays. It’s okay to stop work to have a glass of wine an hour or two earlier than usual; it’s the holidays.

You get the picture. Writers (this writer at least) are easily distracted from their work under most circumstances. But when the writer has a mind-set that gives him permission to stop writing at any time during a two month span, the results are predictable.

So what’s to be done? The answer is: be aware. With any addiction, the first step to wholeness is understanding that one has a problem. Every journey begins with the first step. Once the evil is disclosed, once the beguiling siren song of the season is seen for what it is, the writer can begin to fabricate defenses to repel the seductive sorties launched against his position. Only then will the journey to wellness begin.

(In the spirit of disclosure this author is a true believer in holidays of all types.)

Tagged: Christmas and holiday season, concentration, creative ideas, Holiday, Holiday Season, keep writing, New Year, writers, writing discipline

Six Ways to Start Your Creative Juices Flowing

I share with you some of the my ways  to overcome the curse of Creativity Deprivation.

1. Exercise. I run. Not every day, but frequently. And I find that plots and scenarios pop into my head unbidden as I jog along (I don’t use an iPod). But I don’t believe that creative resurgence is limited to running alone. Any aerobic exercise should produce the same results. The benefits are many. First, it is a complete interruption to your physical modality so that when you return to writing, you are refreshed and renewed. But exercise also introduces factors to the blood that are present only when tissue is under stress. The most significant of them is BDNF (brain-derived nuerotrophic factor) which appears to spark increased learning and creativity in the brain.

2. Laugh a lot. Scientists have not yet located the laugh center in the brain. But they do know it is an interrupter that helps to shift perspective. Researchers have found that subjects who cannot perceive a hidden object in a picture suddenly are able to do so after a good belly laugh. Theoretically, laughter can allow a shift from right brain to left, or vice versa.

3. Give it a break. I mean a real break. Don’t write for a week (that’s a good time to concentrate on Marketing!). And then come back to it with full dedication.

4. Read over your head. I am stimulated by stellar examples (not so much by commonality). I find that a night with Steinbeck or Hemingway excites me to a new level of writing. I head for the shelves with works that are way over my head and from them draw fresh ideas about how to improve my own writing.

5. Try a different genre. Many of us are rutted into a specific form of writing. I find I can write novels with ease but truly struggle with short stories. So when my ideas go dry and my creativity runs away and hides, I turn to another writing form. And after several sessions of struggling with poetry or short stories I return to novels with relief…and often success.

6. Remember your childhood heroes. I grew up enamored of Westerns. I wore a cowboy hat and a brace of six-guns everywhere for a while. I loved to watch The Cisco Kid and Roy Rogers (Okay, I’m truly dating myself here!). When a child, one’s imagination runs unabated. I find that a wealth of ideas can come from attempting to feel once again the magic of my childhood fantasies. It’s not always easy to do, but just the journey can draw dividends.

 

 

Tagged: creativeness, ideas, imagination, novels, poetry, short stories, Short story, Writing

The Value Of Research

I write fiction. I’ve published mystery thrillers. I’ve created the characters with the hope that they will take on a life of their own. When that seems to happen, as described by my reviewers, I feel I have succeeded. Fictional characters necessarily are born of traits familiar to me, whether they are part of me or my relatives or friends, or come from some long forgotten stranger.

I help bring life to my characters by placing them within a real environment, surroundings that resonate with the reader, perhaps places we have been or our friends have been. An accurate historical environment is important, too. And the tools my characters use, whether a gun or the internet, must be real as well.

There are two ways to accomplish this. Many accomplished writers teach “write what you know”. That makes sense. That which you know best is probably an area where you have expertise beyond most other people. And certainly your knowledge of the people in your life and the environments in which you were raised must exceed that of most others.

But there is a second way to accomplish this: research. Never before has there been such access to knowledge about things. And not just a passing knowledge, either. With the internet today you can find all the data you need. But beyond that, you can visit the place you are researching, by satellite and quite possibly from a street view. You can identify local plants, understand the local weather patterns, read the local news, listen to current gossip; in short, one can easily come to know more about a place than the people who live there.

Research and an accurate translation and restructuring of data allows the author to construct a vibrant and believable environment for his characters. When my protagonist describes the sunset on the desert, he is able to do so in the minutest detail, because I am watching it on a podcast or seeing it in a photograph.

Fiction is fiction. The medium allows us to be as creative as we wish. But it is our experience that suggests and colors our interpretation of that which we create. Research provides the experience and knowledge we otherwise may lack to paint a convincing, lifelike mural of words.

Tagged: fiction characters, fiction writing, fiction writing skills, lifelike characters, research, Writers Resources

The Unsinkable Davy Brown

The Carriage house of the Santa Ynez Valley Museum was packed last night with people

who came to hear about Davy Brown, a man whose greatest renown to most people is the appearance of his name on a bottle of ale from the Figueroa Mountain Brewery*.

And that is the point. Although a campground, a creek and a trail in the San Rafael Wilderness were named for him, precious little else is generally known about Davy Brown. Yet he is one of the truly larger than life characters to have lived in the valley.

We had come to hear Roy Harthorn, who has spent years in the attempt to separate fact from fiction about Uncle Davy Brown, as he was known to some, for a book he hopes to publish in the future. The Museum hosted the event with the flair we’ve come to expect; wine and snacks, books and illustrations, and a pint of Davy Brown Ale from Figueroa Mountain Brewery surrounded by the ghostly outlines of the Museum’s wonderful collection of stagecoaches and wagons.

Mr. Harthorn has done his research. By the end of the evening we had come to know what a truly remarkable life Davy Brown had lived: his birth in Ireland. his service aboard a British privateer at age twelve and subsequent capture by the Americans, his travels to the west coast, his service in the Mexican/American War, ranching in Yosemite Valley, the gold mining, grizzly hunting, his near death experience from consumption, his subsequent relocation to Guadeloupe and the Santa Ynez Valley area,  and his celebrated life in the cabin in the woods near Figueroa mountain.

Yet even more fascinating are the unproven legends: his stint with the Texas Rangers, how he taught Kit Carson to trap and hunt, his expeditions with mountain man “Broken hand” Fitzpatrick, his various fortunes and hidden wealth, and his protection of the friendly Digger Indians from raiding Paiute Indians in search of horses and wives. Oh, and did he die in the Alamo? And did he kill 500 Grizzly Bears?

The hall was packed. Who doesn’t like to hear such stories about über personalities and  larger than life characters who we wish, deep inside, we might become, if even just for a short time? Yet   real lesson is this: scratch the surface of any community and you’re likely to find a character whose exploits transcend anything you expect, and whose accomplishments belie deceptively modest exteriors.

* Ironically, we learned that Figueroa Mountain may once have been named Davy Brown Peak.

Tagged: American, Book, history, Ireland, Kit Carson, Museum, research, San Rafael Wilderness, Santa Ynez Valley, talk, Texas Rangers, United States

For Whom Do I Write?

I’ve embarked upon a series of books. Not intentionally, but in response to my readers.

When I read reviews asking “What’s next?” for Zack Tolliver (my protagonist) I am buoyed by such enthusiasm and charged to respond to it. As a writer I am flattered when the characters I create take on a life of their own; there’s something god-like in that.

But now I find myself on a road determined not by me but by my readers. And maybe not even all of my readers, come to think of it, just those who bothered to review the book. That’s not entirely a bad thing, of course, but it raises the question: for whom do I write?

Sage, experienced authors advise us to “write what you know” and “write your passion”; in essence, follow your muse. But there two very strong influences to the contrary: readers and money.

When referring to readers, I am clumping together that whole world of “other people” influences, ranging from family to that critic in Bird Tracks Crossing, North Dakota (no offense meant to that particular town). Our brains are organized to respond favorably to praise; it’s a chemical thing, quite beyond our control. We instinctively want to please people. But the trap lies in trying to please everyone.

And again, most people do not express views. From my experience, of five thousand readers who purchase a book on Amazon, twenty might write a review. The question is, should I allow myself to be influenced by the thoughts of those twenty when, quite possibly, the remainder of those five thousand readers disagree?

Yet I am embarked on writing a series.

And money. Yes, no matter how altruistic we are about our writing goals, we care about money. There are exceptions, of course, such as those who are independently wealthy, those writing memoirs intended exclusively for their families, or the odd Tibetan monk. But for the rest of us, money counts. The retailers, publishers, book shepherds, publicists and agents lead us down this path with their advice.

The strongest influence is undoubtedly Amazon, with their author rankings and multiple markets and rewards programs and graphics and reports. Many books have been authored about how to successfully sell on Amazon. But you can boil most of their content down to this: two books are better than one, three books are better than two, and so on. It’s simple economics, but it has led to hastily written 150 page multi book series. When did a novel shrink to 150 pages? But that’s a topic for another time.

The quest for money also takes my time away from writing. Social Media alone can take my entire day if I let it. The planning for book events, the search for reviews, the upkeep of a blog, a web site, daily tweets, etc., etc. together are endlessly time-consuming. Consider: if money didn’t matter, one could write all day!

I have other writing projects, and I try to give those equal time. But despite myself I return again and again to the Amazon author page to check rank and sales. My day floats euphorically or dies a horrible death according to those numbers. We are a competitive species, but good writing, like a good golf swing, emerges only an untroubled mind.

Tagged: Amazon, author rankings, book sales, book series, book shepherds, marketing, money, muse, publishers, readers, Social media, The Other, Writing

Getting Away

I’ve just returned from a week away from home. Not a vacation, as such.

My computer and all that goes with it came along with me. And I attended to it every morning at the villa where we lodged. I may in fact have done even more work than usual.

Yet it was refreshing simply to be in another environment.

My day at home is made up of writing and all that goes with it (editing, marketing, blogging, social media), house chores, running, music (arranging, singing, listening) and cooking. Other things happen, of course, but not as consistently.

When I was away, my day consisted of writing and all that goes with it, and running. I was able to leave my house chores, music, and cooking behind. But that’s not what refreshed me. Somehow, doing the same things in a different place did that.

Once I began my writing career I thought I would not need a vacation. I would, after all, be doing the things I most enjoy.  But now I realize I was wrong. A writer must stay fresh to generate fresh ideas.  A change in environment, no matter how brief, can help unclog the mind and open it to new ideas.

Tagged: Arts, Business, fresh ideas, Social media, staying fresh, vacation, Writing, Writing and Editing, writing discipline

SIMPLE

I love Penny Sansevieri, the Book Marketing Expert of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., and I hope this mention brings her some business. Why do I love her? Because her advice makes sense. And because she stays on top of her game and does her research. And because she doesn’t skimp on free advice. I’ve been receiving her 52 Marketing Tips ever since I sat in her audience at a conference a year and a half ago (I’m up to #47) and every single issue has had something in it I could use. Her newsletter is equally useful (that’s one of her beliefs – give useful information in your newsletters).

But the most useful advice I’ve had from Penny is to keep it simple – to downgrade to those elements of marketing that truly benefit my product and that I can realistically maintain. Too often I’ve felt the panic of trying of keep up with all the social media that I’ve launched. In a virtual world where consistency and reliability are prized I too often find my deadlines slipping away. And with them, no doubt, my readers.

We all love lists: 52 Marketing Tips, 10 Roads to Success, 5 Best Summer Recipes. Lists draw the eye and the mind. Why? Because they are organized, they are brief, they can be used or ignored, they are subject specific, they can be skimmed quickly. One doesn’t need to ferret through a lengthy paragraph to discover the points and its essence.

Penny is a master (mistress?) of lists.

Her latest newsletter is about discoverability – the goal of all writers and the end goal of marketing. She lists her 10 best roads to discoverability and as always they make sense. But they also reflect the changing marketplace. In some cases they contradict earlier newsletters. That’s how fast the market is changing, and Penny flexes with it.

But back to simple. As my eye roves her 10 suggestions for best discoverability I recognize that once again I’ve made my life too complicated by running in place as I try to keep up with too many social media sites and to be everywhere at once. I’ve sacrificed writing to marketing in this mad dash. but what is Pennies first recommendation, # 1 on her list? Publish. Publish a lot.

The gist of Penny’s list is this: Write a lot, publish, answer questions, talk to readers, and give stuff away. Simple. And enjoyable. So why have I been tormenting myself?

Tagged: Author, book marketing, FaceBook, Internet Marketing, marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Newsletter, Penny Sansieveri, Publishing, Twitter