Elgon Williams's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
What Exactly Is An Elgon?
The autobiographical stuff I've written over the years was mostly intended for my children to read, if and whenever they wanted to know more about me and what I did. While they were growing up they heard a good many of my stories but probably not all of them. My youngest, Sarah, may have heard them all. She lived with me for a couple of years after she finished High School. Our private conversations were rarely interrupted.
Somewhere or the other I have journals. I'm in the process of assembling them in no particular order. It is something I intend to do in the background over the next few months while my book Fried Windows (In A Light White Sauce) undergoes the mystical, transformative process from manuscript to published work. The journals might be arranged by period except that spans of my life would be missing. I threw perhaps 20,000 pages of my stuff in 1981 and most of that material was my journal from 1972 to 1981. There are fictionalized accounts of that period my alter ego experiences contained in my works. I guess it doesn't matter much what is true in those pieces. My kids probably know.
Anyway, this is somewhere to begin, I suppose, starting with my name. You see, I got one that shouldn't require my last name. Do you know any other Elgons? It wasn't likely I was going to be mistaken for anyone else. Williams, my surname, is used for continuity with my ancestors and my progeny while my first name is both bizarre and unique enough to be solo if I cared to go with it.
Despite the many variations in pronunciation and the genesis of many monikers over the years – many of them I don't care to mention here because they were either patently offensive or otherwise insulting – I eventually got used to having the weird name and started using it again around the time I met my ex-wife, the mother of my children.
In case we have never met, my name is Elgon. It’s nice to meet you and all that.
What exactly is an Elgon? Well, I have done some research over the years. You see, from a very early age, I wanted to know the answer, too. For the longest time I believed, wrongly, that I was an only Elgon, which was not true at all. As hard as it may be to believe, I was not alone in my suffering this strange abomination of five letters that is so exceedingly difficult for many people to pronounce correctly. Going to the source, my mother, I asked her why would you name me Elgon?
"Ask your father," she responded.
Dad was saddled with the same name and didn't like it any more than I did. That was why he went by Bruce, his alleged middle name, for almost all his life. Even his parents and siblings called him Bruce. He believed it was his 'fallback' name – you know, the one parents give you just in case you don't like their first choice. My mother never gave me a secondary name, only middle initial. So until I figured out I could use the 'B' to become any name that started with a 'B' I felt stuck with the quirky name others mispronounced as Elgin, Eldon, Eljer – even Edgar and Logan (some people really have problems with my name and/or their hearing).
The reason Dad named me Elgon he alleged was attributed to the instantaneous desire to have a legacy. It overwhelmed him the moment I was born and compelled him to name me after him. Although I never personally cared for the name Bruce other than it was the name my dad used, I would have been okay with using it had it been given to me. But my mom intervened to refuse to name me Elgon Bruce Williams Jr. She didn’t want a 'junior' tacked on at the end of my name. As you can imagine, there is a story behind her reason.
There was a really mean kid she knew when she was growing up and his name was Junior Williams. That was really his name, Junior. Anyway, he did really disgusting things like cupping his hand to catch his farts and then holding his hand under a baby's nose and laughing when the foul odor made the poor infant gag. Yeah, I'm not sure I'd want to be directly associated with a character like that, although my flatulence has, at times, been legendary.
So, having consented to Dad's desire to name me Elgon, Mom persisted against the attending nurse's every attempt to add on the Jr. at the end of my name, making my birth certificate read Elgon B. Williams.
Ironically, I was named after my dad exactly, something Dad didn't learn until, at age sixty-two he filed for Social Security benefits in 1976. You see, Dad never had a copy of his birth certificate and apparently never needed it up to the time he had to prove who he was to the Social Security administration as it wasn't good enough for him to know his Social Security number, which they had given to him years before without anything but his driver's license. His driver's license, by the way, was given to him without any examination because he was already driving an automobile at the time when the law passed requiring licensing. The first time he ever took a driver's test was in Texas when he moved there in 1977.
In order to obtain his benefits he had to produce his birth certificate. So he called the courthouse in West Liberty, Kentucky, the county seat of Morgan County where Dad was born in on April 25, 1914. The problem was the courthouse burned down in the late 1920's and all the records were destroyed. So, he was directed to call the Commonwealth of Kentucky for an abstract of birth in lieu of a birth certificate. On that certified document, Dad's name was listed as Elgon B. Williams. The lingering unsolved mystery was how he came to be called Bruce. His answer was inadequate, but I'm sure it was true to the best of his knowledge. "I was always called that."
Where did the name Elgon originate? My paternal grandmother named my dad. Where did she come up with the name. Apparently there was a peddler who was stuck with the name and Grandma Williams liked it enough to remember it and name Dad after the guy. Knowing Grandma, I doubt there was anything untoward going on between her and the peddler. I also tend to think that make his name was really Elgin but Grandma couldn't spell that well.
It is pronounced L' – gun, by the way.
On the day I was born there was only the one other boy who came into the world in the whole hospital. Keith was his name. He was in my class up until the time that I left the Southeastern school system in Clark County, Ohio. So it was a done deal that wed be best friends in grade school. And it was also true that there would only be one Elgon born on May 7, 1956.
If you 'Google' my name you will find that Elgon is also an extinct volcano in Kenya and that there have even been some Williamses involved with research on that mountain. Kind of ironic in a way as none of them are direct relatives of mine – as far as I know. There is also some cosmetics company in Italy. Further down the list you will also find references to some of my writing, my web logs and the like. Which brings me to the point of all this, my writing.
Mostly, I have been a writer throughout my life. Sometimes I write about the process of writing but as that would fill several volumes, I have tended to keep that stuff in my journals. Those of my friends who have suffered through early drafts of my novels may confirm that if anyone could fill several books about the subject of writing that it would surely be me. The truth is that I don't really want to write about writing but it is what I do when I have nothing else to write about. On the interest scale writing about writing would involve acquisition of substantial off-setting karma because I am certain it would not only be an effective sleep aid but might actually kill some unsuspecting innocents.
Fortunately I have done a few other things in my life besides writing about writing. I've lived a little and experienced a lot. Hopefully reading about some of those things will prove more interesting than the mechanics how it was created.
Usually I'm not one to regard labels with any affection. I especially hate that my books have to be categorized and put with other books of some predetermined similar genre. The truth is that my books are as unique as my name, which is fitting as I wrote them. No one else was involved at all and if I decide to have a space craft land on an open field and offer me a ride to another world, why can't I just squeeze that part in between talking about my best friends in school and some of the really silly things my mother used to say?
Why do I have to be a writer of science fiction or fantasy? Sometimes what emerges is fiction only because I exaggerated a little too much while bending the truth to fit the confines of a few hundred pages. Why can't it be a genre unique to the world, another book by Elgon! Let’s create anew sub-genre, call it Elgon-style. Better yet, make a whole new category called Trans-genre. Then everyone would know what to expect from one of my books.
What I'm getting at is that a book is intended to be a vehicle of escape as much for the writer as the reader. I can assure you that the financial situation I have been in for the past few years has made me a firm believer in escaping the real world as often as possible. If what I write causes a reader to laugh, cry or just simply think and in the process it diverts attention away from their private set of miseries, then I have accomplished what I set out to do.
Until then, I can continue being the only surviving Elgon of my clan and likely this hemisphere of our planet. Starting another book, I can be a writer again until the next time I look up from a page and know it's time to draw a new novel to some sort of conclusion.
Somewhere or the other I have journals. I'm in the process of assembling them in no particular order. It is something I intend to do in the background over the next few months while my book Fried Windows (In A Light White Sauce) undergoes the mystical, transformative process from manuscript to published work. The journals might be arranged by period except that spans of my life would be missing. I threw perhaps 20,000 pages of my stuff in 1981 and most of that material was my journal from 1972 to 1981. There are fictionalized accounts of that period my alter ego experiences contained in my works. I guess it doesn't matter much what is true in those pieces. My kids probably know.
Anyway, this is somewhere to begin, I suppose, starting with my name. You see, I got one that shouldn't require my last name. Do you know any other Elgons? It wasn't likely I was going to be mistaken for anyone else. Williams, my surname, is used for continuity with my ancestors and my progeny while my first name is both bizarre and unique enough to be solo if I cared to go with it.
Despite the many variations in pronunciation and the genesis of many monikers over the years – many of them I don't care to mention here because they were either patently offensive or otherwise insulting – I eventually got used to having the weird name and started using it again around the time I met my ex-wife, the mother of my children.
In case we have never met, my name is Elgon. It’s nice to meet you and all that.
What exactly is an Elgon? Well, I have done some research over the years. You see, from a very early age, I wanted to know the answer, too. For the longest time I believed, wrongly, that I was an only Elgon, which was not true at all. As hard as it may be to believe, I was not alone in my suffering this strange abomination of five letters that is so exceedingly difficult for many people to pronounce correctly. Going to the source, my mother, I asked her why would you name me Elgon?
"Ask your father," she responded.
Dad was saddled with the same name and didn't like it any more than I did. That was why he went by Bruce, his alleged middle name, for almost all his life. Even his parents and siblings called him Bruce. He believed it was his 'fallback' name – you know, the one parents give you just in case you don't like their first choice. My mother never gave me a secondary name, only middle initial. So until I figured out I could use the 'B' to become any name that started with a 'B' I felt stuck with the quirky name others mispronounced as Elgin, Eldon, Eljer – even Edgar and Logan (some people really have problems with my name and/or their hearing).
The reason Dad named me Elgon he alleged was attributed to the instantaneous desire to have a legacy. It overwhelmed him the moment I was born and compelled him to name me after him. Although I never personally cared for the name Bruce other than it was the name my dad used, I would have been okay with using it had it been given to me. But my mom intervened to refuse to name me Elgon Bruce Williams Jr. She didn’t want a 'junior' tacked on at the end of my name. As you can imagine, there is a story behind her reason.
There was a really mean kid she knew when she was growing up and his name was Junior Williams. That was really his name, Junior. Anyway, he did really disgusting things like cupping his hand to catch his farts and then holding his hand under a baby's nose and laughing when the foul odor made the poor infant gag. Yeah, I'm not sure I'd want to be directly associated with a character like that, although my flatulence has, at times, been legendary.
So, having consented to Dad's desire to name me Elgon, Mom persisted against the attending nurse's every attempt to add on the Jr. at the end of my name, making my birth certificate read Elgon B. Williams.
Ironically, I was named after my dad exactly, something Dad didn't learn until, at age sixty-two he filed for Social Security benefits in 1976. You see, Dad never had a copy of his birth certificate and apparently never needed it up to the time he had to prove who he was to the Social Security administration as it wasn't good enough for him to know his Social Security number, which they had given to him years before without anything but his driver's license. His driver's license, by the way, was given to him without any examination because he was already driving an automobile at the time when the law passed requiring licensing. The first time he ever took a driver's test was in Texas when he moved there in 1977.
In order to obtain his benefits he had to produce his birth certificate. So he called the courthouse in West Liberty, Kentucky, the county seat of Morgan County where Dad was born in on April 25, 1914. The problem was the courthouse burned down in the late 1920's and all the records were destroyed. So, he was directed to call the Commonwealth of Kentucky for an abstract of birth in lieu of a birth certificate. On that certified document, Dad's name was listed as Elgon B. Williams. The lingering unsolved mystery was how he came to be called Bruce. His answer was inadequate, but I'm sure it was true to the best of his knowledge. "I was always called that."
Where did the name Elgon originate? My paternal grandmother named my dad. Where did she come up with the name. Apparently there was a peddler who was stuck with the name and Grandma Williams liked it enough to remember it and name Dad after the guy. Knowing Grandma, I doubt there was anything untoward going on between her and the peddler. I also tend to think that make his name was really Elgin but Grandma couldn't spell that well.
It is pronounced L' – gun, by the way.
On the day I was born there was only the one other boy who came into the world in the whole hospital. Keith was his name. He was in my class up until the time that I left the Southeastern school system in Clark County, Ohio. So it was a done deal that wed be best friends in grade school. And it was also true that there would only be one Elgon born on May 7, 1956.
If you 'Google' my name you will find that Elgon is also an extinct volcano in Kenya and that there have even been some Williamses involved with research on that mountain. Kind of ironic in a way as none of them are direct relatives of mine – as far as I know. There is also some cosmetics company in Italy. Further down the list you will also find references to some of my writing, my web logs and the like. Which brings me to the point of all this, my writing.
Mostly, I have been a writer throughout my life. Sometimes I write about the process of writing but as that would fill several volumes, I have tended to keep that stuff in my journals. Those of my friends who have suffered through early drafts of my novels may confirm that if anyone could fill several books about the subject of writing that it would surely be me. The truth is that I don't really want to write about writing but it is what I do when I have nothing else to write about. On the interest scale writing about writing would involve acquisition of substantial off-setting karma because I am certain it would not only be an effective sleep aid but might actually kill some unsuspecting innocents.
Fortunately I have done a few other things in my life besides writing about writing. I've lived a little and experienced a lot. Hopefully reading about some of those things will prove more interesting than the mechanics how it was created.
Usually I'm not one to regard labels with any affection. I especially hate that my books have to be categorized and put with other books of some predetermined similar genre. The truth is that my books are as unique as my name, which is fitting as I wrote them. No one else was involved at all and if I decide to have a space craft land on an open field and offer me a ride to another world, why can't I just squeeze that part in between talking about my best friends in school and some of the really silly things my mother used to say?
Why do I have to be a writer of science fiction or fantasy? Sometimes what emerges is fiction only because I exaggerated a little too much while bending the truth to fit the confines of a few hundred pages. Why can't it be a genre unique to the world, another book by Elgon! Let’s create anew sub-genre, call it Elgon-style. Better yet, make a whole new category called Trans-genre. Then everyone would know what to expect from one of my books.
What I'm getting at is that a book is intended to be a vehicle of escape as much for the writer as the reader. I can assure you that the financial situation I have been in for the past few years has made me a firm believer in escaping the real world as often as possible. If what I write causes a reader to laugh, cry or just simply think and in the process it diverts attention away from their private set of miseries, then I have accomplished what I set out to do.
Until then, I can continue being the only surviving Elgon of my clan and likely this hemisphere of our planet. Starting another book, I can be a writer again until the next time I look up from a page and know it's time to draw a new novel to some sort of conclusion.
Interview with Author Of Literary Suspense, Jackson Paul Baer
Jackson Paul Baer is an author of literary suspense whose most recent release, The Earth Bleeds Red launched late last October from Pandamoon publishing and is available in both eBook and paperback from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online book sites. Originally from Woodstock, Ga (north of Atlanta) he’s a huge Braves and Georgia Tech fan. However, he lived in Oregon for the over five years and only recently moved back to North Georgia. Over the past twelve years he had been all over the country. He loves the Trailblazers as well as Oregon State, where he will soon graduate with a B.A. in English in June 2014. He has been married for eleven years and has four beautiful children, ages 4-9.
He graduated from a Bible college in 2003; that’s where he met his wife. He spent seven years as a youth & teaching pastor, but has not been a pastor for the past three years now. “I’m not very religious though you will find spiritual themes within my writing due to it being such a large part of the majority of my life. My characters, much like myself, struggle with faith, doubt, and love as a part of their everyday lives.” The Earth Bleeds Red is by no means a Christian novel, however, with language you’d find in real life, as well as situations not suited for a church service.
Jackson’s favorite author is Joyce Carol Oates and he also loves Junot Diaz and Sherman Alexie, among many others. “Their novels have influenced me the most and I’d like to think my writing style resembles their amazing books. Them by Joyce Carol Oates is the best book I’ve ever read. If you’ve never read it, stop what you’re doing right now and read it. Seriously, do it now.”
Jackson’s latest book is The Earth Bleeds Red:
Scott Miller has everything he’s ever hoped for. He has a successful marriage to Jessie, a stunningly beautiful, creative woman. His seventeen-year-old daughter, Ashley, is both gorgeous and intelligent, and has just been accepted to the University of Notre Dame, where Scott received his PhD. He has a comforting home in the woods, and a fulfilling career as a college professor at Oregon State University in Corvallis. He’s blissful, and at peace, until it all comes shattering down.
Ashley is kidnapped. The scene of the abduction is horrific and bloody, and the police are convinced she couldn’t have survived. They accuse her boyfriend, Brandon, of Ashley’s murder. He declares his innocence, and claims that a masked man who entered his house and overwhelmed them both took Ashley. No one believes Brandon.
Then the bodies of three other missing girls are discovered, all bearing the mark of a known serial killer the FBI has been hunting for years. Evidence mounts. As Special Agent James Duncan tracks the Hail Mary Killer, Scott and Jessie try to move on with their lives. But they can’t shake the feeling that Ashley may still be alive, and that the time for saving their only daughter is quickly running out.
In the best tradition of literature and suspense, Jackson Paul Baer has weaved a heartfelt tale of one family’s struggle to survive after a despicable evil wrenches them apart.
Jackson is current working on a literary psychological thriller titled The Lights Will Never Fade.
He gave me the chance to ask a few questions and learn more about his fascinating life and his writing:
Q: How much research do you do before starting a novel? Does the research help develop the plot or do you use it for all background details?
A: I researched a lot for The Earth Bleeds Red. I went and took pictures in the city of Corvallis, or that I pictured as I was writing the book. I wanted my writing to accurately reflect the city. I also had to do a good deal of research with regards to police procedure, crime scenes, what happens to a person after death etc… With my write-in-progress, I emailed people who live in the town I set the book in to verify the types of trees, flowers, close rivers, and other things like that.
Q: Creative people tend to be spontaneous. In particular, most people think that writers are at least a little crazy. Tell us the most unusual thing you have done in your real life that doesn’t directly relate to writing.
A: I’m a fairly spontaneous person. I travel a lot, playing cards, and have been known to take a road trip on a whim. I don’t do this as much anymore as I’ve gotten older and my kids have gotten bigger, but I’ve driven ten hours before, only an hour or so after deciding to go.
Q: Every writer has that one story that clicked, inspiring him or her to pursue writing as a career. What was the story and what was there about it that made it influential?
A: The story line in “Them,” by Joyce Carol Oates has to be one of the biggest influences on me as a writer. The characters were so flawed and imperfect. I actually heard her speak at Oregon State and after that, I went out and bought that novel. I read it and fell in love with her writing.
Q: Creativity comes in many ways – for example, painting, photography, sculpture, music and theater. What other things do you do or have you done that are examples of using your imagination or other artistic talents?
A: I’ve actually written a handful of songs and even recorded four or five of them several years back. It was more for fun than trying to make a career out of it, but I do enjoy music. I play guitar and bass and songwriting is really where I got my start in writing.
Q: When writing I’m sure you hit snags where characters aren’t behaving or the plot just isn’t working. When that happens to me I play video solitaire. What do you do?
A: I usually take a break and read. I think that any good writer is an avid reader, as time allows. With work, school, and a family, my time for reading has been limited. I am almost done with school and will be able to devote regular time to reading and writing again. I miss them dearly.
Q: There is usually someone in a writer’s past that is to credit or to blame. In your life, who was that, when and what happened?
A: I had a professor at Oregon State who spoke to me. He was real and down to earth. To be honest, it started at the community college I went to prior, but this professor’s class was the first actual writing class that I took. I began to write short stories for the class and realized how much I loved creating this world that wouldn’t otherwise exist.
Check out Jackson Paul Baer online at:
http://jacksonpaulbaer.com
www.facebook.com/JacksonPaulBaer
https://twitter.com/JacksonPaulBaer
And Jackson's Previous writing:
Jackson Book Cover Old
He graduated from a Bible college in 2003; that’s where he met his wife. He spent seven years as a youth & teaching pastor, but has not been a pastor for the past three years now. “I’m not very religious though you will find spiritual themes within my writing due to it being such a large part of the majority of my life. My characters, much like myself, struggle with faith, doubt, and love as a part of their everyday lives.” The Earth Bleeds Red is by no means a Christian novel, however, with language you’d find in real life, as well as situations not suited for a church service.
Jackson’s favorite author is Joyce Carol Oates and he also loves Junot Diaz and Sherman Alexie, among many others. “Their novels have influenced me the most and I’d like to think my writing style resembles their amazing books. Them by Joyce Carol Oates is the best book I’ve ever read. If you’ve never read it, stop what you’re doing right now and read it. Seriously, do it now.”
Jackson’s latest book is The Earth Bleeds Red:
Scott Miller has everything he’s ever hoped for. He has a successful marriage to Jessie, a stunningly beautiful, creative woman. His seventeen-year-old daughter, Ashley, is both gorgeous and intelligent, and has just been accepted to the University of Notre Dame, where Scott received his PhD. He has a comforting home in the woods, and a fulfilling career as a college professor at Oregon State University in Corvallis. He’s blissful, and at peace, until it all comes shattering down.
Ashley is kidnapped. The scene of the abduction is horrific and bloody, and the police are convinced she couldn’t have survived. They accuse her boyfriend, Brandon, of Ashley’s murder. He declares his innocence, and claims that a masked man who entered his house and overwhelmed them both took Ashley. No one believes Brandon.
Then the bodies of three other missing girls are discovered, all bearing the mark of a known serial killer the FBI has been hunting for years. Evidence mounts. As Special Agent James Duncan tracks the Hail Mary Killer, Scott and Jessie try to move on with their lives. But they can’t shake the feeling that Ashley may still be alive, and that the time for saving their only daughter is quickly running out.
In the best tradition of literature and suspense, Jackson Paul Baer has weaved a heartfelt tale of one family’s struggle to survive after a despicable evil wrenches them apart.
Jackson is current working on a literary psychological thriller titled The Lights Will Never Fade.
He gave me the chance to ask a few questions and learn more about his fascinating life and his writing:
Q: How much research do you do before starting a novel? Does the research help develop the plot or do you use it for all background details?
A: I researched a lot for The Earth Bleeds Red. I went and took pictures in the city of Corvallis, or that I pictured as I was writing the book. I wanted my writing to accurately reflect the city. I also had to do a good deal of research with regards to police procedure, crime scenes, what happens to a person after death etc… With my write-in-progress, I emailed people who live in the town I set the book in to verify the types of trees, flowers, close rivers, and other things like that.
Q: Creative people tend to be spontaneous. In particular, most people think that writers are at least a little crazy. Tell us the most unusual thing you have done in your real life that doesn’t directly relate to writing.
A: I’m a fairly spontaneous person. I travel a lot, playing cards, and have been known to take a road trip on a whim. I don’t do this as much anymore as I’ve gotten older and my kids have gotten bigger, but I’ve driven ten hours before, only an hour or so after deciding to go.
Q: Every writer has that one story that clicked, inspiring him or her to pursue writing as a career. What was the story and what was there about it that made it influential?
A: The story line in “Them,” by Joyce Carol Oates has to be one of the biggest influences on me as a writer. The characters were so flawed and imperfect. I actually heard her speak at Oregon State and after that, I went out and bought that novel. I read it and fell in love with her writing.
Q: Creativity comes in many ways – for example, painting, photography, sculpture, music and theater. What other things do you do or have you done that are examples of using your imagination or other artistic talents?
A: I’ve actually written a handful of songs and even recorded four or five of them several years back. It was more for fun than trying to make a career out of it, but I do enjoy music. I play guitar and bass and songwriting is really where I got my start in writing.
Q: When writing I’m sure you hit snags where characters aren’t behaving or the plot just isn’t working. When that happens to me I play video solitaire. What do you do?
A: I usually take a break and read. I think that any good writer is an avid reader, as time allows. With work, school, and a family, my time for reading has been limited. I am almost done with school and will be able to devote regular time to reading and writing again. I miss them dearly.
Q: There is usually someone in a writer’s past that is to credit or to blame. In your life, who was that, when and what happened?
A: I had a professor at Oregon State who spoke to me. He was real and down to earth. To be honest, it started at the community college I went to prior, but this professor’s class was the first actual writing class that I took. I began to write short stories for the class and realized how much I loved creating this world that wouldn’t otherwise exist.
Check out Jackson Paul Baer online at:
http://jacksonpaulbaer.com
www.facebook.com/JacksonPaulBaer
https://twitter.com/JacksonPaulBaer
And Jackson's Previous writing:
Jackson Book Cover Old
About My Monday
Monday was full of strangeness, and very busy. As I continue looking for a job - my interview last week didn't solve my immediate need and I did not fill their requirements, go figure - I continue doing what started out being a fun side line to writing. That has come to occupy more and more of my time, but it's the sort of diversion I needed.
A couple of months ago I was working on a couple of new projects and they stalled out somewhere in the process. That happens. Occasionally the book to be that has been forced to the back burner dies but with me, usually, it is resurrected in a different form or I just get around to finishing what I started. No reason to panic; it's the way I write. Whenever that happens, I pull out some other unfinished thing or I revise something that I have worked on several times without really feeling it was finished. This time I took the latter course.
I have a series of books collectively called The Wolfcat Chronicles that some of you have read in part or in entirety. A few of you are writers who are or were members of FanStory when I posted the entire ten book series over the course of several months - usually two chapters at a time. It was a labor of love when I wrote the series in my spare time from the summer of 2000 to around 2005. You see, when you work a full time job in retail spending 60 or so hours a week at work and still have kids at home and you fancy yourself a writer, you write whenever you can. On my days off I was trying to sell my first two books, so it wasn't like I was wiring more on my days off than I was on my schedule work days. Anyway, I have found that if I write four to six hours a day that is enough to quiet whichever muse is inspiring me at the time.
So, as part of my process of seeking positive diversion I revised the first two of the Wolfcat books and submitted them to my publisher. I also allowed a friend to beta read them in her spare time. Yesterday, I heard back from my friend. She finished reading them and wants to read the next one. So at some point int he next few weeks or months I need to go back and read through the third book. And so I will revisit the Wolfcat books again. I take it as a good sign that people want to continue reading a story line.
The rest of the day, yesterday, I was being publicist, answering emails, sending out press releases for a new book launch, and preparing for a conference call in the evening. Busy, busy, busy. Some Monday's are like that. I have already begun receiving emails from the editor who is working on Fried Windows. So the real fun has just begun in the process that culminates with the launch of a book, an event that is now less than two months away.
A couple of months ago I was working on a couple of new projects and they stalled out somewhere in the process. That happens. Occasionally the book to be that has been forced to the back burner dies but with me, usually, it is resurrected in a different form or I just get around to finishing what I started. No reason to panic; it's the way I write. Whenever that happens, I pull out some other unfinished thing or I revise something that I have worked on several times without really feeling it was finished. This time I took the latter course.
I have a series of books collectively called The Wolfcat Chronicles that some of you have read in part or in entirety. A few of you are writers who are or were members of FanStory when I posted the entire ten book series over the course of several months - usually two chapters at a time. It was a labor of love when I wrote the series in my spare time from the summer of 2000 to around 2005. You see, when you work a full time job in retail spending 60 or so hours a week at work and still have kids at home and you fancy yourself a writer, you write whenever you can. On my days off I was trying to sell my first two books, so it wasn't like I was wiring more on my days off than I was on my schedule work days. Anyway, I have found that if I write four to six hours a day that is enough to quiet whichever muse is inspiring me at the time.
So, as part of my process of seeking positive diversion I revised the first two of the Wolfcat books and submitted them to my publisher. I also allowed a friend to beta read them in her spare time. Yesterday, I heard back from my friend. She finished reading them and wants to read the next one. So at some point int he next few weeks or months I need to go back and read through the third book. And so I will revisit the Wolfcat books again. I take it as a good sign that people want to continue reading a story line.
The rest of the day, yesterday, I was being publicist, answering emails, sending out press releases for a new book launch, and preparing for a conference call in the evening. Busy, busy, busy. Some Monday's are like that. I have already begun receiving emails from the editor who is working on Fried Windows. So the real fun has just begun in the process that culminates with the launch of a book, an event that is now less than two months away.
Incomplete Chapters
One thing I have learned over the course of writing several manuscripts is that if you take a break in the middle of a chapter, you'll usually wind up rewriting the whole thing.
The reason you feel compelled to take a break is that something is not working. Why do I say that? Well, if the writer is bored, then what will happen when someone else reads it? Makes you think, doesn't it?
A perfect chapter doesn't necessarily continue the action from the previous chapter, but it must build on the story line, otherwise it is unnecessary. If there are several threads to the plot, it must connect with one of them somewhere. Early in the novel chapters may establish a character or two - perhaps an important relationship hinting of a conflict later on. However, when a writer is composing any chapter he or she may not necessarily know where the story is headed at that point. Characters tend to tell their own tale. If they didn't present you, the author, with details and background it wouldn't be much of a novel. Also, you could tell the entire story as a brief synopsis.
What works for me is using an outline after the fact of writing a draft. That is not to say that from the outset I don't have a vague idea where the story is headed. Occasionally the outcome that seemed inevitable to me as I began to write turns out to be a red herring or at least a wrong assumption. It is important to allow the characters to tell their stories in their own ways and not force them into a corner or shackle them with your expectations. Although some of the characters may use your logic and generally do what you might do in an given situation, the best characters are those who do the unexpected and are the antithesis of the author, or at least a fabrication of his per her darker side.
Which brings me back on point. If you leave a chapters incomplete to take a break in the middle, whenever you return, go back to the beginning of the chapter and read the story. Fix whatever caused the trouble and then move on. Very often your characters will show you what the problem was. Their dialogue may have been strained or their actions inconsistent with their character profile. Something is amiss. Fix that and the flow and interest will be restored.
The reason you feel compelled to take a break is that something is not working. Why do I say that? Well, if the writer is bored, then what will happen when someone else reads it? Makes you think, doesn't it?
A perfect chapter doesn't necessarily continue the action from the previous chapter, but it must build on the story line, otherwise it is unnecessary. If there are several threads to the plot, it must connect with one of them somewhere. Early in the novel chapters may establish a character or two - perhaps an important relationship hinting of a conflict later on. However, when a writer is composing any chapter he or she may not necessarily know where the story is headed at that point. Characters tend to tell their own tale. If they didn't present you, the author, with details and background it wouldn't be much of a novel. Also, you could tell the entire story as a brief synopsis.
What works for me is using an outline after the fact of writing a draft. That is not to say that from the outset I don't have a vague idea where the story is headed. Occasionally the outcome that seemed inevitable to me as I began to write turns out to be a red herring or at least a wrong assumption. It is important to allow the characters to tell their stories in their own ways and not force them into a corner or shackle them with your expectations. Although some of the characters may use your logic and generally do what you might do in an given situation, the best characters are those who do the unexpected and are the antithesis of the author, or at least a fabrication of his per her darker side.
Which brings me back on point. If you leave a chapters incomplete to take a break in the middle, whenever you return, go back to the beginning of the chapter and read the story. Fix whatever caused the trouble and then move on. Very often your characters will show you what the problem was. Their dialogue may have been strained or their actions inconsistent with their character profile. Something is amiss. Fix that and the flow and interest will be restored.
Michelle Bellon Balances Busy Life With Writing
What amazes me is how creativity affects different people in similar ways. Even though it may seem to manifest in strange and unusual ways, for writers, at least, it’s been my experience that we’re a lot more alike in our uniqueness than different. One of the many things that is a similarly is the obsessive compulsion to tell stories. Another is the way a story will insist on being told despite how busy we are at doing other things.
Recently I got the chance to ask some question of Michelle Bellon, author of Rogue Alliance and several other books. She’s always a busy lady but she finds the time to help others; it’s in her nature. She’s a nurse, a mother and a wife – not necessarily in that order – but also she loves writing and respects the process and others who write as well. Personally, I wonder about people like her, having no idea how she juggles all the spinning plates of her life on those spindly, wobbly poles and still find the time to write. That is, until I think about all the things that every author I know does to feed the compulsion – if not obsession – to write stories. It goes toward proving my point, though, that a story needs to be told and it will always find a way of getting onto paper or into a digital file on some writer’s computer. I guess as writers all we need to be is receptive to that creative impulse and capture the idea.
Michelle’s most recent novel, Rogue Alliance, the first of a series. It is a genre stretching tale that held my interest from start to finish and turned me into a fan.
Trying to escape a horrific past, Shyla has immersed herself in life as a tough cop in the bustle of LA. When the case of a lifetime takes her back to her hometown of Redding, she is thrown into a world of organized crime, deceit, and bitter reminders of her childhood.
As Shyla’s path crosses that of Brennan, a troubled sidekick to the ringleader she’s intent on taking down, she discovers he has a past even darker than hers and she is forced to re-evaluate everything she believes about herself, her job, and what she knows about right and wrong.
Can she face the demons of her upbringing and learn to trust again? Her life will depend on it.
Q: You wake up only to realize you don’t remember your name or what you’re doing in Des Moines, Iowa. What’s the story?
A: I’m terrible with geography. Is Iowa cold? I don’t like cold. Can we make this story start in Hawaii? I want to live there…in a hut…and live off shellfish…getting down with nature. But I don’t want to go all Tom Hanks in Cast Away, that’s a bit much. Did I answer the question correctly?
Q: Yes, it's cold there. I think I like the setting for your story better than mine. Anyway, let’s talk about when you were a kid. In school were you a troublemaker, an instigator or the teacher’s pet? Explain
A: Oh, I believe I was all of those at one time or another. In second grade I had the best teacher ever, Mrs. Rogers, and I was surely teacher’s pet. I loved learning, craved it.
I found myself causing a bit of trouble in fifth and sixth grades but that was only because I have a cousin that had special needs and I wound up in a few too many fights defending him. I became known as a fighter about that time.
Then somewhere along the lines, around seventh grade or so, I just kind of got confused. Hormones kicked in and my brain cells ceased to function properly. I look back and it seems as if I were walking around in a fog all the time. I remember wandering around school, just kind of bumping around going, “What’s going on? Where am I supposed to be?”
That lack of brainpower only increased throughout the beginning of high school when I became absolutely boy crazy. Fortunately, I still managed to get decent grades. I was always friendly to everyone but maintained friendships with only a few close girl friends. I’ve always been careful about choosing friends. It’s sacred to me. It’s for life. My best friends are girls I’ve known my entire life. They’ve got my back, and I’ve got theirs. Forever.
Q: The next one is a fantasy type question: Imagine for a moment that you’re a famous, bestselling author. They’re making a movie out of your last book. What do you do next to top that you’re already achieved?
A: That is a huge accomplishment and one that many of us dream of achieving. I would be over the moon with excitement if one of my books made it to the big screen.
My next goal would be to write my next book. That’s it. I just want to keep making stories. It feels amazing to create something: a story, characters, another reality - that would have otherwise never existed.
Q: Many writers say that being creative becomes an integral part of their daily lives and part of their routine. How do you balance your responsibilities to others around your need to create?
A: This is something I constantly struggle with. My family, my husband and children, are my first priority. Then there’s the responsibility of maintaining our home and fulfilling the needs of my day job as a registered nurse. My creative side, which for me is writing, comes at the end of all that, though I feel it is important.
There is another component here. After I became a published author, I learned that there is a huge responsibility to market your work. Once you dig into that and learn what it takes to promote your finished product, you find yourself consumed with that aspect of the industry and the actual writing takes a huge back seat.
Right now I’m at a huge turning point, where I’ve let all of that get out of balance to the point that I’m no longer writing. I just don’t have the time and then when I do find a small chunk of time and sit down at the laptop, I have nothing to give, because all of my creative energies have been leeched out by the marketing aspect of writing. It can be very destructive if you let it. And I did let it.
But I recently decided to re-prioritize and get back to what I love - writing. Here’s why - I’ve learned that there are things that feed you and things that starve you. Marketing and promoting, if let get out of balance, will starve you, creatively. When you write and tap into that creative energy where things come to life, it feeds you. I’m determined to get back to that. Writers must write.
Q: Every writer has that one story that clicked, inspiring him or her to pursue writing as a career. What was the story and what was there about it that made it influential?
A: As for any one book that I read and it inspired me to write, there’s not just a single story. They all did. I simply love to read. I love to jump inside of other people’s fictional lives and fall in love with characters. It’s so magical.
What inspired me to actually write my own book was the desire to tell my own stories and entertain an audience of my own. The moment that it all clicked into place was when I began to write my first novel, Embracing You, Embracing Me. It’s a coming of age young adult novel that deals with young love, tragedy, and self-realization. Though fiction, it’s loosely based on my own experiences and dedicated to someone special in my life that passed at much too young of an age. Readers respond strongly to that story and that moves me. My intention is for everyone who reads it to remember that we must tell the ones we love that we love them today. You never know if you’ll have tomorrow. It’s a bit of a tear-jerker, or so I’ve heard.
Q: Creativity comes in many ways – for example, painting, photography, sculpture, music and theater. What other things do you do or have you done that are examples of using your imagination or other artistic talents?
A: Actually, I don’t consider myself creative. Before I started writing I honestly believed that I was lacking a creative gene. I can’t paint. Every picture I take is blurry and off center. I can’t act and I don’t like to speak in front of crowds. I’m logical and detail oriented with strong OCD tendencies. Those traits often kill creativity.
It still surprises me that I have been able to write novels. Sometimes I pick up one of my books and stare it, thinking, “Holy crap! I wrote this!”
Even then, I don’t feel creative because it doesn’t feel like I’m the creator of these stories. When a book idea comes to me it’s not because I sit and brainstorm. The storyline and characters often just pop into my head, like a little gift from the universe, or sometimes I’ll dream them. At that point, it’s up to me to simply write it down and fill in all the details.
Q: Where do you see yourself at this moment in your life had you never decided to write a book?
A: I’d be doing mostly the same things; working as a nurse, taking care of my children, loving on my husband. But I’d still be convinced that I lacked any fraction of creativity, and that’s a sad thought. Writing opened up a whole new world for me with possibilities that I would have never imagined before. Most importantly, it’s taught me a lot about myself and what I can accomplish through hard work, dedication, perseverance, and passion. I had no idea that I had all of this inside of me.
Q: Family and relationships are important in peoples’ lives and so, it is little surprise that there are relationships between characters in books. How closely do the interactions in your books mirror your real life?
A: Very closely. For me, the crux of every story is the character arc, their internal and external struggle as they learn to overcome whatever difficult journey I’ve put them on. In each book I write, though most are radically different than my real life, I definitely incorporate my own life lessons and relationship trials into the fictional story I’m writing at the time. By forcing my characters to face their personal demons and reconcile challenging relationship dynamics, I’m essentially creating an outlet for self-realization, self-healing. My character learns and evolves, therefore so do I. It’s very cathartic.
Q: When writing I’m sure you hit snags where characters aren’t behaving or the plot just isn’t working. When that happens to be I play video solitaire. What do you do?
Omg! That is exactly what I do! When I get stuck, I stop what I’m doing, minimize my screen, and pull up solitaire. I like to play Free Cell. I have a 99% winning average. Is that a talent?
Q: It may be. I never mastered Free Cell. Okay here’s a touch one: When friends, family and even people you barely know at work find out you are publishing a book they expect a gratis copy. It could be a touchy situation. How do handle it?
A: Oh, man, this is a touchy subject. I can’t even begin to tell you how many people ask, and even expect, a free book. And I’ve given out far too many. I just have the hardest time telling them no.
However, I’ve reached a point where, when asked this question, I have to kindly evade the part where I offer a free book. I have to start respecting my work by making a decision to earn something for my hard work. I feel that it’s so sad that the industry has “evolved” to a point where talented, hard-working authors are giving away their books for free. It baffles me when I hear a reader say that they only buy books if they are 99 cents or free. It makes me want to ask them if they’d like to work on a project for a year or more, pour their heart and soul into it, accept a hundred rejections before they finally find an outlet to showcase their work and then at the end of the day, they get a check for 99 cents? Yeah, somehow I don’t think they’d be down with that.
Michelle has published other books, look for them online at Amazon.com
Michelle Bellon lives in the Pacific Northwest with her four beautiful children. She earned her Associates Degree in Nursing and fills her moments of free time with her love for writing. She writes in multiple genres, including, YA, romance suspense, women's fiction, and general fiction.
Find Michelle Bellon Online:
http://www.michellebellon.com/
https://www.facebook.com/michelle.aut...
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Michel...
https://twitter.com/MichelleBellon
Recently I got the chance to ask some question of Michelle Bellon, author of Rogue Alliance and several other books. She’s always a busy lady but she finds the time to help others; it’s in her nature. She’s a nurse, a mother and a wife – not necessarily in that order – but also she loves writing and respects the process and others who write as well. Personally, I wonder about people like her, having no idea how she juggles all the spinning plates of her life on those spindly, wobbly poles and still find the time to write. That is, until I think about all the things that every author I know does to feed the compulsion – if not obsession – to write stories. It goes toward proving my point, though, that a story needs to be told and it will always find a way of getting onto paper or into a digital file on some writer’s computer. I guess as writers all we need to be is receptive to that creative impulse and capture the idea.
Michelle’s most recent novel, Rogue Alliance, the first of a series. It is a genre stretching tale that held my interest from start to finish and turned me into a fan.
Trying to escape a horrific past, Shyla has immersed herself in life as a tough cop in the bustle of LA. When the case of a lifetime takes her back to her hometown of Redding, she is thrown into a world of organized crime, deceit, and bitter reminders of her childhood.
As Shyla’s path crosses that of Brennan, a troubled sidekick to the ringleader she’s intent on taking down, she discovers he has a past even darker than hers and she is forced to re-evaluate everything she believes about herself, her job, and what she knows about right and wrong.
Can she face the demons of her upbringing and learn to trust again? Her life will depend on it.
Q: You wake up only to realize you don’t remember your name or what you’re doing in Des Moines, Iowa. What’s the story?
A: I’m terrible with geography. Is Iowa cold? I don’t like cold. Can we make this story start in Hawaii? I want to live there…in a hut…and live off shellfish…getting down with nature. But I don’t want to go all Tom Hanks in Cast Away, that’s a bit much. Did I answer the question correctly?
Q: Yes, it's cold there. I think I like the setting for your story better than mine. Anyway, let’s talk about when you were a kid. In school were you a troublemaker, an instigator or the teacher’s pet? Explain
A: Oh, I believe I was all of those at one time or another. In second grade I had the best teacher ever, Mrs. Rogers, and I was surely teacher’s pet. I loved learning, craved it.
I found myself causing a bit of trouble in fifth and sixth grades but that was only because I have a cousin that had special needs and I wound up in a few too many fights defending him. I became known as a fighter about that time.
Then somewhere along the lines, around seventh grade or so, I just kind of got confused. Hormones kicked in and my brain cells ceased to function properly. I look back and it seems as if I were walking around in a fog all the time. I remember wandering around school, just kind of bumping around going, “What’s going on? Where am I supposed to be?”
That lack of brainpower only increased throughout the beginning of high school when I became absolutely boy crazy. Fortunately, I still managed to get decent grades. I was always friendly to everyone but maintained friendships with only a few close girl friends. I’ve always been careful about choosing friends. It’s sacred to me. It’s for life. My best friends are girls I’ve known my entire life. They’ve got my back, and I’ve got theirs. Forever.
Q: The next one is a fantasy type question: Imagine for a moment that you’re a famous, bestselling author. They’re making a movie out of your last book. What do you do next to top that you’re already achieved?
A: That is a huge accomplishment and one that many of us dream of achieving. I would be over the moon with excitement if one of my books made it to the big screen.
My next goal would be to write my next book. That’s it. I just want to keep making stories. It feels amazing to create something: a story, characters, another reality - that would have otherwise never existed.
Q: Many writers say that being creative becomes an integral part of their daily lives and part of their routine. How do you balance your responsibilities to others around your need to create?
A: This is something I constantly struggle with. My family, my husband and children, are my first priority. Then there’s the responsibility of maintaining our home and fulfilling the needs of my day job as a registered nurse. My creative side, which for me is writing, comes at the end of all that, though I feel it is important.
There is another component here. After I became a published author, I learned that there is a huge responsibility to market your work. Once you dig into that and learn what it takes to promote your finished product, you find yourself consumed with that aspect of the industry and the actual writing takes a huge back seat.
Right now I’m at a huge turning point, where I’ve let all of that get out of balance to the point that I’m no longer writing. I just don’t have the time and then when I do find a small chunk of time and sit down at the laptop, I have nothing to give, because all of my creative energies have been leeched out by the marketing aspect of writing. It can be very destructive if you let it. And I did let it.
But I recently decided to re-prioritize and get back to what I love - writing. Here’s why - I’ve learned that there are things that feed you and things that starve you. Marketing and promoting, if let get out of balance, will starve you, creatively. When you write and tap into that creative energy where things come to life, it feeds you. I’m determined to get back to that. Writers must write.
Q: Every writer has that one story that clicked, inspiring him or her to pursue writing as a career. What was the story and what was there about it that made it influential?
A: As for any one book that I read and it inspired me to write, there’s not just a single story. They all did. I simply love to read. I love to jump inside of other people’s fictional lives and fall in love with characters. It’s so magical.
What inspired me to actually write my own book was the desire to tell my own stories and entertain an audience of my own. The moment that it all clicked into place was when I began to write my first novel, Embracing You, Embracing Me. It’s a coming of age young adult novel that deals with young love, tragedy, and self-realization. Though fiction, it’s loosely based on my own experiences and dedicated to someone special in my life that passed at much too young of an age. Readers respond strongly to that story and that moves me. My intention is for everyone who reads it to remember that we must tell the ones we love that we love them today. You never know if you’ll have tomorrow. It’s a bit of a tear-jerker, or so I’ve heard.
Q: Creativity comes in many ways – for example, painting, photography, sculpture, music and theater. What other things do you do or have you done that are examples of using your imagination or other artistic talents?
A: Actually, I don’t consider myself creative. Before I started writing I honestly believed that I was lacking a creative gene. I can’t paint. Every picture I take is blurry and off center. I can’t act and I don’t like to speak in front of crowds. I’m logical and detail oriented with strong OCD tendencies. Those traits often kill creativity.
It still surprises me that I have been able to write novels. Sometimes I pick up one of my books and stare it, thinking, “Holy crap! I wrote this!”
Even then, I don’t feel creative because it doesn’t feel like I’m the creator of these stories. When a book idea comes to me it’s not because I sit and brainstorm. The storyline and characters often just pop into my head, like a little gift from the universe, or sometimes I’ll dream them. At that point, it’s up to me to simply write it down and fill in all the details.
Q: Where do you see yourself at this moment in your life had you never decided to write a book?
A: I’d be doing mostly the same things; working as a nurse, taking care of my children, loving on my husband. But I’d still be convinced that I lacked any fraction of creativity, and that’s a sad thought. Writing opened up a whole new world for me with possibilities that I would have never imagined before. Most importantly, it’s taught me a lot about myself and what I can accomplish through hard work, dedication, perseverance, and passion. I had no idea that I had all of this inside of me.
Q: Family and relationships are important in peoples’ lives and so, it is little surprise that there are relationships between characters in books. How closely do the interactions in your books mirror your real life?
A: Very closely. For me, the crux of every story is the character arc, their internal and external struggle as they learn to overcome whatever difficult journey I’ve put them on. In each book I write, though most are radically different than my real life, I definitely incorporate my own life lessons and relationship trials into the fictional story I’m writing at the time. By forcing my characters to face their personal demons and reconcile challenging relationship dynamics, I’m essentially creating an outlet for self-realization, self-healing. My character learns and evolves, therefore so do I. It’s very cathartic.
Q: When writing I’m sure you hit snags where characters aren’t behaving or the plot just isn’t working. When that happens to be I play video solitaire. What do you do?
Omg! That is exactly what I do! When I get stuck, I stop what I’m doing, minimize my screen, and pull up solitaire. I like to play Free Cell. I have a 99% winning average. Is that a talent?
Q: It may be. I never mastered Free Cell. Okay here’s a touch one: When friends, family and even people you barely know at work find out you are publishing a book they expect a gratis copy. It could be a touchy situation. How do handle it?
A: Oh, man, this is a touchy subject. I can’t even begin to tell you how many people ask, and even expect, a free book. And I’ve given out far too many. I just have the hardest time telling them no.
However, I’ve reached a point where, when asked this question, I have to kindly evade the part where I offer a free book. I have to start respecting my work by making a decision to earn something for my hard work. I feel that it’s so sad that the industry has “evolved” to a point where talented, hard-working authors are giving away their books for free. It baffles me when I hear a reader say that they only buy books if they are 99 cents or free. It makes me want to ask them if they’d like to work on a project for a year or more, pour their heart and soul into it, accept a hundred rejections before they finally find an outlet to showcase their work and then at the end of the day, they get a check for 99 cents? Yeah, somehow I don’t think they’d be down with that.
Michelle has published other books, look for them online at Amazon.com
Michelle Bellon lives in the Pacific Northwest with her four beautiful children. She earned her Associates Degree in Nursing and fills her moments of free time with her love for writing. She writes in multiple genres, including, YA, romance suspense, women's fiction, and general fiction.
Find Michelle Bellon Online:
http://www.michellebellon.com/
https://www.facebook.com/michelle.aut...
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Michel...
https://twitter.com/MichelleBellon
I'm An Artist. So, What Do I Know?
What have I been doing all day - or all night for that matter? It looks like a lot of nothing to others, doesn't it? I'm not writing so much lately. What I do is work on building a brand and fan base. It is a unpaid job for now and I do it for several hours each day, investing time and effort in the future, my dreams.
I'm building a fan base for other authors as well in my role as a publicist. Since none of my activities is paying a dividend at this point, I'm also looking for a job. I devote a good portion of each day looking for something I can do to make money. That is the same trap it has always been in my past. The lure of practical necessity, having to choose between surviving and living, is what each of us faces. It's the way of the world.
What we do when we chase dreams is come into direct conflict with the practical side of the world. Only a few make it because its easy to become discouraged and listen to the naysayers and critics. They call us dreamers and misfits. To them we are nuts. They need to validate their own life choices urging us to give up and buy into the commonly held belief. They tell us the world is of limited resources and wealth and surviving is the constant struggle to seek your share of the wealth. Those who subscribe to that notion lack the vision necessary to overcome the struggle as well as the misery and suffering around them. And so they succumb too it. They trade in their dreams for practicality's sake. Instead of focusing on their aspirations with greater resolve and determination, the let the weight of the world crush them into submission. The end result is that most people fail because they don't have faith that they will intimately succeed if only they persevere.
There is a way if you want to find it and never give up.
No one says it's easy to make it as an artist or a writer or anything else that involves using your creativity. How crazy are you to actually believe you can conjure something form nothing as if it were magic? Yet, some people do exactly that. They're different than the norm, though, aren't they?
Within each of us is a spark that has survived for however long we have lived. It continues until it expires. It is life. And through that we connect to the source and origin that is also our essence. Those around us who seem dull, lifeless and defeated have not lost their spark but have, instead, lost their way. The connection is concealed. It is clouded over with doubt and despair borne of defeat and the criticism of others we have accepted.
What is different about an artist is that the source is more readily accessible. It is clear to everyone of us who retain the 'gift' from when we were five-years-old and everything about the world was shiny and new, filled with hope and potential. Artists never learn how to become completely and totally adult-minded. We refuse to submit to the routine. At some point in each of our pasts we decided that being an adult is part of the problem that prevents us from achieving our dreams. We are expected to substitute the goals of others in lieu of our potentially greater ambitions of self-actualization.
Artists don't deal with the adult world in the same way that others do. Although we have friends, family and others around us who constantly remind us of our responsibilities and our places in the world, we selectively filter out what does not strike us as pertinent to reaching our personal goal and vision. Yet, like everyone else we are expected to become mindless automatons. We are cajoled and sometimes coerced into playing the game the way our masters desire, according to the rules they have conceived. They are the wolves who want us to live as good sheep in the herd or are faithful dogs tending to the sheep that they exploit and harvest.
Artists are misfit to the prevalent system because we aren't good at following arbitrary rules. Like a child, we question everything. Constantly we ask why? We may have acquired the gift of biting our tongues so that we can hold down a job, but the very reason we are artistic means we don't fit in with the masses in larger, collectively accepted delusion that the world is an imperfect place.
So, for several hours each day I fill out job applications to serve roles that are functionally necessary for my basic survival. Yet, I don't want to return to the shuffling madness that used to be my frustrated, self-destructive life. I've played that song and danced that jig but never truly benefitted from the experience save for graining some perspective on the way things work and how others endure the depression of their existences.
Something more than the mind numbing entertainment of the media is what I desire from life. What happens to the Kardashians or who won the big game last night could not interest me less. I'll see something about those things on the Web, I suppose, provided I care to waste my time reading about it. The world does not hang in the balance of something as trivial as the scripted make-believe or surrogate reality of television. By the way, who write that nonsense? Hmmm?
A couple of years ago I set out on a journey to write of alternatives and possibilities in a world of dreams and fantasies that exist beneath the veils of grand deception and mass hysteria that we have collectively decided is real. I've never given up and I don't care to do so now when I am closer to the goal than I was two years ago. I'm not convinced the practical side of the world was ever worthy of my undivided attention. But I continue to play the game as necessary. I can be a good sheep or a good dog same as anyone else. But in the background, the dream continues. It's always the same.
Then, again, I'm an artist, so what do I know?
I'm building a fan base for other authors as well in my role as a publicist. Since none of my activities is paying a dividend at this point, I'm also looking for a job. I devote a good portion of each day looking for something I can do to make money. That is the same trap it has always been in my past. The lure of practical necessity, having to choose between surviving and living, is what each of us faces. It's the way of the world.
What we do when we chase dreams is come into direct conflict with the practical side of the world. Only a few make it because its easy to become discouraged and listen to the naysayers and critics. They call us dreamers and misfits. To them we are nuts. They need to validate their own life choices urging us to give up and buy into the commonly held belief. They tell us the world is of limited resources and wealth and surviving is the constant struggle to seek your share of the wealth. Those who subscribe to that notion lack the vision necessary to overcome the struggle as well as the misery and suffering around them. And so they succumb too it. They trade in their dreams for practicality's sake. Instead of focusing on their aspirations with greater resolve and determination, the let the weight of the world crush them into submission. The end result is that most people fail because they don't have faith that they will intimately succeed if only they persevere.
There is a way if you want to find it and never give up.
No one says it's easy to make it as an artist or a writer or anything else that involves using your creativity. How crazy are you to actually believe you can conjure something form nothing as if it were magic? Yet, some people do exactly that. They're different than the norm, though, aren't they?
Within each of us is a spark that has survived for however long we have lived. It continues until it expires. It is life. And through that we connect to the source and origin that is also our essence. Those around us who seem dull, lifeless and defeated have not lost their spark but have, instead, lost their way. The connection is concealed. It is clouded over with doubt and despair borne of defeat and the criticism of others we have accepted.
What is different about an artist is that the source is more readily accessible. It is clear to everyone of us who retain the 'gift' from when we were five-years-old and everything about the world was shiny and new, filled with hope and potential. Artists never learn how to become completely and totally adult-minded. We refuse to submit to the routine. At some point in each of our pasts we decided that being an adult is part of the problem that prevents us from achieving our dreams. We are expected to substitute the goals of others in lieu of our potentially greater ambitions of self-actualization.
Artists don't deal with the adult world in the same way that others do. Although we have friends, family and others around us who constantly remind us of our responsibilities and our places in the world, we selectively filter out what does not strike us as pertinent to reaching our personal goal and vision. Yet, like everyone else we are expected to become mindless automatons. We are cajoled and sometimes coerced into playing the game the way our masters desire, according to the rules they have conceived. They are the wolves who want us to live as good sheep in the herd or are faithful dogs tending to the sheep that they exploit and harvest.
Artists are misfit to the prevalent system because we aren't good at following arbitrary rules. Like a child, we question everything. Constantly we ask why? We may have acquired the gift of biting our tongues so that we can hold down a job, but the very reason we are artistic means we don't fit in with the masses in larger, collectively accepted delusion that the world is an imperfect place.
So, for several hours each day I fill out job applications to serve roles that are functionally necessary for my basic survival. Yet, I don't want to return to the shuffling madness that used to be my frustrated, self-destructive life. I've played that song and danced that jig but never truly benefitted from the experience save for graining some perspective on the way things work and how others endure the depression of their existences.
Something more than the mind numbing entertainment of the media is what I desire from life. What happens to the Kardashians or who won the big game last night could not interest me less. I'll see something about those things on the Web, I suppose, provided I care to waste my time reading about it. The world does not hang in the balance of something as trivial as the scripted make-believe or surrogate reality of television. By the way, who write that nonsense? Hmmm?
A couple of years ago I set out on a journey to write of alternatives and possibilities in a world of dreams and fantasies that exist beneath the veils of grand deception and mass hysteria that we have collectively decided is real. I've never given up and I don't care to do so now when I am closer to the goal than I was two years ago. I'm not convinced the practical side of the world was ever worthy of my undivided attention. But I continue to play the game as necessary. I can be a good sheep or a good dog same as anyone else. But in the background, the dream continues. It's always the same.
Then, again, I'm an artist, so what do I know?
From a Misread Headline to a Manuscript and Beyond
There’s a new book coming-out soon. Nothing new about that – there are millions published each year. What’s different about this one is the odd title, Fried Windows (In a Light White Sauce) and the by line – it’s mine.
Like every book I have written it was a labor of love though the creative impulse came unexpectedly. The core of the overall story - sixteen chapters really - were composed in less than a month in the early spring of 2012. I left a dead-end retail management job after more than four years and I had pretty much decided to pursue writing as a career. As is so often the case, it wasn't the best of times to make such a choice.
The quirky title of the book fits the unusual story. It came from a misread news headline that, of course, drew me right in. I wondered what Fried Windows were and immediately pondered how one would serve them. In a light white sauce! - yeah, it was one of those days.
Somewhere along the way I was sidetracked, deviating far from my personal goals. Some of that I did because of three kids I believed in and a marriage I no longer did. I took that one last job in order to continue supporting my youngest while she finished high school. She lived with me for a couple of years afterwards before moving away, joining her older sister who was beginning graduate school up north. That event triggered something of a midlife crisis for me. Immediately after hugging her and her sister goodbye, I felt like I was left pretty much alone.
Certainly, I was not alone. My son still lived about fifteen miles away; he was also in graduate school. My ex-wife with whom I still communicated occasionally was on the east coast about an hour and a half away from where I was. My sister and brother-in-law lived on the west coast and my great niece was in the greater Miami area. Still, for all intents and purposes I was alone.
My job frustrated me. I don't know whether I had ever been satisfied though at first I believed a lot of the bull about being promoted, being given my own store, and the company's desire to change its ways to become more modern and competitive. At first it seemed like that was happening, albeit slowly. Later on it became clear that it was a district effort that was not aligned with the corporate direction. The district manager was replaced. A company man took over and word went out that there would be changes. Foremost was an antithetical concept for me that I hadn’t had to deal with since leaving the military: we were being paid not to think but to execute on directions from above. That predisposes that upper management is always right and has an unambiguous direction in its policies – which was not the case at all. Ignoring feedback from the front lines is the formula for disaster in any campaign.
Anyway, there were other reasons for my eventual resignation. Many of those related to my unhealthy lifestyle that had evolved form working crazy house, making time to write trying to write, which was something I enjoyed, and dealing with the stress of working a job in which there did not seem to be any progress. A lot of what I was experiencing related to my desire to do what I always wanted to be before getting married and going to college. A little over two years ago it seemed like the last chance I might ever have to become a professional writer - a sort of now or never proposition.
Alost a month after quitting by job, I wrote a short story under the Fried Windows title. At the time I belonged to a writer's group. I posted the story in two installments with the break roughly where the chapter breaks are now in the book. It received favorable reviews and some suggested I continue writing about the characters. Over the next few weeks I continued writing what I believed were related short stories. Afterwards, I shelved the project and continued working on revisions of The Wolfcat Chronicles, a ten book series I began seriously working on in 2002 though, honestly, the story has roots back to a character profile I created in a writing course at Purdue University in 1977.
For the next year what was left of my personal life pretty much fell apart. I experienced the worst parts of economic demise and personal embarrassment. I was essentially homeless by choice doing some couch surfing among my relatives. One can only do that for so long. The experience afforded me some time to finish revisions. One of the last things I worked on was Fried Windows. I wanted to submit the initial short story to a magazine. I always believed the story was good enough to be published somewhere.
A friend who lives a short train ride away from Toronto consented to editing the piece for me. Afterwards, I figured it was in pretty good shape for critical scrutiny. So, I submitted it, sincerely expecting that it would be published. My next concern was having something to submit as a follow up, envisioning the sixteen original stories as installments that the magazine would want after all the positive feedback they would receive about my first short story. Yeah, I live in my own world a lot.
While revising the pieces I found some continuity of story line. I wrote a couple of bridging pieces and what was a collection of short stories took shape as a novel - one starting with chapter three of the present book because, after all, the first two chapters were a short story that I expected fully to be published in a magazine.
The same day the rejection notification from the magazine came I finished revisions to what had grown into a twenty-eight-chapter novel. The story connected well into the overall Brent Woods universe of my other unpublished fiction ventures. I was disappointed, of course, but at the same time elated because now I had an excuse to include the short story that began it all as the first two chapters of the book. I repackaged it, renumbered the chapters and prepared it for self-publishing.
In the background I had been working on building a fan base through social media. Part of that was building up my Facebook and Twitter following. Already I had many friends who were authors and some who were publicists and small publishers as well as a couple of smaller houses with affiliations with the major publishers. Those were not really great connections for getting a book published but you start with what you have. Also, I had been seeking a literary agent for the past three or four years, discovering that finding a good one was probably the only thing harder than landing a publishing contract with one of majors which is something more difficult the gaining admission into an Ivy League school.
Somewhere in the few moments between finishing the revision of Fried Windows and setting it up for eBook publishing I receive a tweet from a small publisher based in my favorite city, Austin, asking for new manuscripts. The name of the house intrigued me enough to check them out. In the process I discovered they were a traditional publisher with a very different mission statement that focused on building author brand rather than selling books alone. Deciding that I liked their ideas for growing their business, I read and followed the submission guidelines and reformatted my manuscript accordingly. I sent it to them instead of self-publishing it. I figured I could wait a few weeks for the rejection I'd come to expect. In the meanwhile I could move on to other projects.
There's a funny thing that happens in most author's lives surrounding rejection. Eventually you do grow numb to it. You warp the universe around you to actually set a goal of receiving the maximum number or rejections possible for any submission. It makes sense in a way. If you try every avenue you might find that one yes. You get to the point that when you don't receive another rejection letter to add to your growing collection you're almost pissed-off. But then, in the next moment of disbelief, you re-read the acceptance letter as the surprise turns more toward suspicion that 1) you must have read the thing wrong or 2) there must be some catch – start looking for the fine print. Paraphrasing the immortal Grocho Marx, you wonder if you want to belong to any club that would have someone like you as a member. You’re so accustomed to hearing that your baby is ugly you disbelieve that anyone could actually like it. Even more surreal was that it had been less than two weeks from submission to acceptance. That’s unheard of in an industry that routinely takes a week to decide to get around to thinking about doing anything and several months to actual years to finally produce a novel. So, I remained guardedly optimistic going into a conference call regarding the acquisition of my book.
Although I had experience in self-publishing I didn't have good results. The failure was not necessarily the quality of the material but the lack of promotion behind my releases. After all I was still growing my network of followers and establishing my author’s brand. That takes time. I didn't lack from material to publish, though. At that point, I had twenty manuscripts ready to go. It was just that when I was working sixty to seventy hours a week. I had plenty of excuses for why I didn't have the time or energy to put forth in becoming successful. I had been stuck in the trying stage of reaching my goal for so long I had grown roots and settled comfortably in obscurity. With the successful negotiation and signing of a publishing contract all that ended. Someone else believed in one of my books. Together we were going to embark on a journey toward producing a novel. A publisher was committing to provide professional editing, cover design and marketing. And so, the long journey of taking a raw manuscript through to a finished novel began.
Fried Windows (In A Light White Sauce) launches May 30, 2014 from Pandamoon Publishing. Sharing the dream begins then.
Like every book I have written it was a labor of love though the creative impulse came unexpectedly. The core of the overall story - sixteen chapters really - were composed in less than a month in the early spring of 2012. I left a dead-end retail management job after more than four years and I had pretty much decided to pursue writing as a career. As is so often the case, it wasn't the best of times to make such a choice.
The quirky title of the book fits the unusual story. It came from a misread news headline that, of course, drew me right in. I wondered what Fried Windows were and immediately pondered how one would serve them. In a light white sauce! - yeah, it was one of those days.
Somewhere along the way I was sidetracked, deviating far from my personal goals. Some of that I did because of three kids I believed in and a marriage I no longer did. I took that one last job in order to continue supporting my youngest while she finished high school. She lived with me for a couple of years afterwards before moving away, joining her older sister who was beginning graduate school up north. That event triggered something of a midlife crisis for me. Immediately after hugging her and her sister goodbye, I felt like I was left pretty much alone.
Certainly, I was not alone. My son still lived about fifteen miles away; he was also in graduate school. My ex-wife with whom I still communicated occasionally was on the east coast about an hour and a half away from where I was. My sister and brother-in-law lived on the west coast and my great niece was in the greater Miami area. Still, for all intents and purposes I was alone.
My job frustrated me. I don't know whether I had ever been satisfied though at first I believed a lot of the bull about being promoted, being given my own store, and the company's desire to change its ways to become more modern and competitive. At first it seemed like that was happening, albeit slowly. Later on it became clear that it was a district effort that was not aligned with the corporate direction. The district manager was replaced. A company man took over and word went out that there would be changes. Foremost was an antithetical concept for me that I hadn’t had to deal with since leaving the military: we were being paid not to think but to execute on directions from above. That predisposes that upper management is always right and has an unambiguous direction in its policies – which was not the case at all. Ignoring feedback from the front lines is the formula for disaster in any campaign.
Anyway, there were other reasons for my eventual resignation. Many of those related to my unhealthy lifestyle that had evolved form working crazy house, making time to write trying to write, which was something I enjoyed, and dealing with the stress of working a job in which there did not seem to be any progress. A lot of what I was experiencing related to my desire to do what I always wanted to be before getting married and going to college. A little over two years ago it seemed like the last chance I might ever have to become a professional writer - a sort of now or never proposition.
Alost a month after quitting by job, I wrote a short story under the Fried Windows title. At the time I belonged to a writer's group. I posted the story in two installments with the break roughly where the chapter breaks are now in the book. It received favorable reviews and some suggested I continue writing about the characters. Over the next few weeks I continued writing what I believed were related short stories. Afterwards, I shelved the project and continued working on revisions of The Wolfcat Chronicles, a ten book series I began seriously working on in 2002 though, honestly, the story has roots back to a character profile I created in a writing course at Purdue University in 1977.
For the next year what was left of my personal life pretty much fell apart. I experienced the worst parts of economic demise and personal embarrassment. I was essentially homeless by choice doing some couch surfing among my relatives. One can only do that for so long. The experience afforded me some time to finish revisions. One of the last things I worked on was Fried Windows. I wanted to submit the initial short story to a magazine. I always believed the story was good enough to be published somewhere.
A friend who lives a short train ride away from Toronto consented to editing the piece for me. Afterwards, I figured it was in pretty good shape for critical scrutiny. So, I submitted it, sincerely expecting that it would be published. My next concern was having something to submit as a follow up, envisioning the sixteen original stories as installments that the magazine would want after all the positive feedback they would receive about my first short story. Yeah, I live in my own world a lot.
While revising the pieces I found some continuity of story line. I wrote a couple of bridging pieces and what was a collection of short stories took shape as a novel - one starting with chapter three of the present book because, after all, the first two chapters were a short story that I expected fully to be published in a magazine.
The same day the rejection notification from the magazine came I finished revisions to what had grown into a twenty-eight-chapter novel. The story connected well into the overall Brent Woods universe of my other unpublished fiction ventures. I was disappointed, of course, but at the same time elated because now I had an excuse to include the short story that began it all as the first two chapters of the book. I repackaged it, renumbered the chapters and prepared it for self-publishing.
In the background I had been working on building a fan base through social media. Part of that was building up my Facebook and Twitter following. Already I had many friends who were authors and some who were publicists and small publishers as well as a couple of smaller houses with affiliations with the major publishers. Those were not really great connections for getting a book published but you start with what you have. Also, I had been seeking a literary agent for the past three or four years, discovering that finding a good one was probably the only thing harder than landing a publishing contract with one of majors which is something more difficult the gaining admission into an Ivy League school.
Somewhere in the few moments between finishing the revision of Fried Windows and setting it up for eBook publishing I receive a tweet from a small publisher based in my favorite city, Austin, asking for new manuscripts. The name of the house intrigued me enough to check them out. In the process I discovered they were a traditional publisher with a very different mission statement that focused on building author brand rather than selling books alone. Deciding that I liked their ideas for growing their business, I read and followed the submission guidelines and reformatted my manuscript accordingly. I sent it to them instead of self-publishing it. I figured I could wait a few weeks for the rejection I'd come to expect. In the meanwhile I could move on to other projects.
There's a funny thing that happens in most author's lives surrounding rejection. Eventually you do grow numb to it. You warp the universe around you to actually set a goal of receiving the maximum number or rejections possible for any submission. It makes sense in a way. If you try every avenue you might find that one yes. You get to the point that when you don't receive another rejection letter to add to your growing collection you're almost pissed-off. But then, in the next moment of disbelief, you re-read the acceptance letter as the surprise turns more toward suspicion that 1) you must have read the thing wrong or 2) there must be some catch – start looking for the fine print. Paraphrasing the immortal Grocho Marx, you wonder if you want to belong to any club that would have someone like you as a member. You’re so accustomed to hearing that your baby is ugly you disbelieve that anyone could actually like it. Even more surreal was that it had been less than two weeks from submission to acceptance. That’s unheard of in an industry that routinely takes a week to decide to get around to thinking about doing anything and several months to actual years to finally produce a novel. So, I remained guardedly optimistic going into a conference call regarding the acquisition of my book.
Although I had experience in self-publishing I didn't have good results. The failure was not necessarily the quality of the material but the lack of promotion behind my releases. After all I was still growing my network of followers and establishing my author’s brand. That takes time. I didn't lack from material to publish, though. At that point, I had twenty manuscripts ready to go. It was just that when I was working sixty to seventy hours a week. I had plenty of excuses for why I didn't have the time or energy to put forth in becoming successful. I had been stuck in the trying stage of reaching my goal for so long I had grown roots and settled comfortably in obscurity. With the successful negotiation and signing of a publishing contract all that ended. Someone else believed in one of my books. Together we were going to embark on a journey toward producing a novel. A publisher was committing to provide professional editing, cover design and marketing. And so, the long journey of taking a raw manuscript through to a finished novel began.
Fried Windows (In A Light White Sauce) launches May 30, 2014 from Pandamoon Publishing. Sharing the dream begins then.
