Stephen Kozeniewski's Blog, page 61

June 17, 2015

"T" is for "Tyranny"

To me, there is no more repulsive experience than touching newspaper. I know this is a little odd. I know millions upon millions of people, across the centuries, have enjoyed nothing better than the feel of a crisp Sunday paper in their hands. Lord knows I've read about it often enough.

The tactile feel of that strangely thin, almost gray paper is repellent to me. The smell, the touch, the sloughing off of newsprint is grotesque and malodorous. It doesn't come up very often anymore, as we've switched away from printed media, but I still have to fetch and immediately dispose of the pennysaver from our mailbox each week, which I do clenching it between two envelopes and holding it away from my body.

I have a distinct recollection of a near panic attack when very young and reading about Sherlock Holmes, hanging out in a train car, surrounding himself with dozens and dozens of newspapers. That was Doyle's way of showing us that Holmes was well-read, and kept abreast of all of the kind of Victorian minutia that he would seem to pull out of his ass at the end of every story. For me it sounded quite a bit like a personal hell.

I also remember a near physical revulsion watching an episode of "The X-Files" when carny geek The Conundrum began to make a papier-maché cocoon out of newspapers by licking them. The very idea that I might someday find myself in London and order fish and chips and have to actually...eat...off that repulsive material is enough to give me a shudder.

But here's the thing: I don't pretend this is universal. I'm well aware this is a personal, albeit odd peccadillo. I don't feel bad about it, because I know people who are equally disgusted by mushrooms, which I relish, or the word "moist" which I feel quite frankly completely neutral about, or, as was made famous by an episode of "The Three Stooges," some people will go into a fighting rage after hearing the song "Pop Goes the Weasel."

We all have and understand that other people have these, well, "preferences" isn't the right word, and I already used "peccadillos," so let's just say, proclivities, when it comes to food, music, and a whole variety of other little ordinary, everyday things. What I don't understand, or, frankly, just find exasperating, is that no one seems to project this understanding onto language.

If I had one wish for the literary community, it's that more writers and editors were linguists. We often call ourselves "linguists" in the sense that we use language, but I wish the study of language, actual linguistics, were more widespread in the community. I say this because I often find myself embroiled in debates that are completely devoid of the context that this greater understanding would provide.

As a metaphor, imagine you were trying to advocate for, say, parliamentary government. And you engage in a conversation with someone who literally can't understand anything outside of the Democrat/Republican dichotomy of American politics. You'd be trying to explain to someone who wants to debate about Social Security that there are, in fact, other methods of governance beyond our own. This is how I often feel when we get locked into debates about comma placement and spelling and that sort of thing.

French is an interesting counterpoint to English. France has a department of their government called the Académie française which dictates what is immutably correct in the French language. English has no such academy, which while it allows some flexibility even in our formal writing, means that we will forever be plagued by silly appeals to a non-existent authority.

I've often debated on this very blog things like the double spaced sentence and the Oxford comma, things which I feel strongly about. For that matter, I've pointed out how exhausting I find people who want to tell me to pronounce "sherbet" as "sher-bay" instead of "sherbert" or who argue that "ain't" or "irregardless" aren't words. If we limited ourselves to this kind of prescriptivist nonsense, we'd barely be able to communicate. Imagine having to justify yourself every time you used "LOL" or "selfie" in a sentence.

And I don't say this to be ridiculous. I say this to point out an important truth. Language is organic, and ever-changing. People are fond of saying that "gay" technically means happy...but no one uses it that way anymore. Not in close to a century. What point are you attempting to prove by making that argument? That you can't change with the times? That you're incapable of communicating with your fellow English-speakers?

The purpose of language is ease of communications. I have no issue with, say, a publishing house insisting that I use their house style. Where I take issue is when they insist that their house style is in some metaphysical way "correct." There is no "correct" English. We have rules that we generally adhere to in various situations, but overall the point is to communicate our ideas to other people. I wouldn't use 7334speak in a wedding invitation, and I wouldn't use the Chicago Manual of Style to compose a text.

I often think that ee cummings eschewed punctuation and Cormac McCarthy eschewed dialogue rules to prove a point about the futility of descriptivist tyranny over language. No one McCarthy or cummings dense or unreadable because they ignored the rules. Which is not to say that we should blanketly ignore rules, because, of course, a general set of rules allows for (say it with me now) ease of communication. I'm writing now in my blog style, which is different from my novel style, which is different from my work style, which is different from my speaking style, which is different from my texting style...and being aware of that, due to just my limited grounding in linguistics, means that I'm not walking around all the time talking about what's "right."

There is no universal "right" because there is no academy in English. There's just a variety of (often contradictory) style guides and an even greater variety of publishing house styles and a near infinite variety of personal styles. The only time you can truly be "wrong" in English is when you fail to communicate your point. Know what'm sayin'?

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Published on June 17, 2015 09:00

June 15, 2015

The Quintessential BRAVE NEW GIRLS Post

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Published on June 15, 2015 09:00

June 12, 2015

Book Signing in North Carolina!

If you live anywhere near Raleigh-Durham, you're not going to want to miss the big Red Adept book signing tomorrow. It's being held at:

Event Horizon Games
1496 Garner Station Blvd
Raleigh, North Carolina

Bull Spec interviewed me and a few of the other authors here.

You can join the official Facebook event here. Or, heck, just show up.

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Published on June 12, 2015 09:00

June 10, 2015

"S" is for "Severed"

It just so happens that I work with two publishers at present, and by some quirk of fate the company names follow one another in the alphabet. So last week I wrote about by debut company, Red Adept Publishing, and this week I get to write about my sophomore and tertiary company, Severed Press.

Fortunately for me, both of these companies have been extremely good to me. RAP is a general-purpose, multi-genre company, but Severed is, for my money, the finest small publisher of horror in the world. All of my work can be described as "horror," though I wouldn't argue with "dark science fiction" for BILLY or "urban fantasy" or even "bizarro" (as dubbed by Brian Keene) for BRAINEATER. Overall, though, I'm comfortable with "horror" and my knowledge of the genre is pretty fair to middling, so I have no problem weighing in here.

There are quite a number of extremely high quality small horror publishers out there. Samhain, Sinister Grin, Ragnarok, DarkFuse, Evil Jester, and Deadite spring to mind. (There are a lot more - I don't mean to snub anyone.) But for my money, Severed Press is the finest out there, certainly the finest publisher of zombie horror, and probably the finest of horror overall. You need look no further than their stable of authors - titans of the genre like Wrath James White, David Bernstein, Jake Bible, and Tim Curran, not to mention some friends of mine like Ian McClellan, H.E. Goodhue, Suzanne Robb, Phillip Tomasso...the list goes on and on. (Again, not to snub anyone. If you're that person I didn't mention, just know that it means I value you the most of all.)

It took me, like, a year to figure out that this was a bisected (or...severed) fountain pen nub.So how did a shit-hot outfit like this get involved with a shit-for-brains like me? Well, the story is like something out of a fairy tale. A fairy tale full of mutilations and horror...so, I guess, just an ordinary fairy tale.

Anyway, it was September of 2013. BRAINEATER had been picked up by RAP and was scheduled to come out in October. An old mentor of mine in the army had once given me the advice "don't rest on your laurels" and it's stuck with me like nothing else ever has, really. So I realized that with a book coming out, the only awful thing I could do was to not be ready to get another book out there. At the time I still was (and to be frank, I still am) reaching for that brass ring of an agent and a Big 5 deal, and a 7-figure advance. I think most of us will never give up on that dream until we get it, or we start getting the same kind of money out of self-pubbing or small pubbing.

So I began querying my masterpiece THE GHOUL ARCHIPELAGO to every agent in NYC. I have to admit, there was a noticeable difference in interest this time around when I could include "my first novel will be forthcoming" in my query letters - it shows you're not just some schlub. Almost as compelling to me as the thought of a Big 5 deal was a deal with one of the top-tier horror presses, so on Sunday, September 15, I submitted to Severed Press.

Now, Severed is located in Hobart, Tasmania. I believe I sent my query letter in the middle of the night, EST time. And I received a reply in the middle of the night Monday night saying, "send us the full manuscript." That was spookily fast, and bear in mind that I'd submitted to Severed before and been rejected. That was probably the first time I realized that other people might feel the same way about TGA as I did.

I had no higher hopes of TGA being picked up by Severed than I did that it would be picked up by some rock star agent like Janet Reid or Jenny Bent, both of whom, I believe, don't represent horror, so that was a terrible metaphor, but fuck you, this is my blog, I do what I want. So imagine my surprise when I went out that Thursday to a bar for my birthday...and just after midnight my phone dinged.

Now, this was back in the heady days of 2013 before your Meghan Trainors and your iPhone 6s, so receiving an email wasn't necessarily in real time. But it had happened! Severed had picked up my magnum opus, and they had done it just a few minuted before midnight, my time, so it had been on my birthday. Best birthday present I ever received, and I had to buy a round for all my friends to celebrate. Or maybe one of them bought me the round. I can't really remember. It was my birthday and I was drunk as shit.

Working with Severed has been stupendous. They're an honest company, with a great contract, and, like I already said, their reputation is par excellence. One last quick story to tell you what working with them is like. When I went back to Severed with BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS, Severed forgot to send me my three gratis author copies. No big deal. I wrote to them and mentioned that I needed ten for an upcoming convention, and would pay my usual author rate.

(By the way - this is just an aside - but for those of you who are always asking me for free autographed books - yeah, I have to pay for those. So, yeah, okay, Dad, let me give you some free shit.)

You would have thought Severed realized they had kicked my wife in the head. They were so apologetic, and - get this - they said they would not only get out the three courtesy copies they owed me tout suite, but they would also give me the ten books I needed for the convention!

!!!

So, basically they went out of pocket around $100 because of an honest mistake. That basically sealed the deal for me. After that, I began singing Severed's praises every chance I get. These aren't just honest people, they're decent people. And I get to work with them. :D

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Published on June 10, 2015 09:00

June 8, 2015

An Author's Creed?

In the period when I was on my way out of the military, creeds became very popular. There was a Soldier's Creed, an NCO's Creed, a Warrior's Creed, and various creeds for the more specialized jobs. I have an issue with a few points of the Soldier's Creed (which seem to be there more for macho posturing than to actually make a coherent point) but for the most part it's not a bad statement to make. And it's not a bad concept.

A creed establishes what you should be working for. It formalizes the values you claim to believe in. And inasmuch as anything becomes more valuable when you write it down, I started wondering whether there ought to be an Author's Creed. Not one that we recite each morning and before every convention panel, but more like one you could receive a knitted version of and hang up on your wall.

I started to fiddle with the idea but I almost immediately hit a brick wall. What sorts of things are universal values held by every author? Almost nothing. Just in my short experience in the literary world I've already encountered authors from every walk of life, who agree on almost nothing.

I almost feel like I have a better shot at writing a Horror Author's Creed. I could at least say, "Our job is to scare or make the reader uncomfortable." But even that seems a little wishy-washy.

So, being as my blog is, naturally, ground zero of the literary community and a tourist destination for artists from all walks of life, I thought I might crowdsource this one, so...YOU DECIDE!!!™

If we actually followed through and put together an Author's Creed, what points would you like to see included? What points could you not bear to see included? Let me know in the comments.

Here are a few points I came up with at least for discussion:

- "I will always remain true to my artistic integrity."

- "Other authors are my peers, not my competition."

- "The only critic who matters is myself."

- "I will be a responsible and respectful member of the literary community."

- "I will only submit my last draft, and my last draft will be my best draft."

See, even with these I can see some points for disagreement. So let's discuss.

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Published on June 08, 2015 09:00

June 5, 2015

Hell Yeah!

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Published on June 05, 2015 09:00

Hell Yeah, Baby!

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Published on June 05, 2015 09:00

June 3, 2015

"R" is for "Red"

I'm a pretty heavy-ass drinker. (In fact, I'm drinking right now.) If you thought all the wacky drunkennness of BRAINEATER JONES was some kind of wish fulfillment, rest assured, that's pretty much my life, sans all the having a biological necessity for drinking. Pretty much every time Jones was taking a drink in the book I was also reaching for a drink.

No surprise, then, that on Saturday nights I really like to tie one on. No normal weekday drinking for me! Saturday is when I can really get sloshed, sit down, and watch DVDs until the wee hours of the morning. Because fuck it, Sunday will attend to itself.

But what if I told you that one time Sunday did not, in fact, attend to itself?

I remember the day distinctly. It was January...9, I think?...2013. I guess I don't remember the date that specifically. But I do remember the morning well! I rarely get phone calls just as a general rule. And I can't even think of how many times I've gotten a phone call on a Sunday morning before noon. In fact, this may have been the first time now that I think about it.

I fumbled for my phone.

"Hello?"

My mouth felt like paper.

"Hello is this Stephen?"

"Yes..."

"This is Lynn from Red Adept Publishing."

"Okay..."

I didn't understand what was going on. But I knew how hungover I was. I had to try to get some water into my mouth from the bathroom sink while I was talking to this person.

"I'm calling because we've accepted your manuscript."

Well, now isn't that a better reason for a Sunday morning call than anything else? I hoped I didn't sound like a complete lush, but I was rather a lot happier for the rest of the day. My first novel was going to be published. I guess it's a moment you never forget. I wish I hadn't been hungover for it, but I guess that's appropriate for the birth of BRAINEATER.

Red Adept has turned out to be a boon in my life. If there's one thing I've learned - if there's one thing I wish I could impart on younger writers, much as I despise writing advice - authors are a tribe. You don't really get a pass to join the tribe just by becoming published. But once you are you can start reaching out. It's amazing what kind of doors the ability to say, "Here's my book" will open for you.

Red Adept came with a tribe pre-baked in. Lynn, the owner, the same lady who made that call to me that fateful Sunday morning, insisted upon it. We all had to join the RAP Authors FB group. I'd never been in a writing group before. For one thing the whole idea stinks of desperation to me: unpublished authors jerking one another off in a circle and getting jealous if one of them makes it. To be quite honest I had never sought one out, even with the advent of the internet or advice to the contrary. Writing was never really a team sport to me.

The RAP group changed my mind. Well, maybe it was a bit different from my preconceived notion of a writers group, because we had all been accepted for publication. But having a safe space to interact with other authors, where you don't have to bore the piss out of ordinary bystanders because (repeat it with me now) WRITECRAFT IS BORING was actually quite nice. And we dug into marketing schemes and things like planning to do cons together. And now I've met members of my tribe IRL and some still just online, but anyway I've started cheering them on.

And I learned another important truth about this business, one which had perhaps never occurred to me before, which is that this isn't a competition. Writing isn't a zero sum game and no reader buys just one book. When one of the members of the tribe has success, the whole tribe is elevated as a result. One person's success improves the image of the group, and by interacting with one another you become part of a group of successful people, and that (hopefully) leads to success yourself. I've had so many doors open to me because of the authors I met through RAP that I couldn't even really begin to adequately list them here.

Well, that went off a bit from what, if anything, I initially meant to say, but there you have it. "R" is for "Red Adept," my first publisher, home to my best mates and peers in the business. Ten years from now I wonder where we'll be. Some of us will be long done with the whole writing thing, a fluke or a life goal long since given up on. Others of us, I have no doubt, will be unicorns, living off our work. I hope I'm not still in the trenches, but I imagine I will be. Will some of us be dead? Have movies made of our work? Go quite mad? Have t-shirts with our faces on them? Time will tell, I suppose.

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Published on June 03, 2015 12:00

June 1, 2015

Making Sure Your Title is on Fleek

I've been working for the better part of a year - well, a millennium, actually, but let's not get into that right now - on a vampire story. Vampires are particularly difficult because they've been done to death (ha!) I feel like I'm right on the cusp of something original, really original, with our favorite bloodsuckers, but I can't...quite...

Anyway. Tossing around a science fiction theme, a title occurred to me: BLOOD STAR. Pretty cool, n'est-ce pas? I then took my standard next step which is to check on Amazon to see if any other books or important media shared that name. Of course, one does, a 1989 novel by an author I'm unfamiliar with, Nicholas Guild. Does this mean, therefore, that I am banned from using that title I independently created by smashing together two fairly run-of-the-mill words?

Short answer: no. Of course not.

Titles, in case you are unaware, cannot be copyrighted. This is pretty easy to remember and intuitive. After all, the movies "Pretty Woman" and "Bad Boys" were named after songs. Or, flipping the script, "Dirty Harry" by Gorillaz and "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by whatever that shitty band was were named after movies.

Of course, this isn't just an inter-media thing, it's also intra-media. For instance, the other day I was wondering who sang that "Bang Bang" song I heard on the radio. (I could tell at least one of the singers was Nicki Minaj, because she kept mentioning her own name - not 100% sure why that was necessary - but I couldn't tell who the other two were.) So I went to Wikipedia and learned that there are literally twenty different songs which have been recorded with the identical name of "Bang Bang."

So, generally speaking, if I wanted to call my space vampire epic BLOOD STAR, Nicholas Guild wouldn't really be able to say anything about it. And considering that his book was about ancient Rome and mine would be about futuristic monsters, there's not even really much of an argument I'd be acting in bad faith.

For a real-world (and hilarious) example let's compare our good friend Mary Fan's own cyberpunk sci-fi epic SYNTHETIC ILLUSIONS with the surprisingly similarly named A SYNTHETIC ILLUSION by Christian Clark which appears to be a tale about "elite prostitution." If names could be copyrighted, Mr. (Ms. ?) Clark might very well be able to sue our intrepid Ms. Fan for misrepresenting his (her?) seminal hooker book.

Which is not to say that he (she?) couldn't try. I'm not a lawyer, but I do have friends who are lawyers, and as they've explained it to me (sorry if i'm fucking this up, guys) basically anyone can sue anyone for anything. That's why a Nebraska woman recently made news for suing "all the gays." That doesn't mean your suit has any merit or that a judge won't just toss it out of court, though.

Trying to sue someone for copyright infringement on a title is basically as frivolous as a case gets, considering there is no such protection. And if you can't even suggest that there was some kind of bad faith reason for doing so, it gets even more frivolous. Nicholas Guild wouldn't have much of an argument that I'm trying to ride the coattails of his not-especially-popular thirty-year-old novel, for instance.

So, this raises one last point and then I'll stop talking about matters I'm not really qualified to give legal advice on. Suppose I was a dastardly little fuck and I did want to try to take advantage of the fact that you can't copyright titles for my own purposes? Why couldn't I, for instance, title my vampire novel STAR WARS, EPISODE VIII: THE BLOOD STAR MENACE? A lot of damn people would be buying my book and I would have essentially swindled them.

Well, this is where trademark comes into play. I'm not 100% on the difference between trademark and copyright - maybe an expert can weigh in down in the comments? - but I do know you can copyright fictional characters, some fictional terms, and series names. So "Star Wars" is trademarked as a brand name, as is the "For Dummies" series. And I couldn't have "Harry Potter" show up as a character in my book - at least, unchanged with a scar on his head and glasses and a magical wand, etc. - because he's a trademarked character. But under fair use, which is a whole other thing, I could have "Jerry Cotter" a very similar boy wizard appear for parody purposes.

So, to simplify:

I call my book BLOOD STAR even though another, unrelated work by that name exists - Totally legal, since you can't copyright titles. You could get sued, but you could also get sued by a Nebraska woman for being gay. That doesn't mean the case has any merit.

I call my book THE DA VINCI CODE even though a substantially more popular work than mine by that name exists - Technically legal, since you can't copyright a single title. But if you piss in Dan Brown's eye and he decides to sue you, considering you were obviously working in bad faith and he's got millions of dollars for legal fees - is that really something you want to deal with?

I call my book HARRY POTTER AND THE BLOOD STAR, even though a popular, trademarked series by that name already exists - Totally illegal. You done fucked up now, son. You acted in bad faith AND you violated a trademark. Not only will the case have merit, but almost any property popular enough to be worth infringing upon will probably be owned by people with the time and money to sue you into oblivion.

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Published on June 01, 2015 12:18

May 29, 2015

Police and Thieves

A Conversation

Al: People like Ray Rice and Tom Brady are disgracing the sport of football.
Bill: You obviously hate football.
A: Huh? I love football. I watch twelve games a week, I play in six fantasy leagues, and I bet the kids' college funds on the game. Football is my life.
B: If football is your life, how can you say you don't like Rice and Brady? They're football players.
A: Brady is a cheater and Rice beats his wife.
B: Yes, but Rice and Brady are football players. If you don't support them, you obviously hate football.
A: Actually, that's horseshit. They're a disgrace to their uniforms and they're supposed to be role models to little kids. Their bad behavior is degrading the entire sport.
B: Do you know how hard it is to get out there every week and let huge men tackle you? You bust your ass training, then every Sunday, like clockwork, you get out there and you get your ass handed to you. That's hard work. As long as they're doing that, who cares if they're behaving badly on or off the field?

An Analysis

You will never in a million, billion years hear two sports fans have this conversation. Because it's insane. Al doesn't like Tom Brady because he cheats by deflating footballs and he doesn't like Ray Rice because he beats his wife during his off time.

There are conversations which could be had about these matters. Does it matter what a football player does in his off time? Does a person we encourage to be aggressive and get head injuries get a little leeway when he gets angry and aggressive off the field? Is deflating a ball really that big of a factor in winning a game? Is lying about knowing about the deflated balls worse than deflating the balls in the first place?

There are a fuckton of issues which could be discussed, and debated with various levels of merit. But Bill immediately derails the conversation by saying if you don't support every football player, you must hate football. This totally wouldn't fly between two sports fans. But almost this identical conversation has been taking place in our country's politics recently. And I'd venture to say that, for good or for ill, Americans are much more passionate about their sports than about their elections. So why do we get away with this?

A Metaphor (Obviously)

Obviously I'm talking about the false dichotomy of the Black Lives Matter/Cops Lives Matter talking heads. On the left we have people talking about crooked cops: cops who shoot people in the back and harass and generally abuse people for racial reasons. Which is stuff that police are not supposed to do.

The left says, "These bad cops disgrace all cops. Cops should be role models, their behavior should be impeccable. They should be serving and protecting."

The right says, "If you don't support bad cops, you hate law and order."

It's insane. It's derailing. It's identical, if not in the particulars, to the crazy sports metaphor I made above. The entire point is there is no law and order when there is corruption in the police. And then out trots the argument, "Well, even a crooked cop has thrown himself into the line of fire and puts himself in danger to protect us every day, so we should cut him some slack."

A Movie Quote

In the criminally unappreciated 1998 movie "Fallen," Denzel Washington plays John Hobbes, an honest cop in a corrupt police department. Another cop asks Hobbes how they can trust him not to turn them in if he doesn't take "cream" (graft) when the rest of them do. Which leads to this memorable exchange:

Hobbes: You take any cop on the force, cream or no, ninety-nine percent of the time they're doing their job, aren't they?

Jones: Ninety-nine five.

Hobbes: Point five. So he or she, cream or no, is doing more good out there every day than any lawyer or stockbroker or president of the United States can ever do in their lifetime. Cops are the chosen people.

A Final Thought

I generally try to avoid hot-button issues on my blog, as my readers know. I guess I've been doing it more and more lately, but it's less the issues that bother me as the way we talk about them. If we were willing to sit down and have an earnest conversation about institutional racism and police corruption in this country, that would be nice. Everyone I know who's ever been to Afghanistan has talked about "functional corruption" - the level at which corruption is understood to exist, but an agency still more-or-less completes its appointed task. Understanding that you may have to, say, bribe a policeman to get a crime solved is better than, say, a police force that acts as a factional militia.

But we're not having that conversation, are we? We're having people make essentially the Nixon argument: "When cops do it it's not illegal." We're talking at cross-purposes. The left wants to talk about tackling police corruption, and the right just wants to pretend it doesn't exist. They want to shut that conversation down because it would mean slaughtering some of their sacred cows and admitting that institutionalized racism might actually be a thing and maybe their bootstrap plan for poor Americans is not quite so cut-and-dried.

I don't know how things really used to be in the old days. I know bullshit is as old as politics, and the ancient Romans were the ones who came up with bread and circuses, although probably the cavemen had some similar concept like mammoth meat and cave paintings. So I may be pining for a democratic ideal that never really existed, but I feel like even in my lifetime there was a time when we approached elections based on which side had the better solution to a problem. Now it feels like we approach elections based on which side can better prove that a problem exists or not.

That shit doesn't bode well for the future. Of course, given my 'druthers, I'd rather that our society had no problems. So there's always going to be a natural inclination to pretend problems don't exist, but that just gives them space to grow to insurmountable proportions. You may think police corruption isn't a problem now, because it doesn't affect you. But what are you going to do when the corruption runs so deep even you can't ignore it? Wish you could've gone back in time?

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Published on May 29, 2015 09:00

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