Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

Photo: paperback book cover, from its Goodreads page

I haven't read a Dean Koontz book since the 90s, when he wrote about gov't conspiracy crap. Dan Simmons' Flashback reminded me of that stuff, and Flashback was every bit as crappy. I mean, really bad. A shame, because Koontz in the 80s was almost as good as Stephen King, and sometimes better. Koontz's A Bad Place, Phantoms and Whispers, among a couple others, were really good then, and hold up very well now. So it was with some trepidation that I started Odd Thomas; but I did so because it got some really good reviews, because I'd heard good word of mouth, and because I'd seen it at a lot of yard sales, which is a good thing--because it means that people bought it to begin with, rather than just renting it from a library.

I'm happy to report that Odd Thomas is mostly very good. The narrator is likeable, though perhaps a little too much so, but whatever. The supporting characters are well-drawn and pleasant to deal with. His small town is well-wrought. And of course you love his flame, who Koontz fates with writerly tricks, in a kind of double-twist at the end. He knows you like her; he knows you want her to do well; he knows you expect that she won't; he knows you'll appreciate it when she seems okay. And then...

I knew it was a series, of course. And, knowing that, I see where Koontz also realizes it's a series, especially towards the end when one of the lovely nurses practically throws herself at him. That's when you know the fate of someone else, too. But it's all very good, if not over-the-top at times (especially with an Elvis who can't stop sobbing hysterically), and overall the book deserves the positive responses it's gotten. I don't know if I'm going to read any of the others in the series, but I guess I will if I run into one at a library or a yard sale, or something. I should mention that I'm a little concerned about Koontz's prodigious output, which makes King seem under-published by comparison. Does he write every word of a book that has his name on it? I don't know. I think he does here, but overall I don't know. The tone and patterns of this book do not match those of the ones I read of his in the 90s, which is a good thing. He could've changed, of course, but writers usually don't. He does still go on and on a little too much. I skimmed a few pages in this one; otherwise it would have gotten five stars. I didn't skim pages that were badly written, though; they just seemed superfluous. He goes on, for example, about a spider in the desert, for about 4-5 pages. The spider never does anything to him, nor he to it...so I skimmed some pages, but that didn't hurt the quality of the book overall.

You'll like the characters and you'll feel for them, and the overall suspense is gripping. You may wonder, as I did, how three psychopaths could all function unnoticed in a small desert town. From what I know about them, they can't hide too well for too long, especially in a sparse population, without people whispering, or their behavior being noticed. And at high profile, highly public jobs? But that, oddly, didn't detract, either, so that's good. I guess this book works despite a few things, but it works nonetheless, and is therefore highly recommended. I read it all in one day, which also speaks well for it. 

Darkest Fear by Harlan Coben -- A Quick Book Review

Photo: from google.com/books, at this address

Another very appealing Bolitar novels, again proving the series is better than the stand-alones. In this one, a 13 year-old boy needs a bone marrow transfusion. A donor has been found, but then goes missing. Can Bolitar find him?

He can, and does, of course, and along the way he punches a bloated, soft-in-the-middle lawyer, kidnaps a millionairess, captures a serial killer, gains a great client, annoys the feds, and deals with daddy issues--with himself, and with his own father. The result is another mystery in the series that works well because it deals well with the real problems of its main character, problems we all face, especially guys in our 40s, as both Bolitar and myself happen to be.

One aspect here--the identity of an older man living by himself--was as obvious to me as it will be to you, but that's okay. You want to get some it yourself, right? Umberto Eco and James Joyce are great writers, but they're smarter than we are, too--and who wants to be outsmarted all the time, and condescended to at the end because the writers know they're too smart for us? I'm not calling Harlan Coben a dummy here--and he wouldn't want to be thought of in the snooty vein anyway. I'm saying the opposite: Coben knows his genre, and he knows he can't outclass the reader all the time. You've got to let them in on the fun sometimes.

I've said before that Coben, like Bolitar himself, tries too hard, and he does here as well. It's an okay too hard, like when he always (and I do mean each and every single damn time) admits to the cliche before he springs the cliche upon us. Sometimes he admits the cliche so he doesn't have to spring it upon us--but by doing so, he's springing it upon us, and it's cliche at this point to admit to the cliche in this way, and for this reason, anyway. But he makes it work. If you know the genre, you know the cliche, and you know the admission of the cliche, and when it comes, and you're already expecting it, he's got you in his hands, don't you see? It's all part of the game. Coben knows you're smart enough to know it, and he knows you'll be happy to know that he knows you're smart enough to know it. So in the end he's giving the reader what he wants. And, if you listen closely to the minor characters in this one, he's telling you why you're so happy to be acknowledged and pseudo-complimented.

And how easy it is to just go along with the game all the time. We stay on that path, right?

New Blog Features

Hello, everyone! Once again, thanks for reading my blog, for commenting, for emailing, and, well, for just showing me a little bit of attention! Isn't that really what all writers want--besides money, and maybe expressing some thoughts and themes so we can sleep?

Anyway, there are a few new tidbits to the blog, so here we go:

--I've been reviewing books for a long time now, both here and at Goodreads. I also review short stories and short story collections, so if you write those, please feel free to send one along for review. Writers, agents and publicists have been sending me emails--through this blog and through the Horror Writers Association--to review their books for years. At least 75% of the time I accept the book for review (in fact, I say Yes a great percentage of the time), but sometimes I can't.  There are reasons for this:

1. If I'm swamped at work (which I always am, but some swampings are more bearable than others), I sometimes feel that I can't guarantee a punctual review post. If the writer / agent / publicist asks for a quick turnaround, I often cannot oblige. This is only fair to them. Sometimes they say for me to take my time, that a positive review will benefit them even a week or two after the release--but sometimes they don't. If it's a demand I feel I can't definitely honor, I say No.

2. At my job, I have to read and write a lot, so I often don't have any words left in the tank for anyone else, especially if I'm neglecting my own writing as well. So, again, if time is an issue for the writer / agent / publicist or for me, I have to decline.

3. Though I much prefer physical copies, I sometimes accept an e-book for review. But, because of all the computer screen time I put in for my job, and for my own writing (especially the business side of it), I sometimes insist that I recieve a printed copy to review. If this is not possible, I sometimes have to decline. This is especially true on those days when my screen seems brighter than I know it to be--like right now. That's eye strain, which leads to headaches, and...Please, everyone: Send physical copies if you can.

4. Physical copies are also great because I tend to give them away (when permitted) to blog readers, or to someone at my job, etc. So the word of mouth is better with printed copies. Because of copyright laws, internet and email courtesy, etc., I always delete the e-book after I've reviewed it, so I can't pass it along.

5. If the book in question is not appropriate for whatever reason, I have to decline. One of those reasons, besides the obvious of content, is if the book is a in a genre I simply never read. This is only fair to the writer, as I won't be able to give a quality review. Examples of genres I never read include Romance and Westerns. I'm iffy about sci-fi and fantasy, but I've read LotR and Game of Thrones, and I like sci-fi movies--movies by Ridley Scott, or those based on stories by Philip K. Dick, like Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall (the original, of course), etc.

6. Some self-published authors are professional authors, but most are not. I say Yes to authors who have been published by the major houses in the past, and who are now doing it on their own. Their quality of writing hasn't changed; they've just decided that the economics are better for them if they take charge of their own publishing. (Steven Pressfield, who wrote The Legend of Bagger Vance and Turning Pro, is an example.) I also say Yes to professional authors who have always self-published, but whom have a track record of quality writing and / or sales. But most self-published authors simply don't fit either category. I know, because I've reviewed a great many God-awful books that were beyond amateurish. If I feel that there is no way at all that I could give a positive review--or say anything positive at all--I decline.

Having said all that, I actually say Yes at least 75% of the time, so please consider me for a book review if you (or your writer) fit the criteria above. Please send me an email (off to the side of this blog somewhere) or send it to me at NetGalley--or, better yet, sending it to me at NetGalley and then send me an email saying you've done so! And I think only once in my reviewing career did I publish a scathing review--and that's because I was working for a website at the time, and I was told to review the work no matter what. So I did. Yikes! Frankly, I weed out requests of books that I feel I'd slam, so when I agree to review a book, I'm basically saying I'll almost definitely say something very favorable. If I can't, I simply don't post the review at all. (This is common amongst most bloggers.)

So, please read some of the book reviews posted here, and if you feel like sending one along to me, please do so. Thanks! And, again, as always, thanks for reading!

P.S.--As you can see on the right of the blog, I'm available for book review tours. Also, I moved my Blogger Friends icon up to the top, and I've offered an option for you to recieve new posts in your email (Don't know why I never had that before here), so please join up! I also put the NetGalley icon at the very top for your book- or story-sending convenience.

The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work

Photo: The book's cover, from its Goodreads photo.

So it occurred to me, genius that I am, that I've been selling short stories and writing novels (notice the difference there), but I don't know any writers. I mean, at all. Harlan Coben once bought be lunch at an agent's conference in Dedham, Massachusetts, and even sat with me to eat (so of course I've bought all of his books since), but that's it. I don't know any writers at all.

Yes, that's a cry for help. Writers, befriend me!

But I almost digress. The point here is that there are questions writers need answered that non-writers can't help with. Like: Where do ideas come from? What happens when your writing chair and desk don't help you produce anymore? How do you deal with the postpartum depression that hits when you finish a novel you've lived with (in my case) for over 20 years? Should I feel badly that I didn't write today? Or this week? Or this month. (Answer: No. Maybe not. And yes.)

You get the idea. I saw this book in the library, after I realized that I didn't have any writer friends (I do have friends--who think I'm nuts for staring at a computer screen or notebook as often as I do--but I don't have any friends who are writers.) and that I didn't have any answers to these questions, and to many more like them. And that I needed some damn solace. So I checked this book out and read it--sporadically, like I write.

Some selections were minor miracles. Some were breakthroughs. A couple were of no interest and I skimmed those. But, just to share a few things:

--The introductions of the writers and of their works, all written by Marie Arana, are just as interesting as the writers' pieces themselves. Sometimes, more so. To whit: "It may have been when Jane Smiley's husband announced he was running off with her dental hygienist in 1996 that Smiley found herself asking the big questions about life, love and work" (387).

--Jimmy Carter writes about how the Presidency bankrupted him. He had a thriving business going when he got elected. He shelved the business, but four years later found that it had accumulated over $1 million in debt. He had to write his first few books just to make enough money to pay off the debts to keep his house. His real, actual house.

--A remarkable number of very successful authors have been "late-life" writers, as Dominick Dunne put it.

--About 90% of the successful writers in this book also have other careers that actually pay the bills. Over 90% of those are professors.

--There are some excellent quotes and thoughts about what writing is. Everyone chronicled here said that writing is a necessary, blessed vocation--with occasionally large drawbacks.

If you're a writer, or if you're interested in writers or writing, you should read this book. I'm going to find it in a bookstore somewhere shortly.

March

A book so well-written, it causes envy and jealousy within me. How could I possibly expect to write as well as this? If all published works had to be this well-written, few authors would stand a chance.

I realized while reading this that most of Geraldine Brooks's sentences were detail-in-action. (And certainly not the other way around, which mars many works of good writers.) Her sentences are doing one of two things: they're either description, or they are action. Too much of either one would be boring, even if it's well-written and boring. Therefore most of her sentences are a combination of the two, detail-in-action.

In this, she takes a mostly-absent character from Alcott's Little Women (which, embarrassingly, I have never read, though I have it around here somewhere) and fills in his gaps. Where did March go when he enlisted? What did he do? Well, he did these things.

This book is a masterpiece (and therefore worthy of its Pulitzer) of its time, and of its rendition of the people of its time. Yet like all good works, it makes the reader understand that the people of its time are also the people of this time, and vice-versa. Here you have racism among the Northerners and the Southerners, and neither is treated like a stereotype. And so it is today. March comes home a bitter soldier who has seen and done too much, and who has brought with him a PTSD and a Blakian Experience that will never be undone. And so it is with returning soldiers today.

This is a book of all times, of all wars, of all soldiers and of all victims. Wars in Iraq, Syria, and anywhere else of any time will be similar to Brooks's Civil War rendition here.

The sudden POV shift jarred a little, and the shift back to March disoriented a little (I had to go back  to be sure that it was his turn again), but the reader will see the necessity of the shifts. Brooks could have superficially prepared the reader, perhaps by placing character names at the beginning of each chapter--a la George R. R. Martin in his Song of Ice and Fire books--but such is not her way. You'll be able to bear it and move on.

She does an interesting thing with Grace, who seems to turn up a little bit more coincidentally than maybe she should--but the reader will see the necessity for this as well. Brooks gets away with these two things that would have torpedoed lesser writers (such as myself).

This was a quick, intelligent and gripping read that sounds all too true, and will perhaps leave you a little emotional throughout, and certainly at its end. But you owe it to yourself to read it, if not for the great writing and experience, then perhaps to better understand a returning soldier you happen to know today.

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

Photo: from the book's Goodreads page.  (Yes, I review there as well.  Feel free them up.)

After finishing this book, which was essentially a good book and an okay way to pass the reading time of three days (in my case, anyway), I am nonetheless compelled to write the following:

Things That Have Annoyed Me in Stephen King's Latest Novels:

--His tendency to focus almost exclusively, at least for the first half, on the character normally considered to be the antagonist.  In this case, Morris Bellamy, who kills John Rothstein (a thinly-disguised combination of J.D. Salinger and John Updike) and steals his money and notebooks.  This is not ruining anything, by the way, because the inside flap tells you this faster than I just did.

Anyway, there are problems with doing this.  As I've mentioned in other recent reviews of King's work, the tendency to do this insinuates to the reader (again, at least this one) that King finds his antagonists more interesting than his protagonists.  (Or, at least, that he feels his readers will.)  This reminds me of actors who say they prefer playing the bad guy because he's usually more interesting than the bland good guy.  If this is the case, the answer here is to simply make the protagonist more convincing, or less bland, or whatever.  Often, an interesting protagonist will come to mirror the antagonist, thereby creating some depth.  (Hopefully this is what happens in my with-beta-readers-WIP).  King has done this focus-on-the-character-who's-normally-the-antagonist thing so frequently lately that it has to be by design.

The other problem with this is that it creates a cartoonish novel.  This novel will be compulsively-readable--which this one certainly is, as I finished it in a few days--but that doesn't mean it's satisfying.  I mentioned in a recent King review that his books have satisfied me less and less even though I'm reading them as quickly--if not more quickly--than ever.  I don't mean this as a snotty criticism, but I do mean it with seriousness.  By starting off with the antagonist, and by staying with him for so long, it creates the mirage (or, not, if you're strict about this sort of semantic thing) that the antagonist is actually the protagonist, and the protagonist, who's out to stop the bad-guy protagonist from doing bad things, is actually the antagonist, by definition.  This is how the old Tom & Jerry cartoons worked.

And it sucks, because it feels fake.  Because, really, it's backstory made into story, and you compulsively read it because it's there and that's all there is, but...it's not satisfying.  There's something wrong.  I'm not critical because it's not literature (somebody hit me upside the head if I ever get that snotty); I'm critical because it's not story.  Though story is what happens, and maybe why it happens, there's something more that story's supposed to be.  Something more real.  More weighty, perhaps, but that's entering Elitist Land, maybe.  But really it's just like watching a Tom & Jerry cartoon, which I tired of in my teens.  And I've tired of it here.

I'm sure King has done this purposely lately because it also falsely creates momentary cliffhangers at the end of every section.  And that's not done with realness, either.  It works like this: Protagonist, who's doing bad things that you want to read because we all want to see the dead body under the sheet at the car accident (King's frequently-used comparison, not mine), does bad things but comes upon some roadblock that stops him and allows the writer to introduce the protagonist--who's actually the antagonist here, by definition, because he's trying to stop the main character.  (Morris Bellamy, book advertising aside, is the main character here.  The cop from Mr. Mercedes, who's advertised as the main character and the star of this trilogy, does not appear in this one until literally half-way through.  And he's got remarkably little to do.  He really could be any retired cop from anywhere, from any novel from any writer.)  In this case, that roadblock is jail time.  Bellamy gets out and the game's afoot.  He does something.  Bill Hodges, the retired cop, does something, and catches up a little with the program.  In the meantime, other characters become more important and do more important things than Hodges does, and do so right until the end.  In this case, Pete Saubers is the other main character here.  Hodges is maybe third or fourth in line.  Anyway, the sections get shorter (yet another fake way to create tension: James Patterson-like short chapters or sections--and lots of them) and the back-and-forth gets more frequent and creates tension even when the story itself doesn't.

Fakery, I tell you.

If you've read King's books before, especially the recent ones, there's never any doubt about what's going to happen.  If you've read Misery, there's never any doubt about how it's going to happen.  And the little ironic twist in the last 5% of the book, that part about where the notebooks were after all--well, it made me roll my eyes.  Let me know if it did the same for you.

Bleh.  Compulsively readable bleh, but bleh nonetheless.

You expect something more.  And maybe that's part of the problem.  Maybe we shouldn't be expecting more from him anymore.  Can I say that out loud?

The other thing that needs to be said out loud: His stuff isn't scary anymore.  It's not even chilly.  (The ending of Revival is a blessed exception here.)  The only part of the novel that does that is the very, very end--an ending with a character that was in this book for .01% of it--and never in a relevant to this story kind of way.  That part--smack!--is the only even closely resembling creepy part of this whole thing.

That's what we want from King, right?  If I'm not going to get the real-life creeps and genius of "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," "The Body" or even Misery, than I want the creepiness of The Shining and IT.  The stuff he's giving us lately is nothing more than bad Dean Koontz.  This was especially true of Mr. Sleep, which was so bad I literally got angry.  (And was reminded of Dorothy Parker's quip, about another bad book, that it wasn't something to be put aside--but should instead be thrown with great force.)  But I don't want the back-and-forth of guns and robbers and that stuff.  I want little boys crawling underneath the snow, being chased by an unseen something that sticks its hand out of the snow, very suddenly.  I want he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.  This is TV show crap we're getting now, since Under the Dome did so well (in the ratings, during the summer, anyway), and I don't want it.  (Under the Dome is a classic example of King focusing almost-exclusively on the character who normally would be the antagonist, but isn't because of King's POV focus on him.  And the "protagonist" of Under the Dome was surely a bore--Steven Seagall in Under Seige.  A special-op hiding out, in retirement or not, as a cook.)

Anyway, this wasn't scary.  It wasn't intense.  It wasn't creepy.  It wasn't memorable.  It was compulsively readable--but I could say the same about my journal entries and even my shopping list.

And I'm still optimistic enough to want more out of Stephen King than this.  But maybe I shouldn't be.

Another Sherlock Holmes -- The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons

Photo: Book's front and back cover, from kernelscorner.com.

A good Dan Simmons book, though not one of his best (Drood and The Terror are that), The Fifth Heart has a lot going for it, and not too much against it--depending on the reader's level of patience and tolerance.

It's a lot of things, perhaps too many.  It's a thriller in a potboiler vein--like Conan Doyle's work.  (He's often mentioned but never seen.)  It's a mystery of rich people's manners and mannerisms--a la Henry James, perhaps the book's main character.  It's a mystery of deduction and induction--a la Sherlock Holmes, the book's other main character.  It's a historical adventure, like Simmons' Drood and The Terror.

But--and here's where the reader's patience and tolerance comes in--it's also a pseudo-metaphysical work, one that has the characters very self-aware, and pondering their reality: Are they themselves, or are they characters?  The one failure of all this to me is that the characters remain surprisingly productive and un-neurotic despite these philosophical quandaries.  We know that Holmes is a character, but the conceit of the novel is that he is not: He's a real person, and so is Dr. Watson.  Arthur Conan Doyle is nothing more than the editor of Dr. Watson's unfortunately melodramatic scribblings of Sherlock Holmes's adventures.  (Conan Doyle and Watson--both never seen--get a lot of verbal abuse from the many characters.)  The reader has to swallow this.

The reader is also forced to swallow the occasional interruptions of a first-person I / omniscient-writer narrator who never fully shows himself.  Is it Simmons?  Conan Doyle?  Watson?  Or someone else entirely?  It's never definitively shown; the question, in fact, is shied away from.  But we, the reader, are supposed to wonder about it, which seems to be the purpose: to cause philosophical wonder.  This is a drastic break of the fourth wall / suspension-of-disbelief, and so it needs the reader's tolerance. 

This last bit struck me as unnecessary.  The philosophical ponderings of existence, of character / person, of reality, and of unreality are all over this book, so we don't really need the intrusive first-person narrator break.  It's too much. 

Another unwanted intrusion is the much-more-rare Dan Simmons statements.  This single-handedly ruined Flashback, which was really just one long Dan Simmons diatribe.  He really tones it down here.  But you can catch a few times that he elbows his character aside for a moment so he can speak directly to the reader.  The most blatant of these was when Simmons makes his characters talk about the Pledge of Allegiance that apparently came from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.  Simmons actually makes a character ask if anything interesting came of a certain meeting between characters.  That question is answered by bringing up the Pledge.  Another character says how barbaric it is to make students say it, and Holmes himself says that making them do so is something that would happen in Germany.  This is a constant Simmons break: He says something disparaging about the American education system as often as he can, in any book.  And so he does here.

However, at the end, this book is a good distraction--which Simmons himself seems to realize, as he constantly has characters refer to badly-written but entertaining mystery-thrillers, clearly referring to himself and to his own book.  This book, like its characters, is very, very aware of itself.  Dan Simmons is always hovering in the shadows over every page, his tongue in his cheek, pleasantly aware and happy about his own literary magic trick.

If you have the tolerance to handle these breaks--which are not as avant-garde as Simmons seems to think they are--then chances are good you'll enjoy the book.  It is as meticulously researched as Simmons's historical novels always are, often to the point of approaching info-dump.  The characters are amusing, though distinct--so much so that you'll wonder why their married or friendly with each other.  The characters had all been real people, and they all get knocked around a bit verbally by the other characters and by Simmons himself.  Samuel Clemens, John Hay, Conan Doyle, President Cleveland, and especially Henry James all get some chiding, some of it quite heavy.  You'll learn more than you'd probably want about the 1893 Columbian Expedition (read Erik Larson's book about that, too), about the horse-drawn carriages of the time, about Mark Twain's foolish financial disasters, and about train schedules.

It all works somehow, and you'll feel like you're really there.  Whether you're able to get back there after the author intrusions and first-person fourth-wall breaks is a big question.  I was able to again suspend my disbelief, but only mostly, and only barely, while watching for the next unwanted and unappreciated break of that wall.  It didn't ruin it for me, but I could understand how it might for somebody.

I still recommend that you try.

Making Money Writing and Secret Windows

Photo: Hardcover art, from the book's Wikipedia site.  (Go there to see the Contents page; one chapter is called "Great Hookers I Have Known," but if you remember your remedial writing days, you'll see right through that.)  I read the paperback with the building on the cover.  This cover is terrible and just a little creepy.  But it's what Wikipedia had.  The building cover is better.

Described as "a companion book to On Writing," this volume reads more as a long interview with King, done over maybe 10 to 12 years, with a couple of never-before-seen stories thrown in. 

It is worth your time.

I put off reading this for awhile because I thought it was, frankly, a cheap attempt to cash-in on his On Writing success.  But that didn't turn out to be the case.  This book is actually much different.  On Writing is, as its title says, at least mostly memoir.  Part writing tutorial, part memoir, is how I speak of it.  But Secret Windows is a book of questions King doesn't answer in On Writing, and as such is, as I said, more of a long interview, over 10-12 years, on a variety of topics--much of them, surprisingly, not about writing, per se.

This book is more for writers, in some ways, than On Writing is.  While that book is mostly memoir and sometimes a writing primer, this one is about the more minute parts of the business.  Did you know that King got an agent to hawk his novels and short stories?  I didn't, because agents don't sell short stories anymore--well, unless you're a Stephen King level writer, that is.  Then they'll be more than happy to sell your underwear or shopping list, just to keep you happy--and their client.  But for you and me, they won't sell our short stories today.  We'd have to do that for ourselves. (I know, because I do.)

Did you know that King sent out a query to agents before he'd finished his manuscript for Carrie?  I didn't, because that's a huge no-no today--and must've been then, too.  Because writers, like everyone else, won't finish something when they say they will, and agents know this.  So they all say--today and, I'm sure, then--that you have to finish the manuscript, perfect it, and then solicit them.  King was more ballsy than that.  He pitched them when he was almost done with his manuscript--for Carrie, I think--and his selling point was the huge list--I'm talking 20 or more here--of short stories he'd sold and been paid well for in just two years.  At $200 per story, times 20 stories--that's $400.  10% of that is $40, so 15% of that is $60.  Many agents in 1974 would take $60 to send out a couple of quick letters to publishers about a client's work.  It would take them about an hour, maybe.  If that.  Probably half an hour.  $60 p/h, max, in 1974 would sound good.  The bottom line is: King essentially was ballsy enough to say to these prospective agents: "Even with my short story sales, I can make money for you."  And then, more importantly, he finished his novel manuscript, just as he said he would.  That's good business, and that turns on agents, too.

So what's to be learned from this?  Be ballsy.  But also be productive, so you have something to be ballsy about.  And then, be good at the business, and finish the manuscript when you say you will.  Lost in all the millions Stephen King makes is that he has always produced, even pre-Carrie, and at a very high level of both quality (ie--it'll sell) and production.  In other words, he's always been bankable, and very good at the business.

You won't learn this kind of thing from On Writing.

You will from Secret Windows.

If you dream of a writing career like I do, you should read it.  And read On Writing, too, of course.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

Photo: Title Card from the Series, from its Wikipedia page.

Book 1 of the long series was not a disappointment.  This is a helluva achievement in of itself, considering its 807 pages.  But it's even more impressive considering that I, like much of the known cable-connected world, have seen every episode of the HBO series.  Still, despite how incredible the series is (so much so that I am considering starting a blog about it, so look for that if you read my blogs), this book matches the series' awesomeness.

I started reading it because I wanted to see how close the series followed it.  I've also listened to every commentary available on the DVDs thus far (because I'm nerdy like that) and so I know how devoted the series' creators are.  Knowing that, how faithful to the book were they?  Answer: Very.  As in, basically page by page, and often verbatim.

But if you've seen every episode, you might say, wouldn't you be wasting your time if it's so close to the book?  Answer: No, as it turns out.  I thought the answer would be Yes, especially considering that the monumental struggle I had with the Lord of the Rings books.  (Much easier to read if you've seen the movies.)  But reading this was a breeze, despite the length.  Seeing it in words was different than seeing it on HBO.  I didn't see the characters from the series as I read the book.  (Well, except for Tyrion, played wondrously well by Peter Dinklage, who caught every single nuance of movement and voice from the character on the page.)  The book's characters were their own.

Martin is a very good writer; so much so that his turn of phrase was often surprisingly good even though I knew what was coming.  His words often summed up a scene better than the actual image did from the series.  I'm thinking specifically of the very last scene of the book and of one of the seasons, when Dany sat naked amongst the ashes of her dead husband, the woman who helped kill him, his horse, and three live dragons.  The book visualized this very well, even better than the actual visual image did.  (This is aided by the book's inclusion of the dragons breastfeeding with her, which the series did not show.)

The biggest difference: Tyrion and Jon Snow get along extremely well, and are almost good friends in the book.  The series does not show this.

So this is a rollicking good read.  If you were thinking about reading it, but holding off because you've seen the show, delay no longer.

Pick it up.

Dark (Horror) Fiction Collection--Little Visible Delight

I was lucky enough to be asked to take a look at a collection of short stories, all in the horror genre, by one of the editors of the book and a member, like me, of the Horror Writers Association of America. (Check out the cool icon on the right side of my blog.)

For the collection: Here's the Amazon link.

And here's a little snippet:

"A new anthology of original dark fiction edited by S.P. Miskowski and Kate Jonez, Little Visible Delight was published by Omnium Gatherum Media on December 6, 2013."

And a short description:

"Often the most powerful and moving stories are generated by writers who return time and again to a particular idea, theme, or image. Obsession in a writer's imagination can lead to accomplishment or to self-destruction. Consider Poe and his pale, dead bride; his fascination with confinement and mortality; his illness and premature death. Or Flannery O'Connor's far less soul-crushing fondness for peacocks. Some writers pay a high price for their obsessions, while others maintain a crucial distance. Whichever the case, obsessions can produce compelling fiction.

Little Visible Delight is an anthology of original stories in which eleven authors of dark fiction explore some their most intimate, writerly obsessions."

Sounds cool, right?  Especially if you're into this genre, like I am.  (Though I hadn't known about O'Connor fondness for peacocks.)  So I thought I'd review a few of the short stories in the collection, over a few blog entries.  This will be a little challenging, because when I like a book, I want other people to read it, but if I write too much about the stories in the book, and give too much away, why would you read them?  So I'm going to err (perhaps too much) on the side of caution, hopefully.  Suffice it to say, if I write about the story at all, I liked it.

I got the permission of one of the editors, so here's a review of the first two stories:

"The Receiver of Tales"

Very well-written, atmospheric, moody tale with a few images that will stay with you.  The writing is so lyrical, and yet so exact (rare for lyricism), and the ending is so well-conceived, that I read it twice.  It's sort of got one ending, when the woman fully realizes her predicament, and then another ending, when she does something about it.  This is a nice extended metaphor about the obsession writers have of writing--though I have to say that my stories are mostly my stories.  But that's just me.  (Enough about me.  What do you think about me?)

One of the few short stories I've ever read twice.  Outside of college classes, that is.

"Needs Must When the Devil Drives"

Never heard of this phrase before, though I like the rhythm of it.  I'll leave the connection between the phrase and the story alone.  You'll have to buy the book!  (Sorry.)  Anyway, this is a well-written time-travel story narrated by a blase, but well-voiced, main character.  It was a nice take on time-travel stories where someone has to go back to kill someone in order to create (or un-create) the future.  It mostly concerns what a philosophy professor once called "The Hitler Paradox."  It goes something like this: Would you go back in time to shoot Hitler before he came to power?  How about if you could only go back in time and meet him when he was just four years old?  And holding a Teddy Bear?  Could you kill him?  You get the idea.

In this one, the main character has to go back in time to kill someone very dear to him: Himself.

Clever story.

That's it for now.  These two stories are well worth the price of the collection, just for themselves.  If this sounds interesting to you, check out these links:

A Goodreads link.

The publisher's link.

And, again, the Amazon link. 

My Beam, My Tower

"There are other worlds than these," Stephen King has Jake say in the first Gunslinger.  Or, at least, that's the phrase I hear when I think about it.  I sometimes believe this to be so, that there are other worlds than these.  Maybe not in a Gunslinger way, nor in a Talisman way, nor even in a Lord of the Rings way.

In what way, then?  I don't know, but in this other world I don't grind my teeth, and every pen is as smooth as the one I used to originally write this down.  There's a lightness, but also a sense of urgency.  In this other world, there is a known magic, an accepted sense of wonder, of awe.  Life is simpler, but harder for its simplicity.  There's more color, more sound, more vibrancy.  More of a Pull.

In this world, here, I get more of a sense of Push than Pull.  I feel pushed along, usually roughly, rather than pulled gently, though perhaps inexorably.  My mind is calmer when I feel Pulled, than Pushed.

I'm pushed to pay The Man, as we all are, and to do the job that helps me to pay The Man, though I'm fortunate to be both Pushed and Pulled at my job.  That's my Beam here, I think.  My job.  The difference I'm told I've made, and continue to make.  That's how I stay on the Beam here; that's my contribution to the Beam, to the Tower that supports us here.  Would the Tower tremble without me doing what I do here?  I like to think so.  Someone recently told me he has done everything he's done because of what I did for him back in the day, maybe nine or ten years ago now.  So maybe there's a Beam that connects us, me to him, and both of us to the Tower here.  It's always nice to think you matter.

But there, in that mirror world, I think my writing, my creating, keeps the Beam buzzing.  The Me, there, lives in a somewhat muted contentedness, alone in a wooden shack, with some of the same things there as here.  I write by candlelight and it's always raining outside.  I have a small fireplace in a small hearth, but as it's a small room in a small one- or two-room house, and as I'm warm with my sweater and my shawl anyway, it's all good.

Maybe one me also supports the other.  A glimpse of me here to the me there, and vice-versa.  I look out my office door to the Me in the commode mirror, beside the picture of the younger Me in Amistad, and I can see all this.

Reading Like A Writer: Story Structure

 
Photo: The Golden Gate Bridge, in an aerial view, from the bridge's Wikipedia page.  Click it; it's a great pic.

I've been trying to read books lately with a writer's eye, so that I could learn what makes successful (defined here as published; maybe also as respected and/or successful writer) writers write successful things.  I've had (extremely) modest success recently, and I've been trying to learn why some pieces have sold and why some haven't.  Here's what I've come up with recently:

--Stories sell better if they have a structure, and not just a "this happens, then this happens" kind of feel.  Readers can feel the flow of the structure; they're pulled along by it.  So the story, the characters, the setting--all of that is important, but the flow of the structure is like a double-pull with all of those things.  Stories that are just a series of events don't have that flow, and so the reader feels disjointed right away, even if the characters and the plot and that stuff are solid.  No structure, no flow, no pull.

--The structure we've all learned in high school--the Shakespearean Plot Triangle--is not the only structure to use.  Some stories just won't fit to that form, especially if there's no solid climax in the middle of the piece, or a clear finish for the resolution.  And not if the story doesn't break cleanly into five or so different parts.  There may not be a clear rise to the climax, or fall from it to the end, especially if the end isn't tragic or definitive.  For example, if the ending is more in the Chekhov vein, where you're dropped into the lives of the characters, and they're not done at the end--or even if there really isn't an established end, then the five-part plot triangle won't fit.  And you can't make a story fit a structure that it just isn't made to fit.  You can't force a structure upon a story.

--A three-part story structure that works for me lately--that I think might work for one of my novel manuscripts that I'd been sort of forcing a five-part structure on--is called the Suspension Bridge structure.  It differs greatly from the plot triangle because there's not much building up, nor falling away from, though the ending is usually pretty solid like it would be at the end of the plot triangle. 

Picture an actual suspension bridge.  It starts at the land's edge, and the bridge's cables swing up to the first apex.  This is the build-up of the character, his traits, and his flaws, and the climax, if you will, of the peak there is when he gets something that he wants, that might better his plight.  This thing must change the character in a major way--or it has to at least offer the possibility.  Usually this involves a change in the character himself; it sets up the character vs. self conflict, though there must be many other conflicts to come.  Then the bridge cables drop.  And it's a long, long drop, and somewhere there is a rock-bottom, in which the character is threatened with the possibility of going back to where he started, if not worse.  This is also where all of the conflicts are established for that thing that he wants and here's where the antagonists are established.  This is also where the big reveal of a big conflict happens, something the protagonist might not even know.  But then he does.  Then the next upswing starts; he overcomes those conflicts somehow and succeeds in some way by the apex of that next upswing.  There was such a huge crash before so then, when he succeeds for the next upswing, that apex of that upswing has to be a major victory, much more so than the previous one, and it sort of wraps up the whole story.  The space between these two apexes is the vast majority of the story.  The last descent is not necessarily a downswing--it just has to establish the normalcy again of this character's new life as the bridge's cables connect to the land again.  The dust has settled, and the character's life is a bit more clear, usually in a good way.  The ramifications of the victories and successes are shown, and the character again carries on with his life, and both you and the character feel it'll be better.

This structure is much more open for characterization, and is an especially good structure to use if one of the main conflicts is character vs. self.  The best example I've noticed recently of this suspension bridge structure is the movie The Verdict, which I mentioned in the recent blog about signs you're growing old: it's the movie I sought, made in 1982, and I sought it because I needed to see it again, because it suddenly hit me, purely from memory, that it was the epitome of the suspension bridge structure.

I'll explain how and why in a blog entry to come.

My Birthday, etc.

Photo: Brown University's University Building, built in 1770.  From Brown University's Wikipedia page.

A few quick things:

--It's my birthday, and I need some lovins.  Cuz I'm old.

--Having a writers group meeting at my house tomorrow between 5pm and whenever.  First sort of substantial entertaining at the new digs.  Yup.  Writers.  Cuz I'm cool like that.

--Speaking of such things, I bet one of the five group members twenty bucks that I'd have an agent before her.  We set a June deadline.  I'll take whatever motivation I can get.

--Working on two novels and a few short stories, all at the same time.  I can't seem to commit to any one of them for too long before working on something else.  Which is exactly the wrong thing to do, for all of you newbie writers out there.  I have to finish one of the novels before I can solicit agents.  And I need to have an agent by June.  No pressure...No pressure...

--A friend of mine said I couldn't commit to a bottle of any beverage, never mind a long, possibly year-long project.  Thanks.

--It's so cold over here that water froze on firemen as they were putting out a large local fire.  In my business, we call that irony.

--Thinking of maybe trying to get an MFA in Creative Writing at the state university, hoping that my many grad credits will transfer from an attempted English Masters that I only need a few classes to finish.  And I'm halfway done with the paper.  But if I wanted to get that English Masters, I would've finished it by now, right?  I mean, I got my Bachelors in English and Philosophy in 1994.

--Can't commit to a bottle of water, I know.

--Research into a world-reknowned local Ivy League college showed me that it would cost exactly $46,808 to get an MFA there.  Noooooooooooooooooooo problem...

--Bad economy?  What bad economy?

--$14,500 for an MFA at the state university, for those of you wondering.

--Would it be immoral to take most of the MFA classes at the state university, and then the last three or so at the Ivy League?  Probably they have safeguards against that sort of thing.  But it needs some looking-into, especially if I can get any of my many grad credits transferred.

--I'll accept any and all donations.  I take plastic.  No, I'm just kidding.  I think.

--Two classes a semester is considered full-time in the Ivy League Graduate Program.  Is it everywhere?  If you're working full-time plus, like most of us are, one class seems full-time to me.

--I can't get enough of the chimney/fireplace woodburning smell when it's cold around here.  Only good thing about temps in the single digits.  With wind chills far below zero.

--I'm still walking my dog in this, on our same route.  At night, too.  I deserve a dog-owner award for that.

--In an odd but appropriate measure, for the last two days, I've been listening to my YouTube Christmas playlist I wrote about before, here.  This is Christmas weather.

--Luckily, I live next to a relatively busy intersection.  Times are tough--don't judge.

Fool Me Twice--Brandman's Newest Jesse Stone

Photo: Book cover, from its Goodreads page.

The new book in the Jesse Stone series, Fool Me Twice, is a good, quick read, as I read it in just a few hours.  Having said that, I can't say much more positive about it, since the plot is a rehash of Parker's Looking for Rachel Wallace (with somewhat the same result for the characters), and the dialogue is almost stolen from Parker's style cabinet, but without the wit and flair.  I read it like I put on last year's professional wardrobe.  Quickly, without effort, appreciating the comfort, but still wondering why I'm still wearing it.  Ace Atkins has fared much better with his one Spenser novel so far.  Speaking of these series, both started, of course, by the late, great Robert B. Parker (who I met and spoke with a few times; he was nice enough to give me two autographs and his agent's name, the last of which is unheard of from an established writer to an unpublished one), I think we can now do away with the Robert B. Parker's tag before every title of each series.  Take a peek at the list of published works from the last three books since his last, and see how odd those titles look there.

What else?  Jesse Stone in Brandman's last seemed like Jesse Stone, I guess, after taking a blabbermouth pill.  This time, he sounds a lot like Spenser.  He even flirts like Spenser.  Brandman still hasn't pinned down his inherited character.  Jesse Stone is not normally interested in saving the badly parented juveniles as Spenser had been (Paul; April Kyle), so when he does it here, he seems to be putting on Spenser's shoes.  That series is so well-known for its bad parents raising screwed-up kids that it's blasphemy and overdone to see it here.  Jesse Stone is simply not as altruistic as Spenser; he's too insecure and unconfident about himself to be Superman for anyone else.  The series has already well-established this.  Brandman can change that, of course, but not without showing the change, and the cause of that change.  He never does that.

We see Rita Fiore (which is always a pleasure), but we also see the new Federal Guy in Boston.  Parker and Atkins made this guy an annoying dweeb, which is fine, but Brandman makes him one of the all-time dufuses of today's crime fiction.  This guy, as drawn by Brandman, would never have made it to his current position, or even be accepted into the academy.  He blames the star's bodyguard of having either the hots for her, or of having an affair with her, and it's her supposed rejection of him that makes him kill her.  Yet any guy with any decent people skills, intelligence, and five spare minutes with the bodyguard in question would know that this was simply not the case.  He ignores even the most obvious of evidence; I'm talking stuff that Fred, Shaggy, Wilma, Scooby and Daphne would've known what to do with.  Nancy Drew would've fixed her hair and then nailed the evidence and personalities involved here, and this guy flubbed both, with drama.  It's really bad, like he's never even heard the word "evidence" before, or like he's never had to read people's personalities before.  Have I made it clear that this guy was terribly drawn, written and executed?  Simply not believable.  We say hello to a couple of other Spenser cross-overs, too, but they seem to be in the neighborhood only for show.

There's a case with the local water company that's a head-scratcher for the reader, especially this one.  Not that I wouldn't mind having a word or two with my own local water guys, but this subplot is nonsensical and out of place in this book.  It has no relevance here, either thematically or in the plot.  It reinforces that everyone's messed up and untrustworthy, but we know that already.  We know what the novel's #1 bad guy is going to do, and though we're surprised by how Brandman delivers it to us, we're not surprised that it happens.  The real surprise comes later; since the bodyguard never leaves the area, and since any mail would be traced to him, thereby blowing his cover (he's in hiding for awhile), we wonder where he got the red ants from.  (I'm no insect expert, but I'm firm that biting red fire ants cannot survive between the Cape and the North Shore, in even the hottest of all MA winters.)  Again, not believable.

So it passed the time, and it was a quick and easy read.  I could probably say the same for Goosebumps and the Berenstein Bears, so I don't know.  The series is being kept afloat, I suppose, and the previous one must've sold pretty well for this one to come out so quickly after...and I see that it's got an average of four stars from other critics...It's a pair of comfortable slippers, I suppose, though I haven't consistently worn my slippers in years...And I'll buy the next Brandman/Stone book in the series, so...

Bleh.

Diary of A Farmer's Wife, 1892

photo: Farmer's Wife in Clogs, 1892 by Louis Roy, from 1st-art-gallery.com

Check out this website, 1892farmwife.blogspot.com.  As the link suggests, it's a diary of a Maine farmer's wife in 1892.  Doesn't sound interesting?  Well, I thought so, too, but since I was doing some research for The Gravediggers--I needed to know everyday life for New England farmers in 1892--I gave it a shot.  The really interesting thing about the journal is that its author writes just a few sentences--if not just one--per entry.

And so you might think, "How much can I learn about someone who only writes a couple of sentences per entry?"  The surprising answer is: A lot.  Why?  Because she writes every day!  And I do mean every single day.  So it's not what she writes that matters; it's the consistency of what she writes that matters.  And because the writing is so spare, you learn a lot about her, and the time, because there's no fluff at all to get in the way.  In fact, I read the whole year in about 30 minutes.

You learn that she's religious.  Okay, most rural people at the time were.  But you also see that she mentally beats herself up quite a bit.  When she even hints that she may have done something bad, it's jarring.  And she never tells you what she's done, or to whom she's done it to, so part of the enjoyment of reading this thing is that you have to do a lot of playful guesswork sometimes.

The publisher of the website says she has an entire journal to put on the site, but nothing beyond 1892 appears yet, even though it's been a few years now since it was posted.

Why am I pushing this?  Because the woman's philosophy is one I'd love to embrace.  Keep it simple.  Thoreau: "Simplify, simplify."  This woman is honestly grateful for everything!  She keeps it simple (and keeps it real) by doing what she has to do, accepting what comes, being grateful for the good, and hoping for better.  She's no pushover, either, just passively accepting everything.  (She comes across as someone not to be messed with.)  She's a hard-working go-getter, if not a particularly gifted writer, and she is an obvious presence.  The site's author notes that her great-grandmother (the author of the journal) was a woman of her time, and probably not known at all outside of her household and closest neighbors.  But she seems content with this as well, and just gets along as best she can with her bad knees, her quiet convictions, and her place in a very unpopulated area that is very cold and very harsh.

I've been keeping a journal--as I always have--but lately I'm trying to do the same: to boil the day down to its two- or three-sentence essence.  Maybe I can make my head and psyche as clear as my journal.

And maybe you can, too.

Full Dark, No Stars--Stephen King

photo: book cover, from its Wikipedia site

"1922," the first one, was very good, far outshining the other three stories here, but slightly disappointing in the final paragraphs, which felt comicbook-like.  The writing is King's best in a long time, even if the theme and unreliable narrator are things we've seen before.  You almost feel sorry for the guy--but not quite. King has visited the rat motif many times before, most notably in some stories in Night Shift, and does so again here in a psychological fashion--though perhaps realistically, as well, at least in the eyes of the narrator.  This story is disappointing in the sense that King essentially has nowhere to go with it, leaving the author, the writing, the main character and the reader meandering through most of the story.  But, strangely, agreeably, because of the excessively smooth storytelling.  Perhaps one of the better examples yet of how King is a master storyteller--as he's been called literally a million times--even if he is somewhat lacking, sometimes (see: Rose Madder and Cell), as a writer.  Writing and storytelling are non-exclusive.  See James and Joyce for writing; see King for a story.

"Big Driver," the second story, was okay, in its own way, but severely disturbing no matter what you think about its gender-specific overtones.  I thin of this one as what Jodie Foster's character in The Accused would have done if she'd had the chance--though that character was of a far different background and constitution than the one here.  A disturbingly good read is the best way to describe this one, though, again, it's predictable with only one avenue to travel.  You'll feel compelled to travel it, too, and watch the carnage unfold, perhaps with your hands over your readers' eyes, trucking that written road through partly-opened fingers.

"Fair Extension," the third, was...hard to describe.  Slightly amusing in an "I'm a bad person for feeling this way" kind of way.  The Book of Job in a comic book format, I guess.  A reversal of the "bad things happen to good people" thought, combined with the Book of Job, this story is hard to like and yet also hard to put down.  Taps into the fact that most people are so dissatisfied with their own lives that they will watch with glee as constantly terrible things happen to someone else.  "As long as it isn't me" taken to the Nth degree.  An unlikable, but true, aspect of most people.  Right up there with King's often-stated metaphor of drivers and passersby rubber-necking for a glimpse of the corpse under the sheet at the accident scene.  One of the worst aspects of human nature, something I've always hated.  King's constant metaphor has led me to steadfastly NEVER peer at traffic accidents--literally, I don't ever look at the actual accident because of Stephen King.  Having been in one myself--and my blanket-covered body was videotaped by a guy as it was put into the back of the ambulance, so I speak from experience--I can tell you that this is a truly repulsive, Let's All Watch the Fight in the Hallway and Not Try to Stop It aspect of human nature that I detest in others.  Others' misfortunes are not my entertainment. (But, hey, I read this stuff, so maybe who am I to say after all?)  I would argue here that this story points out all of what I've just said, and does so with a disagreeable look.  (King acknowledges that he has made millions of dollars, thanks to this base aspect of human nature.)  

The last story, "A Good Marriage," was good.  Compulsively readable; very quick and easy; though, again, there's nowhere to go down this one-way street.  But, also again, the reader is compelled to follow the story down that one road, knowing full well where it's going, and not caring that he knows.  This is ostensibly King's greatest genius, it now occurs to me: he's able to tap into an innate segment of our psyche--no matter how base it is--and he shows it to us as a mirror into our own possible subconscious.  We compulsively follow it, and his stories, for just that reason: it could be us doing those things.  Based on the BTK killer--and his wife, who apparently really didn't know that she was married for 25+ years to a guy who tortured and killed a ton of women and children over all those years (Sandusky's wife is now saying the same)--this was a welcome break in between all the grad. class short story reading, which I also have to admit were very good, but much more serious and often intense.

Carrie by Stephen King

photo: First edition cover, from its Wikipedia page

So this is the first adult book I ever read, when I was 7.  Which possibly explains a lot.  When I finished reading this, I thought, "I can do this!  I can do BETTER than this."  (See my profile for more on this.)  I've been writing stories and novels ever since, proving myself right, and wrong, at less than even intervals.  The phrase "a crow among swans" has stayed with me, for some reason.  Frankly, it's in one of the few really well-written sentences in the whole book.  Now-famous story of how his wife saved this from the trash and made him finish it, thereby leading eventually to the $400,000 advance from Doubleday, is perhaps better than the novel itself.  Made me realize that I've always needed a woman in my life to support my writing the same way--and to welcome the task of sifting through my own garbage, both mental and physical.  Made "dirtypillows" a common word in my vocabulary.  Carrie's mom now seems like your typical right-wing conservative--very scary, indeed, and very prescient.  Some of those guys and gals out there today, including Christine the non-witch, make Carrie White's mother seem completely normal by comparison.

Stephen King himself says he's a bit embarrassed about this one, as he perhaps should be.  Obviously an underwritten novella pushed to barely novel-length by some "interviews," "articles" and crude desk-carvings.  Some of the scenes are brilliant, if not brilliantly written, but they clearly formed the vision of De Palma's movie, which was almost brilliant.  And it started the whole career rolling, didn't it?  (And not just for King, but for De Palma, Sissy Spacek and John Travolta, as well.)  Ultimately an okay read that showed great promise, which is what most first-time books this side of Catcher in the Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird usually are.

My Interview, Part 3

Following is the end of my interview at a cool website for newbie and professional writers, The Writer's Block, at Raychelle-Writes.blogspot.com.  Specifically, you can find my interview here.  But it's an interesting site, so look around!


You can find Part One of this series a couple of blog entries ago, or here.  Part Two is a few entries ago, or here.


7)      How do you promote your work? What methods have worked best for you?

Well, I’m still relatively new at this, so I do what I can without letting it overwhelm the actual writing time, plus the career that I love which also pays The Man.  I blog, usually three to four entries per week.  I’m a member of (too many) online writers groups.  I befriend (or is it e-friend?) other bloggers, and I comment on their blogs.  I tell everyone who is related to me, who likes me, or who might be interested—or any combination—about my published work.  I just took a copy of Space and Time with my story in it to the local library and asked if they could subscribe to it, since my story was in it—and they said “Yes!”  (That was completely spur-of-the-moment.)  A few other things are in the works.

Despite all this, I firmly believe that the best method of promoting my work is to finish more of it, to send it out, to get it published, and to advertise that—then repeat.  I very strongly believe that a writer’s best advertising is his own high-quality, published work.

8)      What are your upcoming plans for 2012?
To finish, send out, and publish every single title I mentioned I was working on in #3!!!  Plus everything else festering in this overactive head of mine that I haven’t had time to jot down yet.  And to set up a better schedule for myself so that I can do all that.

9)      What is your definition of success as an author?

This is actually pretty simple, and I’m happy you used the word “author” rather than “writer,” or it wouldn’t be so simple.  A successful author is one who gets paid to his/her own satisfaction for the work he or she has produced.  Success, unlike beauty (though we could argue about that, too), is in the mind of the individual, not the beholder.

10)   What advice would you offer to aspiring authors?

Read a lot.

Write a lot.

Send it out a lot.

Stir.  Repeat.

2 Reasons to Link In

I finally joined LinkedIn about a year ago, after lots of invites.  I got one from someone I sort of communicated with anyway, and I wanted to see what it had to offer.  What I've learned is that it's like most other internet social sites out there: it clearly states not to just invite everybody, and it clearly states not to just accept everyone's invitation...and then people just do what they want anyway.  The reasons I've stayed with it:

1.  As a writer, you'll benefit just by having your works, websites and blogs mentioned on your profile page.  Then, whenever you comment on something that you really do want to comment on, your icon shows up, and if someone found your comment interesting or helpful, they can click on your icon, see your works and sites, and now you have another customer, or blog viewer.  You'll immediately see the difference between amateurs and pros.  Stick to the latter.  To that end,

2.  About 95% (and that's being nice) of the stuff that comes your way is unworthy of your time--but 5% isn't, and that's the nugget you swill for.  Every great now and then, someone will say something helpful about blog traffic, or an agent, or you'll make a business contact, etc.  When you find something interesting, you learn from it, you comment on it, and you're off.  I met an editor of an anthology this way, and was able to write and sell a piece to her.  That's what LinkedIn is really for--and you have to very quickly sift through the chaff to see something sparkle.  I get the weekly feeds from my groups--all 40 or 50 of them!!!--but it takes me no longer than an hour a week to go through them all, make the comments that I want, meet the people I want, etc.

The important thing is to not let yourself get carried away.  The most important thing about promoting yourself is to have something worth promoting.  That means, write.  Finish what you're writing.  Send it out.  The best marketing tool you've got is your work.  Make sure you've got enough of it.  Don't blog more than you write.

Guest Interview--Writer Julie Holland, Weekends at Bellevue, Part 3

photo: Cover of Weekends at Bellevue, from the previous interview post (see below)


As the title suggests, this is Part Three of my interview with writer, and Dr., Julie Holland.  She is the author of Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych. ER.  This was a very easy and quick read, interesting and entertaining.  Part One of the interview is here, and Part Two is here.  Thanks to all who commented and emailed about it.  If you're interested in the book, or in Dr. Holland's other writings, go to her website here.
__________________________

7.  Do you read anything outside of professional texts by any other medical professional, such as Oliver Sacks?  Overall, what else do you enjoy reading?  What are some of your favorite titles, and why? 

I read this book of short stories once, called Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard, that really made me feel like I could write, somehow. It was written simply, in first person present tense primarily, but it was completely inspirational for me, and it came at a good time in my musing about the memoir. I do like to read other doctors. Abraham Vergese is amazing, and I enjoy Oliver Sacks, and Andy Weil is someone I admire terribly. I tend toward non-fiction the most, in that I can rationalize I’m learning things I can pass on to my patients, so I end up reading a fair amount of self-help oriented things, and parenting books, which I can often digest in a very short time. For fiction, I’ve always been a fan of John Irving. I love symbolism and magical thinking, and he has plenty. And I used to read a lot of Stephen King when I was younger. Those books go down easy. But I don’t read those types of books anymore. I will always read the fiction piece in the New Yorker. I’ve always loved short stories, and I think Debra Treisman does a great job editing/choosing the authors.

8.  Do you now, or have you ever, felt that your field was dominated by one gender?  If so, can you explain how you work(ed) through that? 

Psychiatry is probably pretty woman-heavy compared to other medical fields. And gay men are over-represented as well, I’d say. So that’s never been a problem for me, feeling like I’m being kept down by
“the man.” Plus, growing up, all my friends were guys and I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy, so even when I was doing a surgery rotation, which was primarily men, I’d just play at being one of the guys, or I’d just flirt my way through the rotation. In the field of psychedelic research and drug policy reform, what I’ve noticed, actually is not so much a domination of one gender, as a preponderance of Jews! My theory is that Jewish people tend to make bad drinkers, given our low levels of the enzyme required to break down alcohol, so there are more pot smokers and drug takers among the “chosen people!” But, being a Jew as well, I fit right in with those guys too.

9.  In a nutshell, what are your thoughts about what it takes to be successful, at anything, for anyone?

I do believe “it takes a strong lure to nurse the hardships we endure.” (who said that? I did.) You need to be committed to a cause and not let the bastards get you down. It’s so easy to be a critic, be a naysayer. Whenever I’ve had good ideas, there have been people in positions of power and experience who’ve told me it wouldn’t work. And I said “watch.” I am an eternal optimist, and “no” is just a place to start negotiations. It drove my mother crazy, but it’s served me well. If my inuition says it’s the right thing to do, I follow my gut.

10.  Why did you decide to write a memoir about your experiences?  How did that come about?

Every single time I told someone that I ran the psych ER at Bellevue on weekends, they all said the same thing. And I mean all. “You should write a book.” They all wanted to hear stories. Everyone had questions. And I had answers. I wanted to explain things to them, about psychosis, the medicines, the crazy behavior not just from the patients. I saw some weird shit go down at that hospital that had nothing to do with the patients. I loved that place, and I wanted to share it with all the people who couldn’t get to do what I did, what I loved. It was easy to write because I was just telling stories. One night a naked kid barking like a dog came in. Another night I got punched in the face. One month this doctor and I kept butting heads. Then my friend died. I had plenty of material, and my memory was sharp, but the most important thing for me about that book was that I kept notes. After a weekend shift at the hospital, I’d come home Monday mornings and write emails to a friend of mine, like “you’ll never believe what happened this weekend.” And I started cutting and pasting my notes from those letters, and they formed the basis of the book. Interesting problem was, I stopped writing emails about my job after I got punched. So when I left Bellevue and decided to write the book, I had to reconstruct all the history from the night I got punched, onward, without any notes.

I'd like to thank Dr. Julie Holland again for doing this (long) interview.  Now go out there and finish your own writing, kids.  If such a busy woman can do it, what's our excuse?