A Good Reason to Write ( & epublish, too)

It’s been a while since I’ve added a new entry on my blog, but I’m remedying that right now. 

Since I last wrote,  I’ve published a couple of things on Smashwords.  This is the first time I’ve done this, but the reasons are pretty much my own.  One is a humor piece I first started years ago about the world’s worst pulp writer, Edgar Rice Krispies.  I was inspired in part by Peter Schickele’s PDQ Bach and the fake horror writer M. M. Moamrath, created by a number of writers, but most notably Steven Utley (I confess, he’s actually the only one whose name I remember.) I had it kicking around for a few years and actually published a shortened version (severely shortened) in Amazing Adventures, a semi-prozine.

Over time I had planned to do something else with it, but mostly I collected old photos and wrote funny captions for them.  I also accumulated some funny—to me, at least—pseudo-biographical and pseudo-historical details, mostly involving Krispies’ involvement in causing the First World War.  I really hadn’t looked at it for a while, but it seemed about time to get it out there.  Smashwords simply offered what I saw as the best venue for a piece I realized was unlikely to have wide-spread appeal beyond science fiction or pulp magazine fans.

Putting everything together was actually easy.  It was mostly a cut and paste operating with MS Word and the program’s tables and frames apps.  Then I had to format it to meet Shashwords’ requirement, which mostly depended on my using smaller d.p.i. images than I had initially use.  So, it’s up, listed at $2.99, offered in several ebook formats, and while it’s not a bestseller—hell, I don’t think I’ve sold a single copy yet.  I did set up a Facebook page for it and got the news out to my fandom friends there, but I can’t say it’s done anything positive,  Like most writers, I really bad at self-promotion.

Still, I’m pleased to at last have it out there.  I’ve always liked it and it still makes me laugh.  Perhaps someday someone will stumble across it, realize its genius, and help make it a cult classic (yeah, sure). 

The other book is a children’s book, “Stacey and the Monkey King,” which I wrote about twenty years ago as a Christmas present for my niece Stacey Franklin.  She was six at the time.  Later her family moved to Kansas, where, after a soccer injury, she developed Reflexive Sympathetic Dystrophy in one arm.  RSD, which has a number other names, is mostly notable for cause intense horrible pain and making the affected limb twitch.  Over time it seems to spread to other parts of the body, and the pain can become unbearable.  At one point, she was actually on methadone to handle the pain.  By then, she was mostly wheelchair and home-bound, unable to attend school or do much else.

Two years ago, Stacey had gall bladder surgery.  During the surgery, her blood/oxygen level dropped dangerously.  As she recovered, she had to be on oxygen when she slept.  One night, she apparently accidentally knocked off her oxygen mask.  Her parents found her the next morning.   Her body was already cold.

I had long tried unsuccessfully to get “Stacey and the Monkey King” published, but getting a childrens’ book accepted is almost impossible unless you’re a celebrity.  I had considered having it make as an e-book and I even went so far as to create illustrations for the story.  Again, Smashwords  offered the solution.  Once it was available, I knew Stacey would be essentially immortal.  How could I resist that?

That’s one reason why I write--to cheat Death in about the only I know how.

If anyone is interested, you can find “Stacey and the Monkey King” at Smashwords.  It’s a Christmas story and a damn good one, too, I think.  Personally, I don’t like the holidays.  Too dark too long during the day, and I’ve got seasonal affective disorder, too.  But knowing that my story added a little cheer to someone’s Christmas would make me feel better.

Stacey & the Monkey King

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/247428

Edgar Rice Krispies: Mangler of Adventure

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/246502

 

Friends of Mine are past and gone. But not forgotten

It's been a while since I've updated my blog.  Too many commitments, projects (new & overdue both), illnesses of loved ones, all take a toll.  Which brings me to my subject:

The death of writer Nora Ephron on Tuesday night made me realize that I've been thinking a lot about death recently.  Not mine, but that of friends and people I respect and admire.  Comes with age, I suppose, and I'm in that arena, though not too deeply, I hope.  I suppose it also may be tied to some writing I'm doing on a new novel.  A night-club fire and a tornado play prominent roles in the story.  I'm a stickler for details (being a historian and former journalist) so I was learning about what fire and storms do to the human body and how damn frail and flimsy we humans are.

While I was doing the research and writing the scenes, however, I also learned a dear old friend of mine, Cathy Ball, was in home hospice care in Oklahoma, suffering from terminal cancer.   I heard about this from another friend, and subsequently I wrote yet another friend for information.  She told me Cathy had taken a turn for the worse two weeks ago.  She told me the news was a shock, as Cathy had been able to visit my friend and her husband,  mainly to see if her cat McGee was compatible with their cat. (The reason for cat-compatibility should be obvious, unfortunately.)  Even then, Cathy's sister Barbie had to bring Cathy in a wheelchair.  Apparently Barbie and her other siblings are taking turns stay with her to work on legal and related matters.  My friend said that that when she has called Cathy, Cathy has sometimes been coherent and other times not.  She attributed that to the medication Cathy has been on.

At that same time, I learned that Cathy's husband, Jim Brazell, had died of cancer and complications of diabetes in December 2011, and that Cathy had neglected her own health while nursing Jim.  There's a picture of them together at Conestoga 10 at Tulsa in 2006.  It's on the MidAmericon website, and I hope the photographer,  Keith Stokes, will not mind my including it here.

Copyright 2008 Keith Stokes

A larger version is at <http://www.midamericon.org/photoarchive/06cona10.htm>

   
I find it hard to use the past tense when writing about Cathy because she's not dead yet-at least not at 11 pm Eastern Time, as I write this. being a Monty Python fan, she no doubt would enjoy the irony of that.  Still what she has done remains important, so the tense be damned.  I'm an historian, and for me everything is the past  and should be venerated.

Cathy was one of earliest members of NOSFA and, having discovered fandom first in Britain, was beloved by fandom on both sides of the Atlantic.  Cathy was a tough, no-nonsense woman who spent four years in the US Air Force as an MP.  She was a driving force in creating the early NOSFA fanzine "Red Dust," as well as her own "Under the Influence."  She was a prime mover in NOSFA's early SF conventions one of the leaders in creating our earliest conventions, such as "Norman Conquest."  Cathy was active in so many other areas of fandom, including chairing "RestCon."   Also served her time working at a local used bookstore before going to B. Dalton's.  After that chain closed, she found her own store, "Ball's Books," a great place to find all sorts of odd and interesting volumes.  She later sold the store to concentrate on her own writing, but the store (with a different name) is still there as far as I know.  

Cathy was also a writer.  Her story "Bodybag" was one of three stories ("Going Gentle" and "Greenhouse" are the other two) she wrote that appeared in the now defunct  Tomorrow SF magazine in the early 1990s. Her best-known piece, the satirical "Love's Prurient Interest" first appeared in a fanzine, but was reprinted in Shaggy B. E. M Stories, a limited edition anthology edited by Mike Resnick and published in conjunction with NOLACon in New Orleans.  It was reprinted just last September in another Resnick anthology, Bug-Eyed Monsters and Bimbos: A Hilarious Collection of Parodies by Some of the Greatest Writers of Science Fiction, which you can find on Amazon and other bookstore sites. 

More important, she was always supportive of the writing efforts of others, as many of her friends can confirm.  She was especially supportive of  Cary Osborne's (aka Devin Cary) early works such as Iroshi and The Winter Queen. and of Kim Pugh, another good friend of mine who died too young.   I think she and both regretted that none of Kim's works saw the light of day in the greater world.  His funeral I was the first and only time I'd ever seen her cry.

So I'm feeling sad. powerless, and depressed right now, since I now live 1,500 miles away.  I really have only these words to offer her.  Her illness has reminded me of other members of NOSFA who've died much too young.  Jim Brazell, Kim Pugh, Ed Howard, Paul Cherry, and Nancy Peay, I promise to never forget you, and I won't forget Cathy, either.  I can't forget her, and I know no one who knew her will either.  

I can only say that I and many others love Cathy and care about her.   The numbers of folk who entered fandom because of her are immeasurable, but the impact of her actions remains immense. In the end, I suppose, that's all any of us really have.  But what a magnificent legacy that is.  And with luck, future generations will discover her works and at least get a glimpse of what a great and special person she was.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take some time with my own little pity-pot to grieve.

The Plot Thickens or Sickens, It Depends

Most writers struggle with plots, or, rather, with storylines. Some people can generate Byzantine plots that aren't a story, while others construct elaborate stories with the thinnest of plots.  Supposedly there are only 14 to 20 plots, such as: 1. "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy builds girl" 2. "Hero has treasure, loses treasures, regains treasure." Having said that, I admit I've never seen a list of those fourteen to twenty plots.        In most cases, there is confusion between a plot, a plot-line, and a story.  If any story is broken down to bare, really bare bones, there are probably many plots and subplots, but really just one story.  We think of the events within a story as a plot, when actually it's much simpler than that.  The story is actually the characters, setting, and the series of missteps, accidents, misadventures, and disasters that occur to stretch the plot out into a story.   The plot is easy, sort of, but the story is hard. The story emerges when you add in characters, themes, settings, etc.  Plots aren't so simple, even in microfiction. These days there are loads of so-called “plot generators” online.  Most are meant for a laugh or to act as a prompt.  But to be accurate, the plot generators really only generate a premise.  A premise is where a plot, and then a story, develops.  Once you've generated some of those weird plot ideas, you can see the difference between a plot and a story.   Most of the plot generators are not going to create the next bestseller.  I’m not even sure it can generate even a basic, straightforward story. I must confess, however, that it might create a bizarro or Monty Python-esque story.  For example, I recently generated enough pieces, that when I put them together and edited the repetitive bits  that I could actually compose a bizarro pulp parody, "Iowa Million and the Raters of the Lost Auk." Now this is a "supposedly lost story" by the not-so-great Edgar Rice Krispies, a fictional really bad writer I created a while back and have since created all sorts of silly stuff about him.  About twenty years ago I actually published a non-fact article about ERK in a old issue of the defunct semi-pro Amazing Adventures. Plot generators are certainly an interesting thing to play around with, though.  Some brief plots I generated on Seventh Sanctum (or maybe Warp Core, can’t recall which) include these: 1. The action begins in a underwater bunker. A light-fingered writer and an alcoholic warlord are attracted to each other. But she is enslaved by another species. Eventually they are united in death. 2.  The action begins in an icy planet. A lithe outcast and an old musician are betrothed. But their people are at war with each other. Finally they wonder what they could have been thinking. 3. A businesswoman is turned into a snake.  Can she convince a rogue astral traveller to restore her? **** A zombie site, whose name I can’t remember off-hand, gave me these two ‘plot’ ideas: 1.A dyslexic zombie and a Navy seal go on a date. 2. A Puerto Rican zombie gets stood up by the ex-husband of a novelist in virtual reality. **** My favorite, however, may well be Plot Generator, a UK-based site.  It’s the most fun because it offers five categories in which to generate plots and you get to decide what items go into it.  You can generate Romance, Crime, Mystery, Teen Vampire, and Bronte Sisters plots, and each comes with a simulated paperback cover.  Now, in truth, what is being generated is not so much a plot as it is jacket-flap copy, included "selected" endorsements from various sources.  But it doesn't mean it's not fun. Here for example is a teenage vampire story it generated.  Stephanie Myers, beware!

Vampire in Elkhorn, a teen vampire story by Sally Grubb There's a funny new girl in Elkhorn and she has everybody talking. Stunningly buxom and devastatingly plump, all the girls want her.  However, Sarah Mittle has a secret - she's an impulsive vampire. Camille LeFanu is an even-tempered, lanky girl who enjoys stamp collecting. She becomes fascinated by Sarah, who can stop a  sledgehammer with her bare hands.

But she doesn't understand why Sarah's so stand-offish. Her bestfriend, a kind golem called Harvey, helps Camille begin to piece together the puzzle. Together, they discover the ultimate anti-vampire weapon - a smooth, hard stilleto. When bodies start turning up all over Elkhorn, Camille begins to fear the worst. The golem urges her to report Sarah to the police and she knows she should, so what's stopping her? She may resist Sarah's bite, but can she resist her charms? Will she be caught wrestling with the vampire? **** Maybe I'd even read this next one myself.

Transmission Investigates a crime thriller     by N.S. Anthony Mangled fingers have been turning up all over Berlin and the inhabitants are scared. Ten murders in ten weeks, all committed with a samurai sword, and still nobody has a clue who the egotistical killer is. Manuel Transmission is a heavy set and single-minded art teacher with a fondness for absinthe. He doesn't know it yet but he is the only one who can stop the narcissistic killer.  When his dominatrix, Natalie Dressed, is kidnapped, Transmission finds himself thrown into the centre of the investigation.His only clue is a massive dildo. He enlists the help of a passionate chemist named Crimea River.  Can River help Transmission overcome his absinthe addiction and find the answers before the deceitful killer and his deadly samurai sword strike again?

**** And what literature major wouldn't want to read the lost collaboration of all three Bronte sisters, the immortal The Humid Moors?

The Humid Moors By the Three Brontes Harold Angel is a gentle and calm orphan raised by a brash and egotistical stockbroker. Eventually he gets a job working as a psychiatrist for the determined Lady Leventhal of Leventhal Condo.  The unlikely couple rapidly succumb to a obsessive passion. On the day of their wedding, a rude hockey player escapes from the attic of Leventhal Condo and starts a fire. Believing that Lady Leventhal is dead, Harold flees from the church and wanders the humid moors for days until he is rescued by a collected janitor. However, although Lady Leventhal is blinded by the fire, she still breathes. Without Harold she becomes selfish and boastful. She turns to alcohol for comfort. The ghost of the hockey player from the attic haunts her.  Meanwhile, thinking Lady Leventhal is dead, Harold accepts a marriage proposal from his saviour, the janitor. However, one night he believes he can hear Lady Leventhal calling, "Harold, where are you? Harold come home!" and he returns to Leventhal Condo. On Harold's return, he finds Lady Leventhal drunk and without sight. Mistaking him for the ghost of the rude hockey player, she attacks him with a bowie knife and Harold Angel dies. As she attends to the body, Lady Leventhal realises what she has done. Driven mad with guilt, she hatches a plan to destroy the next generation, but there is no next generation and she dies of consumption two weeks later.

**** Here are just a few of the plot-lines I generated on Warpcore. [I think it’s “Warpcore.”  I can’t keep them all straight, actually.]

1.  A unscrupulous warlord is being pursued in a heavily monitored mountain. His sister is driven mad by a foul time traveller. With the help of a smart mutant, he must raise an army in order to avert disaster and save his family. 2. A lonely pilot is facing death in a post-apocalyptic brothel. His planet is destroyed by a small meteor. With the help of a charming robot, he must make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save his future. 3. An optimistic primitive is causing a disturbance in a windswept moon. His leaders are destroyed by a deadly earthquake. With the help of an athletic alien, he must destroy a predatory alien in order to save his friends.

Who’s That Shady Character? I should point out that  Seventh Sanctum also has a character generator that actually may be really useful.  For example, some of the characters it generated for me were:

1. He is a 146 year old werebeast with yellow skin and bushy fur.  Born to criminals during a famine, he was taught to hold a gun as a child the war broke out.  He is interested in quantum physics and theories of everything and can smell emotions.  He is unconventional, over-friendly and extremist. 2. He is a fairy with ash-grey skin, greasy hair and emerald eyes.  He is 30 years old, young by the standards of his race.  Born to an idiot and a weakling on a brigantine in the Caribbean, he was made to work in the fields when young.  He loves to swim and practices necromancy.  He is unimaginative, attention-seeking and right wing. 3. He is a genetically improved human with alabaster skin, straight, jet hair and ice blue eyes. He is 126 years old.  Born to farmers in a factory, he was sent to boarding school as a child before becoming radicalized. He wields a laser and refuses to touch meat.  He is self-restrained, loving and overconfident. 4. He is a half-elf with alabaster skin, straight, jet hair and ice blue eyes.  He is 144 years old.  Born to a family of pariahs in a slum, he was adopted as a child before happening on a lucky find.  He is a vegetarian and hates getting dirty. He is smart, rude and angry. 5. He is an immortal spirit with a brutal left-hook. He was once a free man. He prefers to live in the plains. 6. She is a 108-year-old werebeast with translucent skin and light fur.  Born to a whore in Norman times, she was ordered to carry out domestic chores when young before marrying and then divorcing a dangerous lunatic. She brews herbal remedies and has a coven of followers.  She is unconventional, nervous around new people and morbid. 7. She is a demon with cold green skin.  She is 510 years old.  Born to a family of pariahs in Norman times, she was left on the streets when young before happening on a lucky find.  She plays the lute inexpertly and keeps a pet snake.  She is picky, an extrovert and moody. 8.  She is a half-elf with alabaster skin, a shaved head and ice blue eyes.  She is 213 years old.  Born to refugees in a castle, she was expected to achieve great things when young before plague ravaged the population. She plays the harp and sleeps too little. She is brave, vicious and self-assured. 9.  She is a human with caramel skin, aged 82. She has straight, white hair and toffee-brown eyes.  Born to a tribe of pirates on a distant planet, she was made to work in a factory as a child before starting a business that failed. She wants to explore the Oort Cloud and speaks Ant and Bee.  She is hard-working, attention-seeking and capricious. 10.  She is a human with tanned skin, aged 33. She has straight blonde hair and blue-grey eyes.  Born to a family of clerics in a small town, she was neglected when young before joining the army. She plays the harp and can smell emotions.  She is driven, over-friendly and naive.           11.  She is a mutant with flaking skin, long, tangled hair and violet eyes. She is 66 years old.  Born to a couple of scientists after the assassination of Queen Victoria, she was apprenticed to a gamekeeper as a child before marrying into money. She wields a sword-cane and is terrified of peculiar things. She is organized, dresses ostentatiously and overconfident.

Some Plot Generators:

So have some fun and if anyone actually writes and publishes a story from a generated premise, please let me know.

WarpCore http://www.warpcoresf.co.uk/scifiplot.php

Hilary DePiano’s Web Page   <http://www.hillarydepiano.com/2010/03/09/random-plot-generators-for-writers-block-a-laugh/>

Script Frenzy <http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/>

Seventh Sanctum <http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php>

Plot Generator  < http://plot-generator.org.uk>

Enough about you. Time to check your inflated ego at the door.

Blues singer Rory Block has a song with a chorus that starts “God’s gift to women, that’s what you think you are…” Needless to say, the song is about why the vain “gift” ain’t as goddamn divine as he thinks.

Which brings me back to the subject I’ve been blogging about.  The aforementioned writer (not yet an author since he admits he’s not been published) has become hostile and has even demanded that other group members identify just who they are.  He also took offense at being labeled a troll, saying that trolls are fat and short and he is skinny.  But most significant is that he claims his writing abilities are a divine gift.

While there are some few and rare writers whose works are discovered as unpublished masterpieces after their deaths, but Emily Dickinson and John Kennedy O'Toole, for example, are so extraordinarily uncommon as to render the idea of literary genius without being published while alive an oxymoron.

If so, then I suggest he should sue whatever deity responsible for the “gift” for product fraud.  More important, this person needs to develop some "netiquette" and learn to be polite and courteous and not try to hawk his ego like some snake-oil patent medicine.  Like people in most writing groups and workshops, the vast, overwhelming majority of those members are interested in the work, both their own and others, and that work needs to speak for itself.

But this young man (I’m assuming he’s young.  He has admitted he’s Eastern European and that English is not his native tongue) seems offended at the idea of submitting his stories for critique.  He doesn’t seem to understand that criticism can be both constructive and/or destructive.  Sometimes negative criticism is extraordinarily constructive, while positive remarks can help perpetuate bad writing habits.   Yet he denounces any possible suggestion of a critique of his stories as “negativity” and a direct assault on his “divine genius.”

He’s not alone, sadly.  I’ve met more than my share of young aspiring writers who believe they write prose on par with the Bible, some other sacred writings, or their personal favorite writer.  Now, I confess every aspiring writer thinks he or she is the next big thing, the next Tolkien, Anne McCaffrey, Heinlein, etc.  Many produce either nothing but hot air, or what they’ve written suggests they’re not even the next Ed Earl Repp (a 1920s pulp writer, if you didn’t know.)

Most aren’t just doing what’s already been done to death; they’re also doing what was already unoriginal long before it was done to death.   I can’t tell you how many workshop or slush-pile stories I’ve encountered that end up being how the universe was created (often in a first person narrative raising questions about the writer’s own self-perception, although certainly explains the screwed up nature of the world.)  Either that, or the story is about the survivors of some cataclysmic disaster who in the “surprise” ending are named—wait for it—Adam and Eve.  To be fair, this is something we’ve all done if we’re honest about ourselves. (I try not to remember my efforts in that vein.  Makes my teeth hurt.)

Some of these beginning writers learn, eventually, how to put together a real story as opposed to an extended shaggy dog anecdote, but a lot don’t.  Fortunately, most never get published, although with new publishing technologies that's no longer the case.  Those who do learn quite often join writers’ groups or workshops.  They have, at some point, realized that this is all about the work.

Overcoming resistance to criticism is biggest step most writers can make.  Few of us are born literary geniuses, something our young writer has failed to learn.  I’ve never really met anyone whose first lines on the page were a masterpiece in waiting.  Most have struggled, worked hard, taken advice, and then had that “aha!” moment when they suddenly understand what the advice is all about.  (“Scriveners’ Satori,” if you like.)

Just remember, this is about your work, not about you.  Let others read what you've got.  We may recognize a spark of genius there, or the whiff of crap.  In either case, it will make you a better writer.  Just remember, criticism of any kind is NOT aimed at your worth as a person.  But your behavior in responding to such criticism sure is an indicator of how people will view you.  A writer of any kind needs humility and good editorial advice. 

I have a novel that's been accepted, and I'm working with an editor who has a lot of questions and suggestions. Of course it’s uncomfortable for some else to find flaws in what your thought was great work. On the other hand, she’s noticing things that a reader would surely spot and questions.  She’s made some great suggestions to make the novel much better and others that make me raise an eyebrow. 

Every writer sees his or her work as a product of the heart and mind, as an offspring, if you like.  Parents/artists, however, need to be told that sometimes their child/offspring/story is a piece of crap and why it's crap.  They may also point out you actually have a real diamond in the shit, and that if you removed the terrible material, you'll see the diamond yourself and learn how to polish its facets, either through personal realization or, more often, from suggestions by others.

The best writers have the best critics, because the critics see something of value there.  Bad writing isn't worth bothering with, and actually is easy to spot after reading the first few opening lines and the ending.  That's in fact how slush-pile readers go through the mounds of submissions they receive.  They also realize that Sturgeon's Law applies to most things in the slush-pile—99 percent of everything is crap.

But it's also where many great writers are eventually found—after they've been repeatedly rejected by numerous publications.  But you learn from that.  You learn to rewrite, to polish, to spot your own mistakes, and develop the skills to become a skilled craftsman.  Think of it this way—not everything Shakespeare wrote was a masterpiece, but the immortal bard had friends—nay, constructive critics—who separated Will's wheat from the chaff and—I suspect—destroyed the chaff so only the wheat would appear in the First Folio of Shakespeare's play.

Most of us, however, are never going to be Shakespeare, so we have to recognize that and accept a simple truth: Great works are not written.  They are rewritten and rewritten again and again and only after criticism—both positive and negative—given after each rewrite.  Only then can it sparkle like a gem, and, if you can find an editor who can see the diamond within, you'll have a published work that others can enjoy and perhaps even admire.

But check your ego at the door, boldly put your works into the field of fire, and develop the attitude that "whatever criticism does not literally kill me (an impossibility, in fact) can only make me a better writer."

-30-

Lately there has been a running word battle on the Worlds of Fantasy group on Yahoo.  One commentator who posed the question "Can anyone write great epic fantasy?" has taken offense that others have asked about his writing and if he has published anything.  The poster said he had written 150 pieces for friends, none published, and pointed out his father had published two books and that a published writer was his mentor.  Needless to say  the young man demanded to know by what right the other posters thought they could judge his work.  A rather one-sided war of words ensued, with most posters trying to be civil and the young writer (who is clearly male) remaining offended and hostile.

I offer my response to this rumble, hugger-mugger, dispute, melee or whatever as I posted it, with some additions in brackets:

Dueling wounded egos is seriously uncool.  No one is as good as they think they are.  [Nor as bad as they fear they are.] We can all learn from others' writings and it's good to stretch your wings and even break the rules.  But first you must learn the rules--otherwise you're simply disregarding the rules and more than likely you'll be merely repeating amateurish mistakes and hackneyed cliches.

And being defensive [and hostile to boot] is certainly not a wise idea.  The immediate impression you give to other people is that you are an unremitting a**hole.  That does you no good. 

Similarly, telling us who is your mentor/teacher can be seen as name-dropping by a poseur.  I have a degree in professional writing from the journalism school at the University of Oklahoma.  I've studied with the late novelists Jack Bickham and Robert Duncan, and took a mystery writing class with Carolyn Hart.  I'm glad I did, but to make a big deal of it ignores the fact that others also took those classes and probably (defiinitely actually) have been more successful.  The teachers' cachet or your having well known writers as friends doesn't mean jack if you can't get your writing published. 

I'm just now getting some success, but it was the result of hard work and persistence.  Samuel Johnson once said that anyone who wrote for anything but money was a blockhead.  But if you are not able to get published, it's as if you had never written at all.  I have a saying in a frame on my desk: "Writing without publishing is like acting without applause."

Don't tell us how great your work is.  Starting sending it out and getting some rejection letters, develop a hide like a rhino and take the rejection as a measure of the quality of that piece and not a judgment of you.  Every rejection builds your skills as a writer.  I've had a novel published and one recently accepted.  Both of them had been submitted and rejected multiple times, but I tried to learn what I was doing incorrectly.  A minor rewrite of the ending of my novel Ukishima probably was the change that took it over the top to acceptance.  My other novel, The Gonaymne Weapon began as something I wrote as an undergrad and totally revised twice.  The final version has no resemblance to the first draft, other than the name of the protagonist and his basic character.  From the start I got that part right, but it took me time to bring everything else into clarity.  I grew as a storyteller with that manuscript, and finally learned about outlining a work rather than flying by the seat of my pants.  But that wouldn't have happened without editors telling me what was wrong or without me realizing I wasn't the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Without that self-criticism (what Russians call "samokritika")  I 'd probably not have anything published at all.

Writing is both a craft and a habit that must be continually practiced and refined.  Even sluggers keep taking batting practice, but they know that a great hitter still fails about 70 percent of the time.

In other words, a writer who thinks he's a god (or goddess)'s gift to the world has a fool for a fan club.

Do I have the right to judge anyone else's work? Yes.  But I must be a harsher judge of my own work and to develop a thick skin when taking criticism, especially my own.

Check your ego at the door.  It's not about you.  It's about the work.  If your piece sucks, ask why it sucks, take the criticism, and incorporate those suggestions which make sense.  As you become a good craftsmen, you will make the changes appear so seamless no one will ever know that the revisions weren't what you meant all along. 

Can anyone write epic fantasy?

This was a post I made on the World of Fantasy group on Yahoo in response to another member's question.  I think it also makes a number of points about why I write, so I thought I'd re-post it so more folks can read it and share their views on the subject.

--- In Worlds_Of_Fantasy@yahoogroups.com, "damodar1982" <damodar1982@...> wrote:
>
> i think almost anyone can write story better and nicer than Lord of the Rings an d or ovverrated Game of thrones ...whatchyu think ????

I think anyone can write epic fantasy, but writing good or great fantasy is quite another matter. The numbers of poor or outright bad epic fantasy grows every year. The numerous LOTR pastiches are so generally awful they could constitute their own genre. The problem I have with most epic fantasy is that it is so cliched, hackneyed, morally unambiguous and just plain dull and obvious. Think about how easy it is to have elves, dwarfs, dragons, wizards, unicorns, etc.

Having just had a fantasy novel published, I think the problem is that most fantasy novelists have a very narrow range of experiences in  reading other fantasy works.  They also  seem to possess a limited repertoire of emotional experiences and cultural knowledge or curiosity with which to work.  I confess I'm personally not a big fan of epic fantasy because of that, which is one reason my own novel (wait for shameless plug) Ukishima uses Japanese mythology and history. Partly I wanted to be different, but I also wanted to write a book that would interest me and frankly Western European tribal folklore, knights in shining armor, hairy chested (usually "Celtic") barbarians, and Christian allegory are just not my cup of tea. They're also just too easy to write and because of that over-familiarity such books are just plain contemptible because essentially you've already read it in multiple versions. But here's the real and fatal problem: those variants lack any imagination or originality.

Again, just to be a contrarian, I've considered writing a fantasy novel using Afghan and Tibetan mythology with a plot inspired by the real-life adventures of my late, first wife.  In both Ukishima and this still gestating story idea, I was/am intrigued by these different cultures and learning about them was/is also rewarding.

So, yes, it is easy for anyone to write epic fantasy, if you lack any imagination whatsoever and have the soul of a plagiarist or slavish imitator.
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I'd mention some specific books, except that some are by people I know personally.  I like them too much as friends to let them know I find their works unreadable at best.  Fortunately, someone else took on the "daunting" task of listing some of the worst series.  It's located here: <http://bestfantasybooks.com/worst-fantasy-books.html>

I also confess I had no idea just how many bad epic fantasy novels and series are out there.
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When Life Attacks!

One thing anyone who writes has to endure is reality.  This week I've had a lot of that.  I had an ear infection that left me deaf but has cleared up.  My wife Nancy, however, had some swelling in her legs, which it turns out was caused by blood-clots.  She's already endured a broken elbow and bronchitis since the end of November.  Naturally that's not all--our 16-year-old cat Pyewacket had six ounces of fluid drained from around her heart.  Turns out it contained some cancer cells, so needless to say there is little to do.  Besides her age, another reason is vets do not do chest surgery on cats.

Why do I mention this? Because all these events  directly and indirectly affect my writing.  This is probably true for all writers, but certainly true for good writers.  At some point I'm sure I'll incorporate every bit of this in something I'll write.  Everything in my life is certainly grist for the mill.  Sometimes, however, you have to think a bit about it, let it age, let the painful aspects grow more emotionally distant.

I've considered doing just that in writing a novel about my first wife.  Vicki was an incredible woman, who traveled across Europe, most of Asia Minor (including Iran and Afghanistan with a hashish smuggler) and the Indian subcontinent, as well as Thailand and Taiwan.  She became a practicing Tibetan Buddhist and was even blessed by the Dalai Lama.

She was, however, also bipolar, with schizoid affect, and had had several episodes starting in college.  The illness was probably genetic as her sister, her mother, and grandfather all had been diagnosed with the illness.  Only Vicki's version seems to have been much worse.  She could be energetic, brilliant, and aggressively sexual on the highs, but depressed and eventually suicidal on the down side.

I'll say that I adored her.  She was sexy older woman in my life. (She was eight years older than me.)  We did things I'd only read about in sleazy novels.   But in 1984, both my father and her father died. In the next year her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  I don't think she could cope.  Two or three times in the following year she tried to kill herself with pills and alcohol, but I always came home from work before she succeeded. But at some point the voices in her head told her to go to India and she left me.  During that period I met Nancy, but barely a few months into our relationship I received a phone call from Vicki in which she told me the voices in her head said I was lonely and she had to return to Oklahoma.

So I broke off my relationship with Nancy, and tried to make a go off it with Vicki.  Then one day she was gone and the day after I got a call at work that she was in a Tulsa hospital.  She had checked into the Doubletree Hotel in Tulsa, about ninety minutes away and attempted suicide.  She had failed.  I drove up to get her, took her to the psych ward at St. Anthony's hospital in OKC where her psychiatrist was on staff,  then went home and called Nancy.  The next day I filed for divorce.

Eventually Vicki's psychiatrist managed to get her into a program in New Haven, Conn. (not associated with Yale) and she went there, worked briefly for mystical self-help guru Bernie Siegel and then went off to Thailand, seeking enlightenment I suppose.  By then Nancy and I had been living together and then were married.

Did that have an effect on Vicki?  I don't know. Perhaps.  I just know that I had a good idea she would kill herself and her brother-in-law would call to tell me.  In May 1991, that's exactly what happened.
So it's been over twenty years and only now have I even begun to think about writing a novel with her as the protagonist.  (She does make an appearance in my forthcoming sf novel The Gonaymne Weapon where she's the insane wife of the main antagonist.)

So just other day I found a copy of Jason Elliot's An Unexpected Light, about his travels in Afghanistan in the 1990s and I realized it was about time to tell Vicki's story, although admittedly in a fantasy style.  I'm not sure people would think she's believable in any other fashion.  I just know it's time.  In fact, I don't think I could have written this piece until now.

So I write in part to deal with my past, realizing I'm the sort of person who needs to forgive and to understand rather than someone who writes in anger and fury.  That's true even if it takes two decades to realize it.

(copyright 2012 by Nigel Sellars)

A positive review of my book!

Just got my first Amazon customer review of Ukishima.  I'm stoked!  So far two book reviews and both are positive!  What a boost for my ego! 


http://www.amazon.com/Ukishima-ebook/product-reviews/B0075CP4CA/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

The Idiots at Home

No doubt some of you have seen An Idiot Abroad, the Science Channel Program from Ricky Gervais.  In it a likable dolt named Karl Pilkington endures all sorts of embarrassment and/or humiliation, yet at the same time he gets to do some things most of would like to do (climb Kilimanjaro, hunt yetis, travel Route 66, learn make-up techniques from Thai lady-boys--you get the idea.)  Yet to call Karl an idiot is really unfair.  He takes most of these experiences good naturedly and he learns from those experiences.

Compare that with our own idiots at home.  I, of course, refer to the GOP presidential candidates.  Rick Santorum has continually revealed that what lies between his ears is like Gertrude Stein's desciption of Oakland: There is no there there.  Who would have thought a presidential candidate would say that John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech about the absolute separation of church and state almost made him throw up? Kennedy's speech eased tensions and fears over his Catholicism.  Santorum's comment conjure up the 19th century fears of a papal fifth column ( the Irish) were here to undermine America and make it Catholic.  The author of Maria Monk, or The Secrets of a Convent, and other anti-Catholic tracts would support Santorum's positions because the Senator's remarks actually prove their fears were justified.  Similarly, cartoonist Thomas Nast, who portrayed Catholic prelates as alligators (it's the hats) threatening America would see Santorum as a prime example of what he was cartooning about.  Santorum reinforces bigoted ideas that I thought were dead and buried.   What's more remarkable is that it resonates with religious social conservatives who a century and a half ago would have been like the torch-carrying peasant mob in "Frankstein," only on their way to burn a Catholic church rather than a monster.  Of course, to those yahoos there was no difference.

Only in America can you find someone who still holds to 19th, or even 18th century Catholic dogma.  And only in America can you find Protestant evangelicals who have turned to aged Catholic dogma to justify their own positions, which seems oddly contradictory.  Then again, I have an old friend who noted years ago that evangelicals have been slowly recreating all the things that caused the Reformation in the first place.   As Marx once wrote:  "History does repeat itself; the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

But idiocy goes deeper.  It's like watching second graders in a food fight exchange insults like "I'm rubber and you're glue..." or endless "Your mother is like..." cracks.  The other candidates either stumble or mumble and still say things they'd have been better to keep to themselves.  And somehow, Gingrich's enthusiasm for a moon-base that could become a state (Quelle surprise!) somehow suggests the man is three bricks shy of a load.  And I'm a science fiction fan who supports space exploration.  He makes me want to flee to the Canadian wilderness and build a bunker.

I'm hoping the current age of idiocy is the farce.  Yet it makes it difficult for writers to satirize things because the satire of the past has unfortunately become the present.  I think of Robert Sheckley's great short stories that lampooned television game shows.  Apparently network programmers thought Sheckley was writing a game plan for them to carry out.  Think about it, isn't "The Amazing Race" straight out of Sheckley?  And aren't "reality" shows like "Survivor" just a version of any number of science fiction stories, just minus the actual killing of the competitors ala Sheckley's "The Tenth Victim"?

All of this makes writing near future science fiction virtually impossible.  While we were all worrying about how computers would take over world and how the phone system could produce a massive, sentient super-computer overlord, what we actually got was the Internet and the World Wide Web, without which you wouldn't be reading this.  We should have been reading and working to prevent the world(s) described by Frederick Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth and by Sheckley.  Instead of worrying about Communism, we should have worried about might replace it.  Where were the stories about post-Communist Russian and China?  Apparently no one could imagine China become the real engine of the world economy or a Russia run by gangsters whose actions often make Stalin seem like a pussy cat.  No one, except maybe L. Sprague deCamp, thought Brazil might become a major force in the world.  And India?  Americans, let alone sf writers, could only see the world of Gandhi (the movie, not the man) and maybe also Apu from the Simpsons.

Good near future science fiction, which I like, needs to get beyond the parochialism that characterizes most Americans.  The Founders were cosmopolitans, men of the world, and not the narrow-minded localists the Tea Party imagine them to be.  Writers have to be more cosmopolitan, to imagine things beyond the neighbor's yard.  We like to imagine ourselves thinking of the cosmos, of the universe, yet our social ideas are retro.  We can only imagine a world that's like an imaginary small town America of the some century that never happened.  Social, political and economic conservatism and libertarianism need to be supplanted by examining the trends of the real world, rather than imagining and longing for a past that never was.  Good science fiction has to breakdown barriers, to image societies that are familiar, but also very strange.  For example, could we imagine a future society deriving more from Polynesian or Maori cultural traditions, a society where machines have reached the point of providing everything humans need so a free market economy is irrelevant and greed is pointless and even passe', where Western Samoa or Papua New Guinea is the real power in the world.

I'm not even sure I can write that world.  But I can tell you about future society almost none of us can write about in fiction because it's all too apparent.  It's the world we live in, a fool's paradise and an idiot's delight.  And that's because not a one of us thinks about Robert Heinlein's most important warning: "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."  Now there's a real source of ideas for science fiction.  And all you have to do is look around, but you can't let it overwhelm you.

My First Blog Entry

I've resisted starting a blog for a long time.  But that was before I started having success with my writing.  The recent release of my novel Ukishima, first as a Kindle e-book and soon as a paperback from Hydra Publishers has enrgized me.  Of course, it didn't hurt that the day the ebook was release, I learned another novel of mine, The Gonaymne Weapon, had been accepted by Montag Press.  I then had three short stories accepted in the same week.

I've been writing since elementary school, and even earned a bachelor's degree in professional writing at the University of Oklahoma, but I had horrible luck.  One agent I had ended up eating some bad oysters and became ill, so he had to cut back on his clients.  Me, not having sold anything, was one of those who had to be dropped, alas.  Then again, I had an editor interested in Ukishima, a fantasy set in a medieval-esque Japan, but he was shoot down when higher ups said the imprint already had a work set in Japan.  But I've persevered.  I began both these books in one form or another twenty or thirty years ago.  Ukishima I wrote while going though a marriage and divorce from my tragically bi-polar first wife, and while my father was dying.  That my first wife's father and mother died around the same time just made matters worse.

Still, I stayed late at coffee shops, writing in long-handed in several journals until I finally got it completed.  To see it finally in print has been incredible.  I can hardly wait for the paperback.
The Gonaymne Weapon actually began as a short story I wrote in high school.  It was quite different from the final version.  I wrote the first draft of the novel in college (my first attempt at a novel) and kept peddling it around without a bit.  Then I decided to start anew, moving the stotry off-Earth to a planet orbiting a different star.  I got about halfway through the rewrite and I was going nowhere with it. 

The third version, which completely reworked everything except the main character, benefited from ideas I'd had but done nothing with, a decision to make it a critique of libertarian ideas then prominent in science fiction and then I had that light bulb moment when I imagined an alien weapon that could make any star become a supernova and, it was the macguffin I needed.  The final version is the one that's been accepted and to compare it to the original is learn about something else important for a writer.  As you mature, you start to realize that you may have had great ideas when you were younger, but  you were not old enough to write it properly. 

In the interim between drafts, I got a degree in psychology, wewnt to grad school at UCLA and then back to OU, and soon realized I was not really suited for the world of experimental psych.  So I got a journalism degree, wrote a master's thesis, and became a newspaper reporter and briefly a newspaper editor.  This coincided with problems with first wife.

All of this is, of course, grist for the mill of future writings, and I'd love to eventually write about my first wife and her remarkable world-traipsing adventures.  I think two decades after her death is probably about the right time to think about it.

So, this is my first blog.  So, it's rambling.  My thought processes are not really linear, but there you have it.  Next time,  maybe I be more coherent.  And I'll include the links to buy my books.