Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2017

Neglecting Fiction

Every day in Trump’s America the line between fiction and fact becomes effaced.   Not that that’s any excuse for neglecting my fiction, in fact it seems as good a reason as any to press on with it.   I’ve got a non-fiction book under contract and that keeps me away from my mistress Muse in the “fake news” world. It’s too bad, really.   I’ve got a seventh novel well under way and I’ve got a potential publisher considering one (at last) for publication.   The thing is, for a man being published is about the closest you can come to giving birth.   Months of gestation, after having seeds planted inside, and perhaps then you have something to say.   Something that will grow up beautiful. As someone who has written literally millions of words, I’m always amazed at how difficult it is to find others who want to read them.   The internet’s a crowded place.   My daily commute to and from work forces me offline for a few hours a day, and it is a bit of a learning experience to cra

Dead but Dreaming

One of the most challenging aspects of being a working writer is dithering.   Shilly-shallying.   Not being able to decide.   Is this story done yet?   Should I revise it for a tenth time?   When do I stop writing fiction and get back to non-fiction?   And all of this has to be decided for a mere half-hour of writing time a day. I’ve neglected this blog a little because I’ve been finishing up a non-fiction book.   To no one’s greater surprise than mine, an editor at Penguin is actually reading it.   You just never know.   Meanwhile novel number seven has been demanding my attention.   One through six haven’t been published yet either. Don’t forget the children.   Stories.   Lots of stories.   Some days three or four story ideas crowd into my head at a time.   And I only have half-an-hour to write.   Decisions, decisions! I’d pretty much decided to turn back to non-fiction for a while when I had an unexpected email.   A publisher actually wants to see the whole manuscript o

Vacation Blues

Stress can be great for writing.   Having too little time to practice the craft, in some odd way, makes it flow more easily.   Take the case of the working writer on vacation. I sometimes feel bold enough to call myself a writer.   My job doesn’t depend on it, of course, but who finds meaning in their job?   My sense of purpose comes in the off hours.   Nevertheless, each day presents minimal opportunities to spend with my true vocation.   Then comes vacation time. Unstructured days spread out before me like a trail of breadcrumbs through the forest.   I have stories I’ve been working on for months.   I have at least two non-fiction projects going as well.   At last I will have long, open days when writing will flow and I’ll live in the gooey comfort of constant inspiration.   As if such things ever happen. Vacation is family time.   Writers—those of us who live alone in our heads—can’t simply separate ourselves from those who support us.   As if to underscore the po

With Ulysses

Perhaps the most difficult thing about being a working writer is deciding how to spend the limited time you have to write.   Since I had a completely non-lucrative life as a non-fiction author while working in academia I have found those who decide whether to publish you or not often consider your last book and its sale track.   That can be bad news for those of us who were once college professors. It’s not impossible for an employed professor to become a novelist.   Vladimir Nabokov was an entomologist and yet because of literature professor after writing Lolita .   Umberto Eco was an academic when he broke out with The Name of the Rose .   Carl Sagan published Contact .   The list could go on, but need not.   You get the point.   It may be difficult, but not impossible. I’ve written five novels since earning my doctorate, and three non-fiction books.   Of these only one has been published, and it is my least favorite of all.   That’s the way the publishing business works.  

The Writer's Dilemma

Do you admit that you’re a writer?  If it’s in your job description I suppose you do, but for many of us being a writer presents us with a dilemma.  Do you admit to your boss that you’re hoping to get paid for what you do off the clock? I have a friend in the publishing industry whose employer has strict rules about such things.  Any “employment” that takes away from work time has to be declared in written form and sent to the office that investigates conflict of interest.  If you’re a writer who’s paid to do something else you can already see where I’m going with this. Inspiration doesn’t obey time-clocks.  In fact, it almost always makes a mockery of them.  When you’ve arrived at work and punched in (i.e., booted up your PC) does that story idea obediently bed down until 5 p.m.?  Of course not.  Even after you’ve dug into today’s business, it’s probably playing like muzak in the back corridors of your gray matter.  It sometimes can’t wait until the lunch break to burst

Hidden Messages

I can’t help it.  Inside every man there’s locked a puerile little boy.  The other day I was on the website of the Catholic University of America.  As everyone knows, Catholics have some of the greatest hangups about sexuality in all of Christendom.  Like most universities, however, CUA has to appeal to both genders to make ends meet. In any case, I was looking over the undergraduate programs for a friend and the head picture struck me as impossibly funny.  All the more so because it was totally unintentional.  Over the past few years institutions of higher education have been using plenty of photos of coeds to attract the guys.  That’s just the way it is. In this photo, however, the two women have inscrutable smiles on their faces as one makes the universal “inches” sign with her fingers.  It doesn’t help that there’s a guy sitting right there, not looking their way.  On the blackboard behind, although blurry, is the word “tube.”  The drawing on the right could be mistake

Self Criticism

The self-critical writer is an odd beast.  In fact, I sometimes wonder if I’m not working at cross-purposes with myself in trying to get published.  You see, despite all the “no”s I receive from editors, I am my own worst critic.  I put a lot of care into my stories—there’s nothing slap-dash there.  Yet when I watch movies I often groan at the state of the writing.  They’ve made it, and I haven’t. The same is true when I read novels.  I’ve read many—most by major publishing houses with “bestseller” splashed all over the cover that left me with a shrug and a yawn.  They get multiple book contracts.  I get rejection slips.  (Or I would if they still sent slips.)  They don’t even tell me why. I don’t really need rejection slips to critique my work.  I critique the hell out of it.  I go over stories time and again, like a rock tumbler, even after they were pretty good to begin with.  Such is a writer’s life.  I critique, but I don’t critique  nearly enough, obviously. Th

Makes the Wold Go Round

It’s all about the money.  As any real writer knows, we write because we’re compelled to.  I suspect it’s only after someone tastes success that s/he gets cynical enough to write for money.  That doesn’t stop agents and publishers from trying, though. My Medusa novel was under contract with a publisher.  This was about five years ago.  After dallying around for a couple of years, the publisher cancelled the contract because the editor who’d signed it up had left the press.  That’s hardly a legitimate reason; in fact, it defeats the purpose of a book contract all together.  I’ve not been able to find another publisher since. Nearly every rejection letter says something along the lines of “It’s well written, but it’s not for us.”  They mean they don’t see enough dollar signs.  I’m not naive—I get it.  I would, however, appreciate just a little compensation for the hundreds and hundreds of hours I put into my writing.  Self-publishing is too much work on top of work.  There

Times and Tides

Writers are creatures of habit.  My own writing routine is to get up crazy early before I have to be at work and write the day awake.  I've been doing it that way for years.  Decades, even.  Then the time change comes. When you're young it's not such a big deal.  A few extra yawns at school on Monday and by Friday you're acclimated.  But time holds still for no one.  As an adult, it takes more time to adjust to changes in your schedule.  Suddenly what used to be 4 a.m. is now 5 a.m.  You have to get out of bed at what feels like 3:00.  The writer's schedule suffers. Daylight Saving Time was a contingency invented by the Germans during the world wars.  In order to maximize the usable light, they changed their clocks from standard time so that early morning light (my favorite) wouldn't be wasted.  Better to have later at night light.  Obviously, they weren't writers. So I get up in the morning, ready to write, but *yawn* I can't concentrate so early!

Glass-Walled Cabin

My latest publication, “Glass-Walled Cabin” has appeared on The WiFiles.   As is my custom, I devote a post to the story to share with readers what went into the writing process. The WiFiles publishes fiction with a paranormal bent.  That fits the horror genre particularly well since few people take sasquatch seriously.  To write a story like this, however, requires some first-hand experience.  At least in my case it does. Many years ago I went to visit a forest ranger fire spotter in a lonely observation tower in the northwest United States.  Most people are aware that the western part of this country suffers from perpetual drought, making the mountains, especially in summer, a potential tinderbox.  The fire spotter had to live in this glass-walled cabin for four months at a stretch.  Short visits were okay, but long-term guests would be a distraction. Climbing to the tower meant hiking to the top of one of the tallest peaks in the area.  And you also had to know the ran

The Problem with Backup

I remember the days when computer files were saved on disc.  Diskettes, actually.  All my stories were carefully backed up in duplicate.  I felt secure. Technology progressed, as technology will.  The floppy disk gave way to higher capacity storage systems—I had a Jaz drive, once upon a time.  These cassettes, reminiscent of an 8-track, held an enormous amount of data.  But not enough. Computers came with CD drives then, but you couldn't save onto a CD—like the early PDFs.  Then they made CD writers common hardware with your computer.  I began saving everything on CDs.  Large tubes of them fill a forgotten desk drawer. Then came the terabyte drive.  Holding more storage capacity than a moon-launch computer, this little device, used weekly, safely holds my secrets.  Stories are secure at last.  My computer wants me to save them to the Cloud.  And pay for the privilege. So I dutifully backup my hard disc onto the terabyte drive.  This morning old Terry died.  I think my files

Fiction Factor

I’ve often wondered if it’s accidental that fact and fiction share consonants.  Oh, the vowels are completely different, and fiction ends with that trickster consonant n, but don’t let that fool you.  Things aren’t always as clear cut as they say. In some languages, I’ve been told, the meaning of a word lies in its root.  My friend Steve once told me that Hebrew words have “triliteral roots.”  That is, words based on the same three consonants, in that order, are closely related.  You can make a noun into a verb by taking the root and changing the vowels.  Maybe something similar is going on with fact and fiction. Jorge Luis Borges, I have to confess, hasn’t appeared in my reading as much as he should.  Many of his story revolve around the indeterminacy of words.  They change, they shift, they mean something we didn’t mean for them to mean.  And he sometimes uses Hebrew as an example. I don’t read Hebrew—English is difficult enough, thank you very much—but I wonder if Borge

Free Writer

I’ve been a bad boy.  I haven’t been posting on my poor, neglected blog lately.  You see, like all truly creative types, I’ve been protesting. Call me simplistic, but I always thought America was about freedom.  I grew up writing fantastic (as in wild, unusual, not as in great) stories and nobody said anything I wrote was threatening.  I didn’t know any better—I was just a boy with a tablet and a pencil.  I wrote my imagination. Now we have a president who’s trying to slash the National Endowment for the Humanities.  There’s no profit in it, you see.  And this after having W say just a few years back that freedom isn’t free.  What?  You have to pay for freedom?  Forgive me, but I’ve always been a live and let live kind of guy. My horror isn’t gruesome.  It’s existential.  Maybe that’s why I have such a tough time getting published.  With nearly twenty stories in press I hope my writing’s not that bad.  I can live with people just not getting it.  But I protest a government

Editing Reality

One becomes inured.  That is to say, rejection letters are far more common than acceptances.  So it became clear to me while looking at my Submittable page recently.  The number of cheery blue acceptances is largely outweighed by those dreary gray “declined”s. Look, I’m an editor.  I know how this game works.  Every day I see the pitches the hopeful send, wanting to be represented by my press.  Every day I try to think how to write rejection letters that are complementary, comforting, encouraging.  The point is, I see bad writing. Some people see dead people.  Others of us see dead writing.  Books that should never have been born.  When you agonize over every word, and when you know that you’ve got some felicity with the pen (or on the keyboard) being classed with those who clearly don’t understand is painful. Awfully gloomy for a positive post, I must say!  I just received the good news that my story, “Glass-Walled Cabin,” was accepted for publication by The WiFiles