Collective Angst and Airplane Gremlins

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So I had something else in mind for today, but honestly, I'm exhausted. A late night storming session yesterday with a writer friend to get her book going, my wife's open house tonight that brought me and the little guy out to her school with dinner (and that means entertaining him by chasing him around on the grass for hours), the Novel Crit group started yesterday, I'm helping my wife photograph a wedding on Saturday, my sister's wedding is in less than two weeks out in Colorado and I am performing the ceremony (have NOT practiced), the house is in no way ready for the rains and the cold, a friend is coming to stay the night, the dog kennel needs to be finished or a separate dog house built for the third dog, the garage is decades from completion, money is tight, queries to write, stories to finish, the blog, the house, don't get me started on the house –

And that's what today's post is about. You're not alone. It seems like everyone is going through all kinds of stress right now. Another writer I know just got back from a relaxing two week vacation only to find that her daughter is going in for surgery and another relative had a stroke. She's missing her favorite annual event. And to top it all off, she's got the flu so she can't visit any of her loved ones.

It's everyone right now. You. Me. Everyone.

Forget the Collective Unconscious, this is like Collective Angst.

I mean, what the hell? Is there like some evil gremlin out on the wing of flight 607 nonstop to Happyland and we're all on it or what? (Wanna see something creepy? I picked 607 off the top of my head, wrote that sentence about Happyland and thought, “I wonder if I'm using a flight number from a recent crash and that's why it's stuck in my head. That would be wrong.” So I googled it. No way I could have known ahead of time what I ended up finding. No known cause. Just creepy. Really creepy.)

Really, that's it. No long winded post today. Not because I don't think you deserve the best I can give you, but because I think that everyone is running a mile a minute right now and we all just need to slow down, collect ourselves, take in a deep breathe, and relax. Maybe think back to better times, when life was slower. For me, that's the beginning of the 80's when I was two and you can't possibly have fewer cares.

And you know what always makes me feel a little better when I'm stressed . . . THE MUPPETS!

Just something about it. My folks used to record episodes on a cassette deck so that we could listen to them way back before there were VCR's. Or maybe there were VCR's and we just couldn't afford one. Remember those? Back before they had clear plastic for cassettes? I can still hear that Muppets Star Wars episode they did.

So remember, when life tortures you with gargling Gershwins be ready with a good song and dance number. “You are my lucky star. I saw you from afar.”

I Will Not Read Your Fracking First Chapter

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So everyone has read that rather juvenile piece written by Josh Olsen by now. If you haven't, you've likely read clips of it here and there because agents and editors are eating that shit up. And yes, it's crap. The general premise is a good one, that hobby writers need to leave people who are working professionally ALONE, and that real writers aren't deterred from honest feedback. Unfortunately, that message is lost in Olsen's Junior High bitch fest because he won't own up for his own part in the incident that spurred his tirade. (Amber Gardner does a great job of pointing this out on her blog, and honestly, I thought she spoke more truth to the subject as someone just starting out than did the supposed professional script adapter Josh Olsen.)

I've been cultivating another critique thought for a while now, and Olsen's tirade brought it to fruition. We're starting up the Novel Critique group this week and that will bring a lot of first chapters my way. In addition to that I've recently critiqued a few first chapters by different writers, and I have to say, first chapters suck to critique.

The first chapter is pivotal to the entire story. Whether or not your story is even read is based on those first few pages. Agents tend to ask for just the first five, and if you can't sell them in that span then you're on the chopping block.

This brings us to our problem. As writers we look for a good critique of that first chapter to help us fix it and make it as amazing as it needs to be, but I honestly don't think that is possible. Your critic doesn't know your characters, they don't know where the story is going, they don't know the feel or mood of the story, so how are they supposed to help you fix it? They can't, not based on the first chapter. They can give you general thoughts, fix style issues, grammar, punctuation, flow, setting, so on and so forth, but the really important stuff, the Story Worthy Problem, the Inciting Incident, the Surface Problem, how all those things tie together and relate to the journey ahead and your character – they can't help you with that.

That's why I purpose that we stop critiquing first chapters. Put them out there as an introduction to your story, maybe collect some very general feedback or first impressions, but save the serious critiquing for later. Get several chapters into the story or ideally, done with it, before you ask for a serious critique on the first chapter.

I'm even willing to say that the first and last chapters should be critiqued side by side. That ending needs to tie directly into the beginning. It's a cycle. You need to have come full circle. You can't tell that about the first chapter until you've read the last.

So no, the title to this post does not mean that I'm turning into a professional dick. I would hope that I approach these writing topics with little more care than some “professionals” do. What I mean is that I think we should stop basing our critique interactions on first chapters. Yes, that's all that an agent gets, but that's not our goal in critiquing. Our goal in critiquing is to make that first chapter the best it can be. When we critique it first we do a disservice to the story. And that's what I'm saying.

See the full version of that amazing “full circle” picture here.

Monday Funny

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In honor of  a recent crit session in which I was totally playing the part of Ben Stiller. Oh, and we had a chicken vanish recently so this ones for you nameless chicky, your eggs will be missed. 

Coming this week:

No, I Will Not Read Your F@#&!^* First Chapter

And other STUFF!

(Don't worry, it's not nearly as bad as it sounds) 

Spread the Word Saturday

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I had a few things in mind for sharing today, but then I read the following article about Michael Jordan's acceptance speech at last nights Hall of Fame induction ceremony. I'm not a big sports fan. Heck, I don't even have a TV. While my soon to be brother-in-law is busy setting up his three television sets in their living-room so that he can watch three football games concurrently, I'm busy scratching my head and wondering why. But I always did marvel at Michael Jordan when I was growing up. 

I think it's because he looked like such a little guy on the court. I always cheered for the small guy that could make the big beefy guys look like fools. Hence my love of Bruce Lee. And last night while I was out with a couple of my buddies being reminded why it's so great NOT to be single, I watched clips of Jordan tearing up during his speech and thought, "Man, that guy always had such class." 

Then I read this article, an article that's more of a character sketch of the man. It shed a different light on him and his career and totally changed how I look at him. It also made me think of character flaws and how traits can be perceived differently by different people. But don't take my word for it, go read the article.

Valuing Your Freelance Work

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So many of us talk about valuing life, but I don't think that we really do. As a matter of fact, I think that most people, at least in the states, see the life of another person as rather worthless in practice. Sure, when we stop and think about it we would say the opposite, but our actions speak otherwise. 

This post had been on the back burner until I read something by a successful author who was trying the self-publishing route. Said author (who shall remain nameless to protect MY safety) talked about his own venture into self publishing. He gave a long and interesting list of expenses and headaches suffered along the way. Freelancer after freelancer bailed on him at the last minute for flaky reasons. But two stood out.

The first was an artist who was approached to do the cover. While not all of the details were given, concepts were produced, a specific design chosen, revisions were made; but in the end the author felt like it was going to take too long and be too expensive. So the author made his own cover and paid for some touch ups to be done to it. As for the original artist, no money is said to have gone his way.

Our second freelancer, “turned out to be a bargain. I [sic] friend at a publishing company recommended a freelancer who was nine months pregnant. She did not go on vacation and did the job for $20 per hour—about $160 total. Earlier bids for typesetting had been between $1000 and $2000.”

Now, if you're waiting for the part where the author says that he gave her a bonus because he felt both bad about taking advantage of a pregnant woman, and grateful for the services she provided . . . don't hold your breath.

We All Do It

Kind of makes you cringe, doesn't it? But this author is actually a really good guy. He seems to do his best at helping out other authors, in fact the whole point of him sharing his ordeal was to steer others away from the same mistakes. He shares information freely, and in the end only hopes that you'll pick up one of his books. He's an artisan just like you and I, but he's also got bills to pay, a family to take care of, probably even a mortgage or two. If he can get a break, he'll take it even if he does have enough money tucked away on the side to experiment with self-publishing.

This is an unfortunate fact of life, folks. If you don't value your time, no one else will do it for you. In fact, they will knowingly take advantage of you if they think they can get a “bargain.” These same people may very well be members of the artistic community just like you and I. They want their work and time valued and paid for appropriately, but when it comes time to doing the same in kind there's a good chance that it's not going to happen.

I know this sounds a bit pessimistic, but it is Friday, and this is snark. Along with that, this is true in many cases. If you don't stand up for yourself, you will be taken advantage of. I was going to use examples from my own life, from being a freelance graphic designer and doing construction. People that know me are always asking me to bid jobs for them hoping I'll do it on the cheap, and frankly, I usually do. The most recent one I bid in at nearly half the going rate which was still too high for this person. Rather than cutting my price, I wished them luck on getting the job done right.

What You’re Paying For

You see, we have to remember, you're not just paying for the person's time, you are paying for the years and years worth of study and practice that went into them being able to do what they can do. A person might look at a job quote and choke at the price compared to the number of hours spent doing it. Well you're not paying for the hours; you're paying for the experience.

Take a person that knows nothing of the craft and ask them to do the job for you. See how long it takes them and what kind of quality you get out of it. Unfortunately, people don't think in those terms. They think in terms of a Walmart bargain culture where cheap prices come at undervaluing the work used to create said product. They want the best, (or what looks like the best) but they don't want to pay for it.

So as you head out in your freelance ventures, keep that in mind. Do the appropriate market research. Know what price your quality of work is going for, and bid appropriately. Then stick to your guns. It's rather tough to ask for more money after the job is done.

If you really need the money, then you have to do what you have to do. But consider this, in the above typesetting example, if we take the going rate for the job as being $1500, that poor woman would have to do nearly ten jobs before she made what she was worth. On the contrary, had she held out for one person to pay her the appropriate wage, she’d have the same amount of money and would have done one tenth the work.

Please keep this in mind when you become rich and famous and can afford to pay people what they are worth. I know I can’t, that’s why I do everything myself.

 

Just as a side note, if that driveway looks like a good job to you, please don’t ever touch concrete. EVER. Don’t even look at it. In fact, I’d suggest not walking on it either.

 

 

Speak Truth

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I wanted to do a brief follow up post to yesterday's post about censoring your online existence. After a long debate with my wife about where we would be if folks like Emerson and Thoreau had heeded my advice and kept their yaps shut, I decided that I need to make a point clear: Understand what you want to get out of this.

If your driving passion in life is to speak truth to a cause, then by all means, do so. Just understand that you will have to navigate your ship accordingly. If you are extremely conservative, believe that homosexuals should not have the right to be married, and so on, and not only convey that in your writing but also in your public persona, fine. Understand that you won't get your foot in the door with a very liberal agent from San Francisco whose best friend is a lesbian whose marriage was just disallowed by a state law that you backed (hypothetical, I have no idea if this person exists).

You'll also have a hard time reaching those in the middle of the road because they're not going to want to rock the boat. And depending on how you've portrayed yourself, you may have made it easier or more difficult to sell your work. They might perceive you as being difficult to work with because you come across as being so headstrong.

I guess I just look at it differently than most. I'll admit, I was getting very riled up and outspoken with the last election cycle. I spent hours researching my points, seeking the truth. Trouble was, no one else paid any attention to that truth. In the end I was left with a lot of anger and resentment.

That's when I turned back to fiction. I realized that I was so much happier dumping myself into the cause of good writing. I could tell my stories, show people the possibility of a better world through my words without trying to hammer it into their heads. At the end of the day I came away from it satisfied. I wasn't angry or fed up or left feeling helpless. I felt content.

For me, my biggest drive is to have my words read. I'm not going to change my message or beliefs in order to make that happen, but I will accept that I am trying to take on the role of an entertainer, not a politician or activist. Until I can make my own rules like Card and others, I'll keep quiet and let my stories do the talking.

So please, speak truth in your words. Just be sure that your words get heard. Otherwise, you end up speaking the truth of silence and those who knew how to play the game get to inundate the rest of us with their views.

Whitewashing the Writer's Identity

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Have you Googled yourself lately? You should. 

There used to be a time when the search terms 'David' and 'Noceti' would bring up a long list of links leading back to a spat between the one time Miss Universe, Andrea Noceti, and David Letterman. During those days I never put my real name on the net, and always went by handles so I had nothing to worry about. Eventually, I wanted to be taken seriously, and so I started using my name. Big mistake.

Well, not really. A search for my name now brings up pretty much everything that I want it to bring up, although not in the order that I would like. Damihjva's link in the comments last week to this livejournal post regarding agents doing searches on writers, and allowing those results to weigh in on their decision of representation got me to thinking, “Just what is out there under my name?”

About three pages in I found a link to my old MySpace blog, my very political MySpace blog. Don't bother searching for it, they're all gone save for a short writing piece and a poem by someone else. But I didn't stop there, I kept going and going. Some 20 pages in I was still finding links to my name. I found comments on a forum that I have not been to in years (DELETED), and even some comments on an agent blog that were not made in sound judgment (DELETED). I dug until I could dig no more and erased my footprints as best I could.

My wife thinks that this is sad. I just think that it is part of the price we pay. To throw the fluffy bunny artist card or pitch a fit about how “I'm a person too and I'm entitled to my opinions,” is to be willingly ignorant of how our society acts.

Backlash

Then I got into a rather rousing debate with another writer about the importance of speaking out for truth. My opinion at the end of it all: Keep your mouth shut. Until such time as you reach the heights of Orson Scott Card and have people read you in spite of your belief that “Most Americans report mostly conservative viewpoints on most issues,” (actual studies disagree with Card) I suggest you keep quiet. I know people who have stopped reading Card altogether after discovering his political views, and he's a respected writer. As nobodies, we don't have such luxuries.

I know, I know, that's not what “Democracy” is about. What will it lead to if we all silence ourselves? When I was searching for images related to the search term “shut up,” I found a number of fabricated U.S. Military posters telling citizens to keep their mouths shut. I also found that Dixie Chicks poster up at the top of the article.

Honestly, that scares me. The Dixie Chicks were huge. They were respected. And almost overnight they were torn down. I've watched Shut Up and Sing, and it wasn't pretty.

Now, someone somewhere said that the best thing to do for book sales is get your book banned. Don't ask me where I heard it, I just remember hearing it. Maybe for some books it works. It might have worked for Slaughterhouse Five (maybe that's where I heard it, an NPR interview with the author) but it sure as hell didn't work for the Dixie Chicks. Sure, they're still making music, but they've been cut down at the knee. They'll never rise higher than where they are or even get that big again.

Colored Lenses

Never mind the possibility of backlash, what about simply manipulating the reader's perception of the material? Let's face it folks, our opinions about politics and religion will color the lenses of our readers. And I don't know about you, but when I'm reading I really don't wan to know these things about the authors. I was perfectly happy with The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when I was younger. Then I found out that it was Christian allegory and all of a sudden a lion wasn't a lion anymore. I'm sorry, but if I want to read that story I'll pick up my Bible, I don't need C.S. Lewis to whack me over the head with it. People try to cram their ideologies down our throats every day. When I'm reading escapism, I'm in part trying to get away from that.

I want a reader to come into my story with their own thoughts and experiences. I want them to look at it with no preconceived notions of what I'm trying to tell them. I'm sorry, but after finding out the religious leanings of some authors that I've read, I've forever looked at their work differently. Somewhere in the back of my head I'm thinking, “Are they trying to make a religious statement here? Is this scene an allegory?”

Soap Box

There's one last piece to this puzzle. It's when you as the writer set out with an agenda. One of the writing books that I read very early on talked about this point and it stuck with me. At the time I was doing exactly that, writing with an agenda.

 The author warned his readers to stay away from such preaching. I wish I could remember the book's name but the advice went something like this, “Write the story in your heart, make the characters real, and your message will come through the writing.” Forcing it hits your reader over the head with the mallet of obvious.

When I stopped and thought about it, the advice rang true. Back then I was fresh off of a Dune kick. It's one of my all time favorites. When I talk to people about it, about what I took away from it, what resonated with me the most, they often scratch their heads.

You see, when I got done reading Dune I wasn't worried about social structures, how we are the mere pawns of those in power, I wasn't even worried about predestination and our possible impact on it, what I was wrapped up in was this notion of conservation. Every time I ran a faucet I had this nagging in the back of my head about how precious a resource water was. Show of hands, does anyone think that Herbert set out to write a manifesto about water conservation? Hell no. But could that have been something he was concerned about that just so happened to seep into his writing? Yeah.

So get off of your soap box, stop preaching, and start telling a true story. Breathe life into your characters. Honestly represent their views, and your ideologies will show through even when you try to tell the story without your bias.

Or start an online political column where you preach your own world view. I'm sure that not too many agents will be all that worried about how it will impact sales.

So, did you find anything interesting in your Google search? 

Update: Forgot that I wanted to link to this as well. Literary Agent, Janet Reid's take on keeping your mouth shut, or thinking you're wearing a invisibility cloak as she put it. 

Photoshop Skilz

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I just wanted to throw a before/after shot of that scrap up. I realized that my saying that I have mad photoshop skilz means nothing without a before and after. So here you go. Totally random, I know. Also, razorblade brain had uber nice things to say and also linked to a lot of fun blogs you should check out (but only if you promise to keep reading this one). 

So what do you think? For using my laptop and mouse as opposed to the desktop and the wacom pad, I'd say it turned out pretty good. 

Writers Cure

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I'm currently reading Les Edgerton's Finding Your Voice (expect a review soon) and came across one of those little creative accidents. In the beginning he talks about syntax and refers to Melville's Moby Dick. He points out that in Melville's time much of his audience didn't know a lick about whales, so a book jam packed with info about them would be interesting to the people of that time period. With the advent of the Discovery channel and idiots that climb into shark cages with cameras, the current marketplace would be rather disinterested in a story filled with whale mating habits (cue porn music: bow chicky wow wow).

That got me to thinking about audience. Today's audience would want that same Moby Dick story jam packed with excitement and adventure. Life threatening peril at every turn of the page. And why is that? Because we live fairly safe and mundane lives.

This is not to say that everyone is looking for same thing. Some people live in loveless marriages, or comfortable ones where steamy romance is a thing of the past. Others find that their jobs and day to day activities lack a certain heartfelt emotion or bond with a good friend every Tuesday.

Of course there are sub-genres within those audience groups. Some more erotic, others more fantastical. The question is, who is your market? And more importantly, what is missing in the lives of those people?

In copywriting there is the concept of the great elixir. Few things sell better than those that promise to cure a problem. Not even protection sells as well as elixirs. How many people do you know run out and get a house alarm after they've been robbed. We're a country looking for cures, not preventions.

That led me to think: what cure is today's reader looking for? In every case it's escapism of one form or another. Heck, even Moby Dick is escapism. But what specific things are your readers looking to escape from?

Now, I know that there are a lot of fluffy bunnies out there that would rage against the notion of doing research before writing a book. They can't stand the idea of outside pressures impacting their artistic process. Fine by me. Don't sell a book. See if I care. Makes more room for me to slip in there. But if you do want to sell a book you're going to keep this in mind.

I also know that this topic has been talked about by many others many times before, “know your audience,” is a common how to theme. But that's not what I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you to figure out what your audience needs to be cured of? What is their sickness, their affliction? And then tackle it from that point of view.

Are they an angsty teenager with low self-esteem who really just wants a knight (read: stalkerish vampire) in to die for clothing to come and literally sweep them off of their feet while still respecting their desire to take things slow? Maybe they're a bit younger, a bit nerdier, other kids pick on them, but if only they could reveal to the world that greatness they hold inside that not even they are aware of, then they'd show them. Or, perhaps they're all grown up. They work in a dead end job, are about to be married to a loveless prude, and would love to have an excuse to go on a real adventure. Maybe a girl shows up, one who can open doors that lead to an underground world that this person always knew had to be there, filled with assassins, hunters, and crazed Angels.

So I guess, in all my rambling, I've redefined the question. It's not, “what is the cure?” The cure is escapism. The real question is, “what is your reader trying to escape from?” But look at it in terms of a cure. You're not simply writing a story, you're writing a cure.

I can actually point out where the last photo came from, and that's Head Trip comics, a web comic where the art is fantastic. Check it!

Monday Funny Date My Avatar

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My brain is still drained from last week. I can't even think of a title for this post. But don't you worry, dear reader, the reason my brain is so drained is because I was playing Guild Wars until three in the morning last night . . . uh, no. Wait, that's not what I meant to say.

What I meant to say was that I worked double time last week and came up with several ideas for posts while I was working on last week's critique series. That afforded me enough extra time to try Guild Wars again after having not played for the past two years. All that talk of guilds for the Critique Guild got me thinking of that game and I could not resist its siren's song. 

Also, Guild Wars 2 is coming out soon!!! You know what that means, don't you? It means that I'll be able to get some of the older games for cheap. :) I never buy a game when it first comes out. First of all my computer is way too slow to enjoy all of their pretty graphics, and 50 bucks!? Come on, seriously now. I can wait a year and get it for thirty. Besides, I don't even play in guilds. I have a strange disillusionment with regards to making virtual  avatar friends. Now then, if the redhead from "The Guild" wanted me to be in her guild . . . we might have to talk. 

Coming this week . . . STUFF!!!