Archive for The Writing Life
The Good & The Bad When You Screw Up
Posted by: | CommentsComputers, computers, computers.
Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.
I wrote The Presence and The Disappeared in the mid-’90s. They were published by Headline House in England. But for some reason I can’t explain, I never offered either book to a U.S. publisher. Well, recently I did. Since I haven’t signed a contract yet, I won’t mention the publisher, but they said, yes, we want them, send us the manuscripts.
So I pulled out The Disappeared and went through it to clean it up. Then I went to pull out The Presence, and …
I couldn’t find the manuscript. It wasn’t on my hard drive. It wasn’t on disk. It wasn’t on my backup hard drive. In fact, I couldn’t even find a folder for it on my computer. I also couldn’t find a hard manuscript copy.
Where it went, I have no idea. How long it’s been missing, I have no idea. Why it didn’t end up on a disk and in my fire safe like all my other work, I have no idea. All I know is that it’s gone.
Fortunately, I did have a copy of the Headline House edition.
All I had to do was type it into the computer.
The novel runs 313 pages. After six days, I’m currently on page 110. I don’t think that’s too bad, considering.
The screw up … not keeping track of my work.
The bad … I’m going to waste three or four weeks getting the manuscript on my computer.
The good … it’s an absolutely fascinating process to go back and read my earlier work.
Now, as many writers do, I tend to put aside a novel or a short story for a short period of time after I finish it. This allows me to put it out of mind, so when I return to it, I’ll have a fresh perspective.
Put a novel aside for 15 years and it can be a real eye-opener when you go back to it.
It wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. In fact, I found I was pleased with much of it. But I did have some bad habits at the time. I often put unnecessary distance into scenes. This makes it more difficult for readers to connect with the story. And while I enjoy being inside the heads of characters, I think I was excessive in this book.
I won’t be rewriting huge sections of The Presence as I go along. I think a writer’s history is important, even with its flaws. But I will make tiny changes to bring the readers closer to the story, and I’ll cut some of the self-indulgent time spent in the heads of the characters.
What will really be interesting after this process is to see how it affects my current and future writing projects.
For the answer to that, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
What Do Readers Really Want?
Posted by: | CommentsOkay, let me get it all out on the table.
Though these are exciting time, they’re also scary times for me as a writer.
I love books. I love the smell of books. I love holding books, reading books, thumbing through books, stacking them on my bookshelves, sharing them with friends, browsing through bookstores for them, discovering new authors, getting a new book in the mail, opening a new book for the first time while doing my best not to mess up the spine.
I’ve been like this since I was a little boy and the library’s bookmobile would stop outside our house. I’d turn in the books I’d read since the last visit and check out a new stack to read until the next weekly visit.
It was wonderful.
There was a universe out there I knew very little about, but I was learning a little more book by book.
I’m truly saddened that very few of today’s kids will ever have that experience.
Of course, they won’t have to wait on the curb. They’ll be able to press a few buttons and download whatever book they want to read. And that’s a good thing. Any time you get people reading, it’s a good thing.
I’m doing my honest best to face up to this new reality where everything will eventually be digital and the idea of hauling boxes of books from your last place to your new place will be laughable.
This post is one of the steps toward this strange new frontier for me.
I always wanted to tell stories. That’s it. Just tell stories. I didn’t want to stand on street corners trying to sell them to people passing by. I didn’t want to travel town to town hawking them as a new miracle elixir. Nope. Just wanted to write them and hope somewhere out there in the world someone would read one and find value in it.
Unfortunately – or maybe it’s actually fortunate, who knows these days – that isn’t going to cut it in this new digital age. There’s too much clutter in the marketplace. I’m just another unfamiliar name.
So I have to change the way I’ve always done things.
To begin the process I need to know what you, as a reader, would really like to receive in a digital short story or a digital novel. Of course, I’m talking about bonus material here. Though, I am curious what you also look for in cover art and book or story descriptions. So if you want to venture into that territory, feel free.
Primarily, however, I’m interested in what bonus material I can add to my work that will be of particular value to you.
If you get chance, I’d certainly appreciate the input. Just add a comment to this post. (It won’t come up immediately. Sorry about that, but I have to make sure the site isn’t being spammed and the easiest way to make sure of that is to approve comments before they post.)
I’d very much appreciate hearing from you. If you’re in a hurry, just a few short words can help. And if you’ve got the time, feel free to elaborate to your heart’s content.
Thanks for stopping by the blog.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
Breakfast With Robert Swartwood
Posted by: | CommentsI got together with Robert Swartwood a couple weeks back. In person. Something I rarely do. But Rob is a persistent young man. I wasn’t sure I was going to be in town and told him so, but he kept after me and made it happen.
We had breakfast at Treasure Island on the Strip. Rob’s treat. Very generous of him.
I don’t often have the opportunity to socialize with other writers. There’s a part of me that’s quite comfortable as a relative recluse, and another part that just doesn’t have much interest in conventions and the sort. So I rarely go looking for a chance to get together with another writer. After meeting with Rob, however, I think that’ll be my regret.
It was great hearing him talk about the projects he’s working on, hearing the enthusiasm in his voice. He has the spirit of a writer. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be at a convention filled with writers, some old and wise and full of incredible experiences to share, some young and learning and still open to listening, all proud of their chosen profession.
Rob reminded me of all that.
He’s facing the same questions many young writers are today. How to build a career? Can he support his family as a writer? What’s the best way to deal with the changing face of publishing? Does he need to learn to market his work on top of writing it? Should he write to the marketplace or write what he enjoys writing? Is it a mistake to write in different genres or should he focus on a single genre?
There are no guarantees when you decide to be a writer. No regular paychecks. No way to know if anyone will like what you write. No assurances you’ll ever be published.
Everything’s a roll of the dice.
Most writers I know write because there’s a burning need to put their stories on paper. It’s not the potential fame. It’s not the potential money. It’s the stories. Everything else is gravy. That’s probably as much as we can ask as writers … the means to keep writing. And when we achieve those means, we need to remember how fortunate we are.
Rob reminded me of my good fortune.
He reminded me how exciting it was when a publisher wants to take on your work, or when you land a short story in an anthology filled with talented writers. He reminded me what it’s like to hold your first book in your hands, or to receive a letter from a reader that says that something you wrote made a difference.
I am a very fortunate man.
And I’m grateful Rob was willing to keep after me to meet.
Because I had forgotten how fortunate I was, and I needed to be reminded.
Never take anything for granted.
Getting Help Along The Way
Posted by: | CommentsBecause writing can feel like a lonely profession at times, it’s often helpful to connect with other writers whenever the opportunity arises. In fact, I’m currently participating in a small challenge with two other writers who also happen to be my good friends. I haven’t told them I’d like to post about this experience sometime, so I won’t go any further into it for now. But let me say that I’ve found their support and encouragement throughout the challenge to be incredibly helpful.
It’s not the first time I’ve had another writer help me out, and that’s really why I’m writing this post … to thank a writer and editor publicly for his help on a short story I wrote just over twenty years ago.
The story was titled “The Calling.” It was a very personal story that I wrote shortly after my mother’s death after her long battle with ovarian cancer. When I finished writing it, I was exhausted. I had poured more of myself into that story than anything else I’d ever written, and it had been difficult at times.
But I was proud of it, too. Because I shared an experience that many people would consider the ultimate experience … helping a loved one through the finals days of life.
I wasn’t sure if it was going to sell. I knew I was too close to the story to be objective about it. But if it didn’t sell, I knew that just writing it had been important to me.
I sent the story to Thomas F. Monteleone at Borderlands Press, who was putting together the first Borderlands anthology. And a few weeks later I received his response. He liked the story, thought it was powerful, but also thought it fell short at the end. He made a small suggestion on how to correct the problem, and invited me to resubmit the story if I’d like.
When I read Tom’s suggestion a chill rattled through me. He had nailed it perfectly. I hadn’t seen the missing element until he pointed it out, but there it was, right in front of me, and it was so on the mark, so powerful and right. I made the change immediately – I just had to add a couple of lines – sent back the story, and he bought it.
“The Calling” went on to win a Stoker Award that year, and for that I owe my great gratitude to Tom.
He could have read the story and rejected it out right. He could have sent it back and told me to keep working on it, without any hint at its weakness. He could have accepted it as it was and done both me and the Borderlands readers a great disservice.
But Tom is one of the those writer/editors who has a deep respect and passion for the written word. He cares about the stories he writes and he cares about the stories he publishes. I’m very fortunate that story ended up on his desk. Very fortunate.
Like any profession, writing is much easier when you have people like Tom who help you along the way.
And you know what?
I’m not the only one. Tom’s spent his whole career helping other writers.
What a great legacy.
Adventures In Living
Posted by: | CommentsWell, here’s how weird things get sometimes …
I had a tooth that needed big time attention. It was infected and causing a great deal of pain. So I found a dentist that was open on a Sunday (ever notice how all pain-related events tend to occur late Saturday night or on Sunday when everything’s closed?) and agreed to pull the tooth at an affordable price. But first, he wanted to take my blood pressure.
I won’t tell you what the numbers were, but they were high enough that he refused to pull the tooth. Instead, he sent me directly to the emergency room at the local hospital with motivating words, “You could die any second. Walking out to your car. You could die.”
Well, I thought I be in and out in a day at the most. Give me something for the blood pressure and send me home, and once it’s in the right range I’ll go get the tooth pulled.
I’m so naive when it comes to hospitals. It took them four or five hours to get it down, but of course, they had another concern and wanted to keep me overnight for observation. Okay, one night. That didn’t sound too unreasonable for a hospital stay.
They continued to give me meds for the high blood pressure, took X-rays, hooked me up to a heart monitor, etc.
The next morning, the doctor comes in and she says their initial concerns were unwarranted. I was fine in that area of my heath. But they really wanted to get the blood pressure under control and they wanted to do it in a safe and timely manner.
By then, my life belonged to the hospital. Every few hours, they took blood, checked my blood pressure, gave me a pill for my tooth pain, gave me a pill for the infection, analyzed whether or not the meds were working, on and on. And six days later, still unable to control my blood pressure, they finally conceded that I might be in there for a month and still not have my blood pressure under control. So, they let me out so I could continue monitoring at home.
Couldn’t wait to get out of there.
I’m back home at last, and grateful to be home. Lost six days of work, went stir crazy, and came out incredibly weak, but I’m home. While I hated every moment of the experience, I do have say that everyone, from the doctor to the nurses to the food service (I lost 11 pounds!) to the house keeping, were all wonderful people. Friendly. Helpful. Concerned. And that truly made an intolerable situation tolerable.
So, now I have a few days of catching up to do and then it’s back to work.
And sometime in the next week or so, when my blood pressure is looking a little rosier, I’ll get that nagging tooth pulled!
Note: Just wanted to finish this off on a positive note. I’ve got a new short story collection coming out from Dark Regions in next month or so. It’s called The Shadows of Kingston Mills, and eleven of the twelve stories are brand new. I’ll share more as I get stronger and the publication date gets closer.
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