I Write Therefore I Am (A Vacuum Cleaner Salesman).

If you’re like me you’ve had this problem. The old identity crises. Writers and artists in general, I think, are more susceptible to this than others. Especially if you’re not making a living on your art yet. Because that usually means you’re spending the bulk of your time doing something entirely disrelated so that you can eat and have a place to sleep at night. So, you come face to face with this question of identity. It’s a conflict of interest. I’ve struggled with this for a while in my writing life until recently when I made a breakthrough on the subject.

See, it’s easy to identify with the thing that gives you a steady paycheck. It’s only human, afterall one’s basic survival is caught up in it.  There’s a strong reality there. I mean, you feel hunger pretty darn quick and rain is really wet when you’re sleeping on the street corner. So, the workaday-world-identity has value and the contemplation of undoing it sort of makes us queasy.

It tends to overshadow other things. It can get blown out of proportion.

So, if one is a computer programmer for 40+ hours a week, he goes around and when someone asks him what he does (which is another way of asking what he is–see, identity), he says “I’m a computer programmer.” And that is supposed to explain everything and the world turns accordingly. And safely.

Now, if he’s a good computer programmer, his friends and colleagues say, “There goes Joe, he’s a good computer programmer.” And if he’s a bad computer programmer, his friends and colleagues say, “Well, he’s not such a good computer programmer, but he’s a swell guy.”

Or something like that.

You see, no matter if he’s good or bad, he is still and always a computer programmer. Why, everyone says so all the time. He knows it. His wife knows. Pete down at the bar knows it. He’s a computer programmer!

Now, let’s say that Joe is not such a simple guy. Let’s say he’s got this burning desire deep down to touch the human soul, to tell stories to the world. Let’s say this desire, this need is so intense that it’s all he can think about. And he never really wanted to be a computer programmer forever anyways and well, shucks, he wants to be a writer.

So, he goes about his business and he wants to be a writer. Let’s say for Joe’s sake and ours, that he actually does write, he’s not just thinking about it, he’s doing it too. But every morning he gets up, he goes out to perform 8 hours or more of computer programming. Day in and day out he’s still got to be a computer programmer because his life is rigged that way. All hell would break loose if he just upped and quite. So, he kind of feels pressure from both ends on this thing.

We’re leading up to the point here. So, right about this time, maybe he has sort of admitted that he’s moonlighting as a writer, or something, but still he knows the right thing to be is a computer programmer because that’s what pays the bills, puts a smile on kids faces and keeps the wife in line. Good, wholesome drudgery that. Anyway, let’s say he’s even managed to get a few short stories into print, nothing major, made literally a couple of bucks. So, he goes to this party and is getting along fine when someone, perhaps with malice aforethought, perhaps not, pops the question: “What do you do?”

Well now, Joe has a choice to make. He could whip out the old standby, measure up with the Jones’s and keep everyone smiling by simply saying, “I’m a computer programmer.” Why not? He’s been doing it for years. It’s true enough. And he’s damn good at it, too.

Or, or he could put his neck and reputation on the line, expose himself to social ostracism and ridicule and say, “I’m a writer.”

Now, what does he do? What do you do? Do you puff that chest out, square up your jaw and say with no apologies, quantifiers, qualifiers, or reservations,  ”I’m a writer”?  Or do you say something socially acceptable like “Well, I’m an insurance broker, but I write on the side.” Or “I’m trying to break into print” or with a nervous chuckle, ”Not published yet, but it’s coming” or, or, or. Anything that does not fully commit? Something to explain why you’re not a millionaire or why your name isn’t residing on the shelves at Borders?

Because the truth is that until you can look at yourself in the mirror and without laughing or crying or dropping into abject terror,  just say, “I’m a writer”, you won’t fully arrive. Not because I say so, or because someone won’t let you, but because you won’t allow it. You are holding yourself back to that degree. You don’t want to fully commit, you don’t want to have to answer a load of questions or feel the rumbling of your stomach. 

It would be so much easier, safer and simpler to just avoid all that and say (with a sigh), “I’m a vacuum cleaner salesman.”

Oh, they think, yes, that makes sense. That’s a good safe thing to be. No threats here. Nothing here to challenge what I’ve done with my  life. After all, I’m an insurance salesman so this man here, he’s good people.

See, it’s just a matter of physics, in a way. Everyday, day after day, the affirmation is made. Again and again, I’m a mechanic, I’m a salesman, I’m a broker. Fill in the blank with anything. After awhile you begin to believe it. So, why not just say it, just admit, “I’m a writer.” No, “I’m a writer, but…” No “…and I also write.” Just, plain old, “I’m a writer.” Poor, rich, happy, sad. Any old way, just a writer. Always a writer. It won’t kill you.

See, when you say, I’m a baker or I’m a candlestick maker, you don’t say, “…and I make fifty grand a year.” You don’t add on a little modifier that apologizes for it. You say, “I’m a business owner.” And everyone gets a nice, neat idea of what you are and what you do and no one has to feel uncomfortable.

Why then do we have to hide our true vocation inside of socially acceptable jargon? It just makes us soft. But worst of all, it reminds us that we aren’t a real writer, we’re a carpet cleaner, a cat furniture builder, a coffee bean roaster.

Ah, bullpuckey. 

So, simply say: “I’m a writer.”  Then you’ll be affirming the right thing, granting life to it, making it legit. You don’t need to apologize for why you’re a writer. Heck, it’s not some illness. 

The only reason I’m up on my soap box about this is because I’m totally guilty of this infraction. I’ve been making up little socially acceptable things to append to my “I’m a writer” mantra that I might as well just say, I’m a vacuum cleaner salesman. And I think a lot of people probably are wound up on this point, a bit. I mean, it takes some courage to come out and stand by your claim. Instantly, you’re putting yourself out there with Stephen King and J K Rowling because in the public mind, those people are real writers.

But you know what, you’re not Stephen King or J K Rowling or anyone else and you never will be.  But you are you, and you don’t have to make excuses for it. You’re not supposed to be anyone else but you anyhow.  The world doesn’t need two Stephen Kings. But the world does need one.

You’re one. And the world needs you.

I’m a writer.

Andy S.

And this is the coolest candle in the world!

Pop Culture Soup

Hello friends (and enemies too), welcome to my latest blogpost entitled Pop Culture Soup. In deciding on what to update my little ham radio station with I couldn’t. Meaning I couldn’t decide on one thing. You see, my taste for the amusing, the oddly strange and arcane has grown out of bounds so that I can’t even keep up anymore.

I have become immersed in pop culture soup. Glutted on it like at some all-you-can-eat China Town buffet. And like with endless amounts of sugary sweetmeats steeped in MSG, I just have to pick up another gooey pot sticker,  just one more greasy egg roll.   

But these sweet and sour bits aren’t made of cabbage and deep-fried saw dust. Steaming in these warming tins are dazzling images and new ideas, creative impulses and the thirst for something different, mayhap a trifle bizarre, something to make your taste buds sing and your brain waves percolate.

So, I’m afraid this update is going to feel a bit more like a Vaudevillian freak show.

Now, the first order of business is announcements. Don’t worry, there are only two announcements. The first is that I have gotten another short story published in a small e-zine entitled Pagan Imagination! This is one of my personal favorite short stories that I’ve written. Here’s a link: http://www.paganimagination.com/Pagan-Fiction-p2.html

Don’t be shy. Go ahead and click on it and read the darn thing. You’ll be glad you did and what the hell, it’s free. And yes, I know, the author is Chelsea Morgan Clark–Chelsea and I go way back.

Now, for the second announcement (drum roll…) my good friends at Etsy have agreed to make me my very own Dr. Who Scarf!

 

That’s right, a fricken 14-foot, knit scarf fashioned after the infamous, and of course best, 4th Doctor. God, that’s dorky–gotta love it.

 

 

 

All right. Moving right along–don’t want to bore anybody whose gotten this far. Lets discuss for a moment, pop culture heroes. I mean, who is your pop icon, you know, the one? For me (and I’ve been saying this since Jr. High) it’s Freddie Mercury. (May his legendary soul R.I.P.)

Check out those pants.

For some reason unknown to gods, devils and the minions of both, every time all throughout my teen-aged years that I needed encouragement, anytime I needed understanding, I could find it in Queen songs, particularly ones that Freddie had written. And always, I could find it in Freddie’s solo stuff. Why? How the hell should I know. It’s all part of this pop culture stew I’m nattering about. Even now, some twenty years later I still have these dreams in which Freddie tells me secrets.

Crazy talk? No, pop culture soup, good for all that ails you.

Edward Cullen is a big one now. Cousin It is probably one for a few weirdos. Anyway, now that I’m older, my soup heroes have changed. And here’s a recent one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1nzEFMjkI4

You should have watched the whole thing. And you see what I mean. Or you don’t. Either way, how many hits has the Techno Viking gotten? 8,986,981–Holy____! And you have to admit, there is something creepy-alluring about that dance. And oh my, that glare!  Oh well, throw him in too. Mix up the techno viking into the simmering pot of pop culture gruel. Mmmm Mmmm good, this cultural gluttony, eh?

At this point in the show, I’d like to make mention of a two books I’ve read recently. The first one is actually the 4th in the Apprentice Adept series by Piers Anthony.

If you’ve never read Piers Anthony and like SF and F, I highly recommend this series. The basic premise begins that two worlds co-exist side by side. One powered by technology and the other run by magic. A curtain divides the two worlds and each person has a double on the other side. The only way to cross from one world to the other is for your double to die.  Anyway, reading this 4th one, Out of Phaze, was like eating pop chocolate cake, so sweet and fun it just left me wanting for another piece. I read this book inside of a day and a half. So, my Arbitrary System of Rating gives it an A+.

 Now, for the creme brule of our pop culture lunch. This next one really needs no introduction. I know I’m late to dinner with this one, but I just read it the other week and have to say, Clive Barker is my new favorite author. I’ve been lapping up his Books of Blood ever since. Anywho, may I present to you, The Hellbound Heart:

 

 As many are sure to know this is the original novella that spawned the Hellraiser movies. Anyway, I read this on the plane back from Worldcon in Montreal. Never before have I been so riveted and so pleased with the writing craft as with this work. If you haven’t read it, by all means do gorge on it. Yes, its horror–so, don’t be a sissywillow.  Ooh, and look at this:

Reminds me of backmasking in the 80′s. (You know, play the record backwards and go crazy from the subliminal messages encoded by evil rock bands–zheep, zheep, zheep worship Santa Clause zheep, zheep, zheep.)

 

 

 

 Well, anyway, so long for now. I hope you enjoyed the show. I apologize if the monsters got out of control, if the fuzzy outline in the corner of that dark room really did move, just a little. It’s just…welcome to my world.

(Also, check out my News & Updates section and updated bio info.)

Vampires That Don’t Drink Blood–What Is This World Coming To?

Okay, okay. I’ve finally got something worth dusting off my soap box for. I’ve been reading a lot more lately and reading things I wouldn’t normally read, just to get an idea of what is out there. Often I’ll be standing at the book store, staring at all those books, day dreaming about my first publishing contract and saying to myself what are these people writing? So, I decided to find out. I delved into a few paranormal romance/urban fantasy novels, the ones you find in the romance section at the book store, the ones that ALL have vampires and werewolves. I kid you  not, every single fricken one has vampires and werewolves. Vampires and werewolves, vampires and werewolves. Did I say vampires and werewolves?

Aye caramba!

So, I picked up the ONLY one that did not have vampires. Werewolves, yes, the main protagonist is a werewolf–apparently the only female werewolf. And she’s pregnant too.

But I though that was okay so I read the damn thing and guess what–there’s a vampire in it. Okay. Fine. This is evidently the Vampire & Werewolf genre, I can handle it. But here is what I cannot handle and here is what came to me this morning like an exploding Molotov cocktail (that’s a glass bottle with gasoline and a burning rag for those of you who haven’t been to Beirut): these are not vampires or werewolves. No, they are not. They are something else, they are some watered down, worked up hybrid invented so that little girls don’t get scared in the middle of the night.

Lets get this right out in the open. I hope I don’t offend anyone who might read this. I’m not trying to, I know the Twilight cult is pretty strong out there, but this is my blog and is one of the few places I can download and rant. And this all my opinion. So here goes.

Twilight. Yes I read Twilight and before I go off, let me just say I liked this book, and the movie. Actually I saw the movie first and liked the movie more. One of the few times I thought the movie was better than the book. I gave the book a B on my Arbitrary Rating System (more on that later) which means I enjoyed it. But Edward Cullen is not a vampire.

Did you get that? I’ll say it again: Edward Cullen is not a vampire. Look, is there a single drop of blood in this book?  Where is the vampiric ecstasy of blood drinking? Oh, yes, I know Edward is a vegetarian. Balderdash.

Yes, I just used a very old and weird swearword too. Balderdash.  There is no such thing as a vegetarian vampire. It defies natural vampire lore and law and is just a silly notion so that leettle leettle girls can read the book and not piss their pants. Or throwup because they can’t handle vampirism but still want to look cool reading a vampire book.

Let’s segway. Anne Rice–the ultimate source of all things vampiric in the 21st century, created the ideal vampire mythos. Lestat, Louie and the gang are rendered perfectly in her vampire chronicles.

Why? And that’s the million dollar question. Why? Is it because they drink blood and try as they might (Louie–Brad Pitt in the movie) just cannot resist? Is it because they revel in human suffering and fill their closets with their deceased human victims? Is it because they are so totally lost and forsaken?

All these things–these qualities–make them vampires in earnest. But what makes these Anne Rice vampires so perfect is that all these qualities also make them similar to us.

If you’ve read this series you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t read this series, you should. And if you’ve read Twilight and not Interview with The Vampire–shame on you.

Through the suffering of these creatures we see our own suffering. Through their unquenchable yearnings for the forbidden (human blood) we sense our own darker desires. Through their unimaginable loneliness we feel our own vulnerability. Through their eyes we see ourselves. It’s a metaphor for the human condition.

Okay, let’s take a look here. You know vampirism is originally a metaphor on sexually transmitted diseases right? Think about it. How do vampires procreate i.e. make another vampire? By exchanging bodily fluids. And the drinking of blood gives them that sensual, lustful charge that we mere mortals get from sex. So, you see my point. (Don’t worry, this is all leading somewhere, you’ll see.)

So, here we have the condition of a vampire: immortal, beautiful, powerful and damned. Trapped here just like all the rest of us. Intensly strong but also intensely fettered with the craving for human blood. Now the vampire must commit terrible, heinous crimes–spurred on by his atavistic thirst–just to exist. And he must now attempt to rationalize his new nature with his old human morality. A morality that no longer applies, yet lingers and hovers over him for all his eternal days. And therein you’ll find all the interplay needed for story after story, examining this, looking at this and sizing it up.

It’s a metaphor for the human condition. And if you read my other post on The Role of Fiction, it makes sense. You can see bits of yourself in these poor, poor creatures of the night who’s unlimited power comes at a terrible price, who’s darkness forever threatens to overshadow their light. You can see your own attempt to rationalize your life, applying a morality that may not apply to new situations that you encounter as you journey though time, but a morality that hovers over you like some paternal fog egging you on to act or react in predetermined patterns by forces out of your control.

Now, take this out of the vampire. Make him drink deer blood, call him a vegetarian and give him a gel hair cut, keep him from sucking his girlfriend’s jugular and you take the whole thing away. You lose the whole point. Now its just a cute story for leettle girls who don’t like the idea of their vampire boyfriends draining their corpses dry in their neatly made beds.

Well, honey wake up!

Now, for my book review section. Today we are going to take a look at Scent of Shadows by Vicki Pettersson. I gave this book a C+ on my Arbitrary Scale of Rating, which means that I’m saying the same thing about this book that all my teachers said about me: “Kid’s got great potential, just doesn’t use any of it!” Thanks teach, I’ll try to not fall asleep in Algebra next time.

 

The book starts out great. The character voice is close and personal and you’re invited into a strange world of blood thirsty demon thugs and hot, sword wielding babilicious chicks. But the more it goes on, the more muddled and confused it gets. The basic premise is that there are 12 good superheros and 12 villains that correspond with the 12 zodiac signs in every city and these two forces war against each other and create much mischief. The idea has promise, but it’s not really threshed out fully. And by the end of the book, I was just waiting for it to end. I forced myself to finish it based only on my own arbitrary and stupid rule of finishing every book I start. Oh, and you never do get to see the cool demon dude on the front cover.  So…I can’t say I recommend it. Only because it didn’t do what it set out to do. I thought.

Anyhow, it’s way passed my bedtime (7:30 at night)…so, until next time…

Andy

 

This is what i look like when i’m blogging. Cool, huh?

Reading, Writing…but no Arithmetic.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog and this is due mainly to so many damn things happening in the same short time frame. For starters I lost my job. Yup. Gone out from under me like a magician’s table cloth trick. But I saw it coming a few months out so I was prepared and had another one lined up. This necessitated that I move across the country so I ended up going from the 3rd worst place to live in the United States (Chicago) to one of the best places to live in the United States (Los Gatos, California). That, my friends, was a good move. Oh, yeah.

I also attended a 10 day writers workshop where we learned how to market our stuff and that was a very, very good 10 days. Made some good friends too and got to talk alot about geekhood stuff to people who wanted to hear it. I also got some good feedback on my book Prizm. One person was offended by it, which I also took as a compliment.

Moving is a lot of work by the way, it took us 3 days just to unpack and another 3 days to hang curtains in our new mountain home. Luckily there are a lot of trees outside.

Lately we’ve been exploring the wilderness around us and keeping busy getting the new job enterprise off the ground. So, yeah, we’ve been busy. But it’s all good.

I did manage to find time to write in there and was able to advance my Poppycock story some more. Sarah, my main character, has just met the cat-god. Actually his name is Rob and he turns her cat into a woman. You see, he’s a fairy, a very handsome fairy at that, and he gets his admiration and infamy from all the cats in the world. Yes, cats can give homage too, and so, to cats, Rob is a god. It’s part of the fairy belief hierarchy. A  fairy, any fairy, can live off the admiration of animals. Mostly, it’s better to live off the admiration of human’s and even better than that would be the admiration of other fairies. That’s a fairy king–a fairy who receives homage from other fairies. It’s a latter, sort of a food chain concept.  

Fairies need admiration, they need to be believed in, they need homage. When the Industrial Revolution came man’s belief in fairies waned severely and he began to put more and more faith in the steam engine and cogwheel. This was a huge blow to the fairy folk and as a result many began to “fade into smog” (transmutated into smog clouds). Now, you don’t see fairies at all. Heck, they’re even called the Vanishing People–well, what made them vanish?

Now, Poppycock gets notoriety by killing people and Puk gets it by turning people into human animal hybrids and Rob, he gets it by being the Patron Saint of Cats. That’s his actual title. Homofelinus would be his Latin class name. Anyways, he’s bitterly handsome and has intensified sex appeal and all that, so Sarah, my protagonist, will find it hard to resist his charms. I sort of imagine him like a gothic pied piper.

It’s fun to make shit up. And it’s fun to read shit that other people make up. So to that effect, I wanted to give a little review on the books I’m reading. You see as a writer you have to be a reader. A while ago, I discovered that I wasn’t much of reader and found, when I inspected, that I had finished maybe 10 percent of the books I started reading. It was pretty bad. I rumaged through this old box and pulled out like twelve books and I hadn’t finished one of them. I said, “Man, I gotta start finishing these things” and set out on a program to finish those books and then finish every book I picked up from there on out. Now, I’m just talking about fiction books you read for pleasure. I’m not talking about college or non-fiction, I’ve finished tons of them. No, I’m just talking about pleasure reading, you know entertainment.

So, I started out on this course and the first thing I discovered was that books take a lot longer to read than watching movies. Yeah, you’re saying “wow, Schwarz you just realized that?” And I’m saying yes, I did. I had to readjust my thought on the subject because I had become so damn impatient from watching movies and expecting a whole story arc in two hours. Well, with books, unless you’re a speed reader (like some people out there, but not me) you’re just getting into it inside of two hours.

The next think I discovered was that books give you such a richness that movies never could. See, movies are flashy and now with CG can be pretty cool and all, but they’re two dimensional. In books, you become part of the adventure and you get inside the characters heads. It’s far more intimate and all around better. Then when you’re done with the book, if it was good, you remember those characters like your best friends. (or enemies).

Then I realized that I really do like reading books. Funny for a writer to say that. But true enough. So…with that in mind I figured I would throw up (not literally) a book review for the books I am reading. Why not, otherwise they just sit on my book shelf. So here goes.

Now, the first book is one called Monster Blood Tattoo. And this was the book that made me want to do reviews because I have to say I absolutely loved this book.

I know this darn thing is sideways but that’s just going to have to do. Anyways, so the main character is named Rosemund and he’s a boy, but he has a girls name. That’s sort of his tag line. Then you’ve got these monster hunters who get their internal organs surgically altered to better hunt monsters and when one kills a monster, he tattoos its image with the monster’s blood; hence monster blood tattoo.

Anyways, Rosemund graduates from military school and gets sent out into the woolly wild to have all sorts of misadventures. He meets monster hunters and other mischevious ilk. But here’s the thing and why I am reviewing this book: the world building on this peice is phenomenal. The author D.M. Cornish, has created a whole nomenclature surrounding monsters and monster hunters and methods used to kill monsters, the types of monsters that exist in this world, etc. He’s made up this whole subject that comes across like a real subject. Very cool stuff. I was pleasantly surprised with this book and read it inside a couple of days. Anyways, without getting into a lot of deconstructionism, I highly recommend this book if you a) like monsters and b) you think getting a monster blood tattoo would be super cool (like me).

Yeah!

Monster blood tattoo, biatch!

How many monsters have you killed?

My wife kills monsters, too.

On Self Recrimination and Getting Infamous.

Proud pappa. (Mr. Dickens looks a bit resentful though).

It’s been a while since I again found the muse to make another blog entry. Actually I got hit by life. This new economic climate has made it somewhat adventurous for me in these last months and in particular these last weeks. But I am able to front up to it now, whereas when at first we got hit, I felt a bit shaky at the knees. You know, asking mundane questions like “What am I going to do with my life?”

In reality this economy is no more than a series of agreements that it’s all bad. I cringe every time I hear that old hackneyed phrase of  “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.” Thank you sir, can you stop saying that now? You’ve said that every time y0u were at a loss for words in front of the American public since the Primaries.

Oh, well, now I’ll try not to get political on my blog, the last thing I want to start is some kind of political discussion club. I gave up on politics in my Junior year in high school, Advanced Placement Government class. But if one thing has happened to me in 2008, it’s that I felt my wisdom grow. You know, that’s an odd thing to feel.

I’m not that old (34 in Earth years) and over that time I knew I was naive as a doe in a grizzly den in my late teens and early twenties but it never caused me much concern. My vulnerability was never apparent. Then I hit 30 and got scared. Weird. For me thirty was more ominous than any other age simply because it meant that I was supposed to be an adult now. Supposed to be. Get the difference there, because what you are supposed to be and what you are can sometimes be a long ways apart. Honestly, I don’t know if anyone has a good definition for Adult. Actually, the only thing I see attributed to the word “Adult” is in connection with lewd entertainment venues and that, my friends, is a sad state of affairs for a word that is also suppossed embody the concept of human beings who are in charge. Go figure.

Anyways, so suddenly it seemed that that eternal well of youth that had been cascading about inside my pysche might, possibly someday run dry. Yes, I had that fear. And I can’t really explain why other than the significance of an age. And yes I know that is melodramatic, but if you know me at all, you know that I am a bit melodramatic anyways. If you didn’t know that it’s only because I’ve been fooling you, and that’s not your fault, I can also be a very accomplished actor when I want to be. So, back to the point, I had this dim inkling that I might grow old, that my flesh might sag or something and it scared the holy hell out of me for a good 3 years. I’m not kidding.

But I had this thing happen in the new year here. I was looking back at 2008 saying my unlamented goodbyes to the year that was, the year of heart break for so many and a year that gave me too much annoying politics (it was the first time in my life that I actually gave a hoot about politics since I was 17 and I think it will be another 17 years before I get into it again) and I had this little thought:

You have to forgive yourself for the wrong things that you have done enough so that you’ll retain sufficient self confidence to do right again.

In other words, there are a lot of things to feel lousy over, there are a lot of little failures along the way and if you beat yourself up about each one too much you won’t possess enough fortitude to keep going and win the game. You’ll stop yourself and that’s the real pity. I had that thought and I knew then that I had become wiser. And then I realized that if age has it’s virtue it is wisdom. Christ, if I keep this up I’ll be a damn budah by the time I retire.

Anyways, so that’s my sentiment for 2009, because I had been feeling drained by 2008, as I am sure so many else were, and I decided that I needed to formulate a new outlook for the new year.

I’ve been also getting myself more and more onto these social media lines. If you’re not on at least half a dozen of these networks you don’t really exist and in that regard I’ve been feeling a bit like Poppycock and his brother Puk.

Funny story, I got onto Twitter–you know that website where you have to explain what you are doing in 100 words or less–and I started messaging this and that and then I got a dose of my own medicine. Someone–I don’t even know who this person is, I can’t tell by their online handle which only served to freak me out more–messaged me with the word POPPYCOCK! And for the first time I had an idea what I’ve been putting my poor charcaters through. It seemed in that moment that Poppycock was after me for an instant and I had to look about the room to remind myself I wasn’t inside one of my novels. (Thank God for that.)

Poppycock gets himself onto all the social media as does Puk–it’s the best way to become infamous and stay corporeal. To give you some background noise Puk is a fairy like Poppycock and in his native form he looks very similar to Pan the goat god. And Puk is actually upset–has been upset now for several centuries–that a certain playright, who he refers to as Blind Bill, wrote that silly, little play and portrayed him very poorly indeed. Made him into a Fool’s Fairy and did not at all do him justice as a fearsome and terrible god of the wood that he was always meant to be. Eclipsed by Pan and half a dozen other minor deities Puk has become largly forgotten in history, his power and infamy leaking out into antiquity and onto the pages of children’s stories. So he too has got to make a comeback. He’s not only got to get corporeal, he’s got to get a following together, a group of adherents who can keep their man in the running for godhood. Hey, I didn’t make all of this up. Fairies are said to be “gods but not gods”. They are the Christian equivalent of angels and demons, somewhere in between men and gods. So, naturally Puk craves such a state of being, it’s how he stays alive. The way he does it is similar to the old circus freak shows. If you remember correctly Puck in Midsummer Night’s Dream turned that one dude into a donkey–er a donkey head. So, that’s what Puk does in this universe I’m telling you about, he makes chimeras–human-animal hybrids. Problem is it doesn’t always work out. He’s trying to perfect his skill. He considers himself an “arteest”.

It’s fun even if a trifle strange and at some times downright sick. Again, blame it on the characters–it’s their story.

Until next time…

This is the Popular Two Day Shaved look, setting #3 on my new Christmas present.

 

This is me explaining my universes. To myself...

Asking God why I'm not on the New York Times Bestseller list. Yet.

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The Role of Fiction

I’ve gotten to the stage of rejection whereby they thank you for sending the story, let you know they liked it, but that they can’t use it in their particular publication and to please keep submitting. It’s the next rung up. That’s good. The first rung is just an impersonal form letter saying thanks but no thanks. There is apparently an entire ladder of success with the lowest rungs belonging to rejection letters from publishers. Actually, I think it comes down to exposure. It takes so god awful long to get anything back. On a short story it can take 4 months. And you only send one short out to one market at a time. So, in a year you get maybe 3 or 4 outlets to shop it at. That’s slow. So you need dozens of short stories, actually probably hundreds. You should see the list Stephen King has. He was rejected so many times he filled up a nail on the wall, then when the nail fell down, he put up a rail road spike, then when that got too full he put up another rail road spike and filled it. All that before he got a single acceptance. You can read all about it in “On Writing” by Stephen King. The best book far and wide on the subject of writing for writers.

One of things you often hear when you tell someone that you are a writer is that they too want or wanted to be a writer. It’s such a romantic notion, I think, the idea of sitting with a bottle of malt scotch, writing the next great epic in some quaint ocean village on the coast of Spain. I used to have that exact fantasy. I don’t think I’ve ever had malt scotch. I have been to Spain though and they had plenty of booze. But I couldn’t write like that. I have to be sober.

That's romantic.

 

Then there is the whole coffee shop fantasy about writing amidst the dazzling aromas and collection of eclectic sophisticates with their dread lock hair, nose rings and goatees.

I mainly write in my room. Sometimes I go to Starbucks, but that’s usually only after I’ve spent way too much time in my room, by myself. I wonder often if it’s a curse. Whether it be self-imposed or some affliction I picked up along the way. It’s addicting I know that. Four years ago when I decided to get serious about it, writing was hard to do. It was like sticking pincushions in your eyeballs to see if it hurt or not. Then somewhere along the line the pin cushions stopped hurting, and then I started craving the feel of that slender, cold metal sliding in and out of those well primed pressure points.

Sounds terrible. But some people will know what I mean. It’s like anything else, the more you do it the better you get and the easier it becomes and after a while, what caused you pain doesn’t hurt anymore and you like it. Like Mexican food.

But it’s hard to start. It’s still hard to start for me. And it’s work. The concept of writing in some euphoric daze with stars in your eyeballs is true a very small percentage of the time. Mostly its just plain old work, like laying concrete forms or house framing. Only thing is, you’re constructing a universe instead of a house and that has to be the coolest thing there is. There are all manner of universes, both internal and external and I believe that a writer is building universes no matter what he writes.

Up till now, I’ve forgotten to include this small bit of fame. I did manage to get a short story out in print here, last month. It is called “Behind Closed Walls” and you can read about it here:

http://www.lunchhourbooks.com/shop/home.php?content=current_issues&osCsid=9e9c7d219368ff086e9d88ccad68a2dc

I don’t know if you could buy that particular issue. You could try. They allow you to buy single issues and you could request it. Maybe you’d get it, maybe you’d get something else. You can read my interview however at that link.

Whitey is actually where all my ideas come from.

 

 

Anyways, the role of fiction is an interesting subject. I believe that fiction, be it Science Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy or Literary, has a role, a mission if you will. And I have found a way to explain it. If you’ve ever taken homeopathic medicine you know that it works by taking a teensy bit of the disease and feeds it back into your body, then your body recognizes it and is able to create an immune response. But before that you’re body was so overwhelmed with the affliction that it apparently couldn’t do anything effective to combat it. Well, I think fiction’s role is similar.

Here we are, humans all, living life. We go from day to day, year to year, doing what we do. We all encounter the same stuff. We all have problems. We all live in an economy and are all subject to the same universal laws. Some are higher than others, some are lower. But, beautiful or ugly, rich or poor, gay or straight, we are all in the same sinking or floating boat. You ever get that feeling? When certain things like the stock market and job security start falling away, you start seeing it more clearly. Anyway, after awhile you can get kind of beaten down. You can get kind of weathered, a little green under the gills. So, you sit down and watch a movie or read a book. You can play video games too, but I don’t know anything about that. Anyways, in the pages of a book, or in the frames of a movie you find things. You find familiar things. You find yourself, you find that crazy guy down the street, or at work. You find loneliness, you find emotion, tears, happiness, you find superheroes–you find little bits of life, that to you, are the most real bits there are. Little teensy bits that you ingest into your psyche. (And by the way, mythological things like superheroes, dragons, and the like—they are a part of life in that those things are an ideal that man recognizes. People love superheroes because they represent an ideal state, they represent the best that one can be.)

On the big screen or in chapter sixteen the main character realizes his role in the world, or his passionate love, and you realize it too, and it heals you. It makes you know that there is beauty in the world, or adventure, or love. It makes you go ”there’s more to life than the economy, or the election or the mortgage.”

Oh, it works the other way too. There are plenty of sad stories and scary stories. And that little bit that you ingest stimulates your psyche into healing itself again. Brings the color back and makes you see this game of life from a different angle. And it gives you strength to face up to it and beat it. By feeding you little bits of the stuff that made you weak, you recognize it and become strong again.

I think all fiction has this role. Where it falls down, you just walk away saying “that movie sucked” or “that book was dumb”. It didn’t reach and reverberate on your human experience. But maybe it strikes a chord with someone else. The key is to strike that chord in the populace at large, then you become a millionaire or something. But you also communicate. You reach the masses and let them share your universe with you.

Now, I’m not saying that other things don’t do this. I am not saying that other things are not therapeutic. For certainly there are. I mean just talking to a friend who has had a similar experience can suddenly take out all the pain in a certain situation, just because you see that you are not alone, you see that someone else has had that problem too.

But I am saying that fiction does this, or should do this. I am saying that fiction has this role. And it allows you to sit back and see the world from a different viewpoint, if only for a few hours.

 

I still work a day job.

Good night.

Quasi Science, Shapeshifters and Writing Outlines

I was able to advance my Poppycock story a bit this last week, though not as much as I would have liked to. I’m sort of still getting out of the gate with it. Ideas are settling, characters are developing and the plot is taking shape, mostly all in my head. It’s a good sign though, because it means the material is being forwarded to me from that great beyond where story ideas come from.

It’s a funny thing. You never really know where the stuff is coming from. I found this out after the first couple hundred thousand words I wrote. The story is all there. You don’t have to come up with it because its there. You need to excavate it, you need to dig it out, dust it off, but if you mess with it too much, if you try to change it too much from the original content that comes to you in a mental stream of unconsciousness you will inevitably ruin some portion of it.

Every time I have ever tried to think the story out before I wrote it one of two things has happened: 1) it just ends up reverting to the original story line or 2) I just come up with what I would have come up with anyway, which is really just another way of saying no. 1. I used to do these long outlines that would take hours and hours to prefect, coming up with all the right plot devices and ways to make my characters do things that would seem in character for them, all the way to conclusion. I did those outlines because I was so nervous that my story would just be wobbling all over the place, changing here and there–something like your character has just come face to face with mutant monsters and for the last 50 pages she hasn’t even gotten upset by it. You say, now wait a minute, if I had just been held captive in a farmhouse attic and fed dog food by werebears would I still have any part of my sanity? Wouldn’t I be freaking out a little? A lot?

But really all you do then is just go back and add the content that you missed. Its part of the excavation process. In this case I just had my character come up with the reasonable explanation that she must have somehow been drugged to hallucinate so bad (so she could mentally cope with it), and by the time she realized it was real, there was so much more danger in present time bearing down on her that she didn’t have the option of wondering about her sanity too much.

It’s interesting to watch a character grow up. It’s lovely actually. By the end of the book you know this person like they’re your best friend. In this one I’m writing now–Poppycock–the main protagonist is Sarah Montgomery and she has this problem where no matter what she’s attracted to the wrong guy, the Bad Boy type. It’s been that way her whole life so she has this complex about it and it’s a real problem for her and what not. Of course by the end of the story that issue will be resolved (along with some others) and she will have grown up some. It’s not what the story is about, it’s just a part of her personality. It’s a part that will change along with many others. If the characters don’t change throughout the story something is wrong. They have to change. They have to grow up.

Anyways, now I don’t bother with outlines at all. Because I know that I would have written according to the outline anyway. So,its pointless admin. A few times now, after a story was completed I found the old outline that I’d had stuffed away in a special file somewhere, forgotten. And I chuckle every time because the story is dead on with the outline. I hadn’t looked at the outline for the last half of the book and had forgotten I’d even done it, but I’d written the story true to it anyways.

It’s the thing I was saying–the ideas are already there. The story is already there. You just have to trust yourself to just let it come out. I’ll give you another example. I wrote a Sci-Fi adventure about a human military officer coming in contact with a hostile alien tribe called the Ceti. He becomes an honorary member of the tribe, learns this cool guerilla warfare technique flying through trees and what not and then goes on to fulfill a prophecy. Anyways, I wrote the whole book and kept referring to this alien people as The Ceti all throughout the book.

Then one day, I decided to just look up the word Ceti online, just for fun and I found out that its C.E.T.I. for Celestial Extra Terrestrial Intelligence i.e. an alien race. I couldn’t believe it. All this while, a year, I had been using this acronym and then come to find out it really means how I was using it. And the only explanation for it is that the content is all there. From this a devised a law: ONE MUST WRITE THE STORY THAT PRESENTS ITSELF TO BE TOLD.

To do anything else is to venture off into a dark and shapeless place where ideas collide with one another and bounce off the walls of your cranium. Every time I have gone astray from the above law, the story comes to a screeching halt. Once, I tried to blend two story ideas into one. I thought, maybe I can just use this character from this story and the world from this other one and just blend them together. The result: gobbledygook. I did an outlines once just like that and read it a couple of weeks ago. It was an atrocity. Of course, often a story idea does snap together with what you thought was a different story and suddenly you realize its all the same story. But that is different. That’s an outcropping of the excavation concept. That’s a natural union and the result is always great. But it’s when you have to force it together with a crow bar and weld it so it will hold is when you’ve gone off the above law.

Anyways, so my lead character, Sarah, currently is being confronted by Poppycock and he’s about to do something really bad, only she has no idea what and assumes the worst. Poppycock has media presence now and basically everyone is scared to death of him. He’s all over the news, internet, papers. So, I’ve actually left her hanging now for over a day. Poppycock is right there in her living room and she’s in tears hoping that someone comes in to save her. Only thing is (and she doesn’t know this yet) no one is coming because the only person who could has already been captured. So, she’s going to have to cut a deal with Poppycock and his brother (named Puk) and accept their terms if she wants to live. It’s a mess.

One cool thing is I discovered how fairy’s can shape shift and what not. See shape shifting defies natural physics. You just can’t do it. Take the mass density of a man. Okay, he’s 6 foot and 200 pounds and we’ll pretend he’s a shape shifter too and he becomes a werewolf, lets say. In this process his muscles get all ripped and he grows three feet and claws and long teeth. And he would actually weigh another 75 pounds or something. Actually a great example of this is The Incredible Hulk. Anyways, so when he’s not morphing out to his passionate mutant side, he shrinks back down into man form. Now, here’s the big question: what does he weight when he steps on a scale? 200 pounds. Where did all that mass density go to and come from when he’s going in and out of his monster physique? Law of conservation of energy is all against it. Its one of those things writers and moviemakers just gloss over because lets face it, it’s fantasy. It fits under the heading of Suspension of Disbelief and we’ve all accepted that, if we want to enjoy a good mutant super hero. 

Or it’s explained away with a word: magic. Ah, but magic is such an easy out. You can always just chalk it up to magic and away we go. But I say that’s not good enough. See, my story, Poppycock, has an urban setting. So, it’s intrinsically linked to the real world. So, you gotta have a real world explanation. Of course, Poppy and Puk have magic, but it’s a magic system. And here’s my explanation for their fairy morphing skills: they exist in a slightly different timespace continuum than us mortals. Just enough different so that they stand slightly outside our laws of physics. They can interact in our space, they can see us, communicate with us, but they are just a little bit not there. They are just a little bit ethereal, a little fey as it were. So, that is why they are trying so hard to be real in our world. Because they are so close already, if they can just get enough agreement that they are real, that they do exist, then they can solidify just a little bit more. Problem is they will never truly be as real as they want to, never quite because they exist in a different timespace.

Anyways, I suppose that’s a little too far into geekdom. But what I love about this stuff is that it’s really a metaphor for our own human condition. My fairies just want to be taken seriously, don’t you too?

AMS

 

Gingerbread house.