Well I’ll be hornswoggled—I won a fiction contest!
Yeah, yeah, I was the only entry. But still!
The story is called “Te Absolvo,” which is Latin (or something) for “I forgive.” It’s my take on a famous historical personage, whose identity you’ll probably guess easily. I hope you enjoy it. You can read it here at The Soap Boxers blog.
While you’re there, knock around a bit. Read Kosmo and some of the other writers at the site. That ought to keep you out of trouble for a while, heh heh.
Beware of Anthony Giangregorio.
I wasn’t going to give this particular guy any press, but horror novelist Brian Keene posted this on his blog and on Facebook, and I felt I really needed to get the word out to any readers who may not be aware of it. Tim Lieder posted about him here also, as did Kelli Dunlap. And poor Mandy DeGeit, who was so excited that her story was going to be included in an anthology from Giangregorio’s small Undead Press (he also runs Living Dead Press, and Open Casket Press), until she found…..
Well, click her name for the story. It’s pretty unbelievable.
In short, Giangregorio joins a list of disgustingly nasty people who prey on UNPUBs who want to see their work in print. There are other small presses out there that do this. In this case, I think this guy is a poser. Even so, he’s damaged other writers and deserves to be called out.
He published and sold unauthorized sequels to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. One poster on Kelli Dunlap’s blog entry mentions he read one of Giangregorio’s books, and realized it was a complete rip-off of Stephen King’s The Mist. Some author, huh?
TO TOP IT OFF…..
According to Brian, he’s apparently begun to threaten people who speak out against him. Um, that’s not very smart, when everything on the Internet stays there FOREVER.
And ever…and ever…hallelujah…hallelujah…
Image: Road to Infinity by Jugni / Wikimedia Commons
Alyn Day had a run-in with him and she posts about it here. (If it asks you about adult Previewcontent, say yes; it’s not dirty or anything). She’s the one who had the veiled threat messaged in Facebook.
How can writers avoid people like this?
Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware (who also posted about Anthony Giangregorio and editing clauses in contracts) reminds writers to make sure editing clauses include their cooperation. A true professional will indeed work with you on changes, but it MUST be in your contract.
Lessons learned?
#1 – READ EVERY WORD OF YOUR CONTRACT
If you don’t understand something, ask about it. If you need time to have a lawyer (preferably one that has publishing experience) take a look at it, do so. Remember, anyone, ANYWHERE, who pushes you to sign anything, does not have YOUR interests at heart. Don’t sign until you understand every word and have come to a mutual agreement as to the terms.
#2 – Check out agents and publishers before submitting
You can look them up at Writer Beware, or Preditors and Editors, or google the name of the press or agent along with “scam,” and “review.” Look for a decent website rather than just a Facebook page or email. Absolute Write Water Cooler has forums where people post their impressions and experiences with industry people. The link will take you to the beware page.
#3 – Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is
This is the golden rule to avoid scams of any kind. And remember, with the exception of self-publishing (that’s a whole other can of scammer worms right there), money should flow TO the author, not FROM the author. Do your homework on the industry so you know what is normal and accepted practice.
Hey, chicky, wanna sell a story? Have I got a deal for you…
Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net
#4 – Report people who are unscrupulous, who threaten you, or otherwise act in an unprofessional manner.
This assumes, of course, that YOU didn’t act in an unprofessional manner, such as throwing an email fit when an agent politely says no, etc. You can squeal on them at the links in #3.
People like Anthony Giangregorio who pull this type of shit give small publishers a bad name. It’s worthwhile to out them, so if they sleaze their way over into another genre, they’ll be recognized for what they are.
Wow, I found this awesome post by Brian Hodge, A Survival Guide for Writers in Love (And Those Who Love Them), with contributions from Brian Keene, Barb Hendee, Mark Alan Gunnells, and Elizabeth Massie. It reveals some hard truths about what it’s like not only to have a relationship as a writer, but with one as well. Thanks to Brian Keene for bringing it to my attention on Facebook, in a link to his blog.
Read it; I’ll wait.
Done?
It gave me some things to think about. Egon is pretty supportive, but I wonder how that would play out if we weren’t long-distance, and I was pounding out a novel all day. If I were totally freelance, my workday would coincide with his and we’d both be done by five. One problem with creative work, however, is that your muse doesn’t always keep regular hours.
In addition, many writers are also juggling full-time jobs. Because, you know, writing unpublished novels doesn’t pay anything. Even published writers often don’t make enough to go rogue and quit the rat race.
Say your partner is working and you are working, and then you come home and start writing. Basically, you have two jobs. That doesn’t leave much time or energy for anything.
The post talked mostly about romantic partnerships, but a creative track can mess with other relationships as well. I’ve run into misunderstandings with family members whose most egregious offenses were attempts to dictate the content of my work, or uninformed advice about the progression of my fledgling career. While spouses can be guilty of this as well, someone you live with every day is bound to see a bit more of the reality than people you only hang with on Turkey Day.
Distilling the advice from the post and throwing in some of my own, I came up with these points:
Questions or concerns on either side? Voice them
As Hodge writes, and the others agree, writers and their partners are not mind-readers. If you don’t talk about problems or ask questions, you’ll mire yourself in a swamp of assumptions. Fears are huge when they’re inside your head. Drag them out into the light through your mouth and they shrivel and die.
This is what fear looks like. It mostly comes at night….mostly.
Neither one of you is more important than the other
You can’t have a relationship without the other person. When you spend time with her, pay attention. Just sitting in the same room doesn’t count. You’re in a relationship because you care about this person. If she is only a vehicle to your future literary superstardom who pays the bills and cleans the house, you are a gold-digging jerk. Leave now and let a real man come into her life!
Creative work is mostly mental
Hodge makes a great point in that writing doesn’t always look like writing. I may not be tapping on the keyboard. You might see me doing something that looks totally unrelated, yet with a spaced-out look. I’m THINKING. If you ask me something and I say, “Huuhhh…duuuuhhh,” back off a bit. I promise, I’ll come back to you.
Career advice from a non-writer should be withheld, or nicely ignored
Please don’t tell your writer what to do. She has (hopefully) spent time learning important tidbits about submittals, queries, formatting, or keeping up with industry news and trends. When you say, “You know what you oughta do?” she’s gonna tune you out. You wouldn’t tell a firefighter how to fight a fire, would you?
Let’s see you try this.
Image: Tokino / Wikimedia Commons
Exception: if we ask for feedback. Honest and thoughtful are the watchwords here. Believe me, if you blast us, we won’t ask again.
Don’t scream at well-meaning family members who offer advice. If you think they’ll listen, you can point out that yeah, it would be nice if Mom called that agent and insisted he read her baby boy’s manuscript, but that’s not how it works. Thank them and save the eye-rolling for when they’re not in the room.
Which leads me to:
Share judiciously
DO NOT TELL PEOPLE WHAT YOU ARE WRITING ABOUT UNTIL YOU HAVE A COHERENT FIRST DRAFT.
I made this mistake. Now some people won’t leave me the hell alone. I put enough pressure on myself; now I have people bugging me about when it will be finished, when can they read it, etc. etc. ETC. AAAAAAHH!!!!!
This can derail a project at the speed of light. I’ll finish it when I finish it. Back off!
Discussing certain concepts with research in mind is not the same thing. But make sure you choose carefully with whom you share. Nagging isn’t productive.
Sorry, Grandma, the bloody zombie apocalypse cannibal gorefest isn’t done yet.
Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
———-
Don’t take anything I say as a mandate or an insult. It’s a two-way street, this understanding that goes on in relationships and families. Like Pink Floyd says, just keep talking.
Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you!
I would hope some of my readers know what I’m talking about. But if you don’t, today is Star Wars Day. On this day, Star Wars fans celebrate their favorite films and culture.
“No, I’m not obsessed. Why do you ask?”
Image: Werner100359 / Wikimedia Commons
Geeky demonstrations of fandom are nothing new. During the 1960s and 1970s, Lord of the Rings devotees ran around saying “Frodo lives!” and “Gandalf for president!” or writing it all over everything. But with the advent of the Internet, they have exploded.
May 25, Geek Pride Day, started with a loosely organized event called the Geek Pride Festival, made by Tim McEachern, which ran in Albany, New York from 1998 to 2000. It was picked up in Spain in 2006 and spread like wildfire via the tubes.
Geeks and nerds are becoming the new cool. In typical geek fashion, this 2011 article by Todd Bishop on GeekWire contains charts explaining the aspects of geekdom.
Companies like ThinkGeek cater to our desire for toys and gadgets from our favorite media offerings, or cool stuff like cubicle trebuchets with which we can launch office wars. A calendar program I came across called VueMinder Lite (the free version) has an option to fill in geek holidays. And conventions like DragonCon, ComicCon and VisionCon attract major and minor celebrities alike.
Besides Star Wars Day, some of the holidays geeks have created or commandeered include:
CapsLock Day—June 28 and October 22
I hadn’t heard of this one, but it’s pretty funny. One of my coworkers at Exjob would love this one. All his emails LOOK LIKE THIS. YES HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THAT IN INTERNET SPEAK, THIS IS CONSIDERED YELLING. The original holiday was in October, and the June 28 addition celebrates capspeak pitchman Billy Mays.
Pi Day—March 14
Celebrates pi, or π, the mathematical thing. No, I don’t do math but I know the first three digits of pi are 3.14. So there. Eat pie on this day and talk about math. Or just eat pie. :)
Computer Security Day—November 30
An international observance, this holiday originated in 1988 to highlight computer security issues. Celebrate by doing a virus check, changing a password, or helping a newbie with his/her computer safety issues. This is a good day to schedule an annual equipment check.
Hobbit Day—September 22
Birthday of Bilbo and Frodo. First started in 1978 by the American Tolkien Society. Do something hobbity today! Read some Tolkien, have a party with ale and fireworks (if you can). Or just go barefoot, as hobbits do.
Talk Like a Pirate Day—September 19th
This is my FAVORITE geek holiday! My chat room goes nuts with this one. I attempt to get away with piratespeak as much as I can, even at work. My ideal day job would be one where we get to dress up Pirate Day. At the very least, I can usually get away with a ruffled blouse, boots and my skull earrings.
Official logo – more info at http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html
You can find more geek holidays here, at Geekdays.com. Pick your favorite and celebrate!
I love: Z.
Because it’s the end!
By the time the Blog Challenge is over, I’m tired of posting every day. I enjoyed this challenge much more than last year’s, however. For one, I’m not working two jobs. For another, I actually had a plan this time.
I also like Z because it’s a neat letter. When I write it, I make it like this: Z. (That’s a line through the letter, not a strikethrough.) I make my number seven the same way: 7. Long ago, my late voice teacher, Margaret Thuenemann, made hers that way (Pittsburg State University in Kansas). I liked it so much I adopted it.
I hope some of my posts were entertaining, at least. It’s way past time to work on my book again, but I’ll try to post regularly. That’s one thing the Challenge is good for—getting you back on track.
Thank you to everyone who hopped over here and a big thank you and hug to my regular readers.
I love: not much today. It’s been a yucky day.
Like this, only without the stairs.
On the bright side, I ordered a book from Amazon called Decorative Dollhouses, by Caroline Hamilton. I’ve checked it out of the library numerous times, and extra copies never show up in the biannual sale. Amazon had it for less than five bucks including shipping. It was supposed to show up Monday but I got it Saturday. Happy happy joy joy.
It’s hard to keep this guy down.
———–
I hate: you.
Yes, you. You know who you are. You’re out there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to annoy me. Soon you’ll be in front of me on the road, putt-putting along like you have all day.
You’ll be filling out an application next to me, and bragging on your vast experience, trying to intimidate me.
You’ll take the last muffin on the breakfast buffet as you see me reaching for it.
You’ll cut in front of me at the store, with the lofty excuse “I have a child,” even though said child is nowhere in evidence.
You’ll put your junk right on top of mine at the skating rink, even though it was there first, like it doesn’t exist. Like I don’t exist.
You’ll ignore me when I want to talk to you, turn away when I need you, save the best of yourself for someone else, take what I give you and return nothing.
You’ll criticize my appearance, my work, my hobbies, my choices, and my life. You won’t always do it out loud, but your look tells all.
You.
Perhaps hate is too strong a word. I strive for indifference to you. Unfortunately, we’re both human. So I should thank you for giving me something I can use. And you will be immortalized in a well-crafted scene, and when people read it, they’ll think to themselves, “What a jerk!”
I love: X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes!
I’ve wanted to see this Roger Corman film for years. Stephen King talked about it in his non-fiction book on horror in prose and film, Danse Macabre. The film stars Ray Milland.
It FINALLY became available on a Netflix double feature disc paired with Premature Burial, one of Corman’s Poe flicks and not a bad offering itself. In Burial, Milland plays Guy, a Victorian man who has a terror of being buried alive. It was a common fear in those days, that one would succumb to catalepsy and mistakenly be interred. Perhaps in earlier times it explained some of the vampire myths about coffins being opened and searchers finding bloody-handed corpses with bulging eyes inside, and claw marks inside the lids.
The Premature Burial, by Antoine Wiertz (1806-1865). This painting always used to scare the crap out of me.
X opens with a shot of a bloody eyeball. Yeah, that can’t be good. Milland plays Dr. Xavier, a scientist who is doing research on the limits of human vision. He wants to push it further than it’s ever been pushed before.
Xavier develops some eyedrops that allow him to see past the visible spectrum. He tests them on a monkey, who freaks and dies. His assistant asks, horrified, “What did he see? WHAT DID HE SEE?
This isn’t good enough for the doctor; the monkey, of course, is an animal. There’s only one way to determine how a human would react to the drops. Only. One. Way.
He soon finds he can see into a patient’s body (fabulous trick for a doctor) and through ladies’ clothes at a party. And he damn well enjoys it.
Unfortunately, Xavier soon finds himself practically addicted to the idea of it, to “explore all the mysteries of creation!” and it leads him down a dark and twisted path, to some of the world’s ugliest wallpaper. Quite painful for a man who can see everything.
Is Xavier nuts to experiment on himself? Is it ethical? What horrors await him? How far will he go? Why did people in the 1960s dance so weird?
Milland plays existential anguish well. Sitting at a casino table, x-raying cards through an enormous pair of black sunglasses, he resembles a surly alien, desperately trying to escape as the drops spiral him down into a nightmare.
Corman favorite Dick Miller pops up, as do Don Rickles and the late great John Hoyt, who Trek nerds might know was actually the doctor in the Star Trek pilot “The Cage.” I met Mr. Hoyt in Santa Cruz shortly before his death; he was a very gracious man.
X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, for all its zany premise and cheap special effects, is quite somber in tone and well-acted. Give it a look (heh heh) if you get a chance, while Netflix still has it.
——–
I hate: (e)xposition dumps.
Sometimes referred to as infodumps, these occur when a writer isn’t careful about inserting expository information skillfully within the narrative. Instead, a character stops everything by explaining things, or there are long passages that do it instead.
Dumps annoy because they stop the story. I don’t have a problem with them if something else is going on around them. There are times when you kind of have to do it, but you should try not to lay it all out at once. Go through your info and pull out the main points you want people to know, and feed it to them in bites rather than shoving a huge platter into their brains.
If you really have to, flashbacks are okay, I guess. Someone pondering can have other things going on around them that reveal character or plot points or setting while they’re working out their details.
Thinking about this now, I got some cleanup to do. The only novel you can’t change is one that’s on the shelf.
Too late now!
I love: words.
I better, if I’m going to write.
Words are the building blocks of my art. I put them together and try to do it in new and surprising ways. I don’t think I succeed a lot of the time, but when I do, there is the delicious pleasure of having made something no one else could make.
I wrote a passage in my book that I loved. It almost doesn’t sound like me (and I’m not entirely sure it is—I’ve googled the crap out of it and I can’t find anywhere I lifted it from). It’s so good I can’t believe it came out of my head.
It’s unnecessary to use big words, or overly complex phrasing, to convey an idea. Look at this passage from Hemingway’s 1926 story “In Another Country,” for example.
In the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more. It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very early. Then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasant along the streets looking in the windows. There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The deer hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came down from the mountains.
You can see the street in your head, can’t you? Each word is chosen very deliberately, and none of them are elaborate or showy. Good word choices like powdered for the snow on the fox fur avoid clichés like dusted.
Consider the phrase the wind turned their feathers. When wind blows a bird’s feathers, they flip up, don’t they? But flip wouldn’t be the right word here, because it has a jovial quality that doesn’t fit with the quiet winter darkening of the street. The birds are dead, and the wind is acting upon them. Turned implies a more deliberate action, and a slower one. The feathers turn as the birds swing back and forth in the wind, and in just a few words, Hemingway paints an image of motion in our minds.
He uses the word wind quite a few times here, but he has established a rhythm. In the wintry street, it’s the only thing alive among the game animals.
By focusing on just a few details and using simple yet powerful words, Hemingway establishes a scene that sets a tone and draws us into the story.
Ernest Hemingway in Switzerland, 1927.
Image: By unattributed / Wikimedia Commons
———-
I hate: writing.
Yes, I said it. Sometimes I do hate it. If I’m tired, I don’t want to write; all I want to do is watch Emergency! on Netflix. Or listen to music and blather in my chat room. Or READ, for a change.
If I don’t write, I feel guilty. When it’s going well, I love it, I don’t want to stop, I can’t fathom ending the dream I’ve fallen into. Other times, I feel as though I’m writing a very long paper on a very dull subject. I believe Hell for writers must be typing a dissertation on the striations in the wood grain on your desk. For eternity.
TODAY IS MY 200thPOST!
Image: Semnoz / Wikimedia Commons
It’s kinda neat that it happened during the A-Z Challenge. :)
I have absolutely nothing to give you, except a huge THANK YOU for following my blog. You force me to attempt to be clever and come up with colorful examples when I’m talking about writing, because I want to entertain you. I wish all of you good things and may 2012 be a much better year for all of us.
I love: the Victorian era.
It is generally defined by the reign of British monarch Queen Victoria, from 1837 to 1901, and named for her. In America, those years of excess were dubbed “the Gilded Age” by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner.
Many people think of the Victorian era as a time of repressed morality. Indeed, religion and social status were highly prized to the Victorians. But for the first time, industrialization allowed the rise of a middle class, and mass-produced goods became available to the common man.
There are some dumb things about the age, such as protectionism and idealization of women, which didn’t allow them to reach their full potential. And it took forever for people to realize that if you washed your hands before you delivered a baby, both mama and infant were much less likely to die.
The period saw a great uptick in discovery and technology, particularly at the end of the nineteenth century. If you compare that time to the end of the twentieth century, they are very similar. Look at all the cool things that exploded from the 1970s through the 1990s:
Now look at the the nineteenth century. Before the 1850s, the telegraph, the sewing machine, and typewriters were invented. That was only the beginning. In the rush to the end of the century, the pace of these inventions sped up. Between the 1870s and 1899, we have:
All the little gadgets people had back then are one reason miniaturists like the Victorian period so much.
Yes, there were crappy things about living in the Victorian era. Children worked in factories and were often killed. There was a thing called workhouses where the poor and unemployed were sent to live and conditions there were horrific. Slums appeared in cities, sometimes cheek by jowl with the rich folk. There was no air conditioning and you had to burn coal to stay warm, which made large cities look like this:
Nelson's Column during the Great Smog of 1952. Now imagine this with horse plop all over the streets.
Image: N T Stobbs / Wikimedia Commons
If you messed up socially, like married the wrong person, your life was ruined. Remember how upset Rose’s mom was in the Titanic movie when Rose acted like she didn’t want to marry Cal? If Mama had had to go to work, they would have lost not only their standard of living, but all their friends and any means of support, without any way to climb back out like we have now.
The era is a gold mine for historical fiction writers. I’ve thought about trying my hand at it, given all the research I’ve done for miniatures. Or perhaps I can worm it into another book somehow.
Bet you didn’t know that the Victorians:
That’s all hair. From the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
———-
I hate: vanity publishers.
You pay them to publish your work. People keep telling me I should self-pub. I really, really, really, really don’t want to do it.
Part of the reason self publishing gets a bad rap comes from the fact that if they have the money, anyone can do it. There are no standards. Therefore, a lot of bad material finds its way out there.
Many decent writers are choosing to self publish, however, since the economy has affected the publishing business in a big way. It’s also pretty cutthroat to do it the traditional way, but it does happen.
I love: underwear.
Not literal underwear, but the underneath part of the story that sometimes flashes glimpses at you like a bra strap or the shocking flash of bright-colored boxer briefs when the pants slide down and the shirt rides up.
Some underwear is backstory. A flashback intrudes, and the protagonist takes it out of the mind drawer and examines it. Holes may appear or the memory may be pristine. Either way, we get a good long look at the underwear.
Some types of underwear are more complex than others.
Others are things we all do but writers rarely put in a story. Simple, everyday things. Eating, smoking, peeing—you ever notice how many book characters never go to the bathroom? I mean NEVER. In certain genres, they don’t have sex either, not even in situations where any normal person’s underwear would be hanging from the doorknob.
Little bits and pieces of underwear help define character. What a person chooses to reveal—or not—tells the reader and the other characters more about them than they may care to permit.
———-
I hate: unsolicited advice.
People always think they can tell writers what to do. “You know what you should do is—“ has become a phrase I dread to hear. It’s usually followed by uninformed blather from someone who doesn’t know crap about anything.
“You should write children’s stories.”
I don’t do that. I like writing about sex and violence, thank you very much.
“You should self-publish!”
No.
“You should write something that will sell!”
What the bloody hell do you think I’m trying to do?!
(After you’ve explained what a query is) “Put in your query letter that your mother liked your book!”
*takes out pistol, puts to temple* BLAM!
Skate I will, for skate I must.
Photograph by Elizabeth West
Like Tiny Batman says, stay true to your vision. If you don’t, your writing will suffer. You and you alone know what you are good at, what works for you, and how you want to approach it.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do everything you can to learn new techniques. It doesn’t mean you can’t explore new ways of publishing. Make sure you listen to that voice inside you. Don’t let people who don’t know any better tell you what to do.
Image: cinefantastiqueonline
