F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction Author

Fun

I Can Work On My Novel….

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I'm Dyin' Here. (By Rafi B. from Somewhere in Texas : Flickr [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
I’m Dyin’ Here. (By Rafi B. from Somewhere in Texas : Flickr [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Being a writer used to be unique and “different”…like being an astronaut used to be…but, now, well, everybody seems to be doing it.

“Hey, while traveling the world with my spouse, I think I’ll work on my novel….”

or

“Gee, now that I’m laid off, I can finally work on my novel….”

or

“My cousin’s brother’s girlfriend’s aunt knew a guy who knew this girl who made tons writing her first award-winning NYT’s best-seller romantic fantasy dystopian zombie mainstream young adult novel that actually went to auction….”

Was the uniqueness of writing something that attracted me to it? No, not even. It was always the whole writing bit that I’d just gravitated to…and it wasn’t like I was sitting there throwing darts at “Things to do When I Grow Up”…it was just something that organically emerged from within at a young age.

Right, like every thirty-something out there, today. Twenty-something. Teen-something. I’m waiting for the first Ga-Ga Doodle Book from an infant-something….

I’ve always played with words. Some would say I’m just playing with punctuation, too, but that’s another story.

So, what’s a unique job today? What can I shoot for when I grow up that is not commonplace, with all these millions now becoming astronauts and best-selling noveliers?

What could I do to make a living at The Unique?

Let’s see..I could be:

A snowplow driver.

A bounty hunter.

A magician.

Stuntman.

Police sniper.

Grave digger.

Life coach.

Animal actor…agent.

Coroner.

Dolphin trainer.

Elephant trainer.

Oooh…ice cream truck driver!

Zamboni mechanic.

Well, there are plenty of odd and weird unique jobs I could look into…but, clearly what I’m really looking for…is for all of you aspiring writers out there to take a hard look at any of the above interests.

Now.

Really.

So that I can get back to working on my own novels without all of your interference….

What Ever Happened to Book Editors?

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Do It Right. (Tacoma Narrows Bridge, by RustyObjects {Own work} [CC BY-SA 3.0 {http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0}], via Wikimedia Commons)
Do It Right. (Tacoma Narrows Bridge, by RustyObjects {Own work} [CC BY-SA 3.0 {http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0}], via Wikimedia Commons)
Book editors.

We all have images in our heads of what they are. What they do.

But are our images correct?

Marjorie Braman’s article, “What Ever Happened to Book Editors” got me to remembering the first time I’d ever heard about the real working lives of publishing editors. It was at a writer’s conference. From the very editors themselves. What I’d heard sounded more like my own work life (minus the specific book stuff)…meetings, meetings, and more meetings. Budgets. Schedules. Reading queries. Writing flap copy—oh, and trips.

I didn’t hear a whole lotta editing going on in those offices.

Now, they did tell us that any editing they did they had to do on their own time…at home. After looong days at work. So, they had that going for their job descriptions.

But what Marjorie’s article brings out is that publishers believe it’s all about acquiring and selling. She was flat-out told by her publisher at the time—as she says, “almost in passing”—that “We don’t pay you to edit.” She says that one little quip meant to her (and rightly so, as I’ve gathered over the years I’ve experienced being in the publishing world) was that editing is no longer important. It’s all about buying and selling. She says this has been true since she came into the business in 1985.

This date, I found curious.

You see, I started getting serious about writing around that time (May of 1987). I still have my original log books—see, I even started treating it as a profession back then…doing it every day, studying it, going to critiques groups, keeping track of all my work.

But, man, talk about being a day late and a dollar short in an industry where editors were editors and authors were cultivated!

On the flip side to Marjorie’s article is that she became a freelance editor and left trad publishing, so all of the above no longer applied to her. Now…she’s full-bore into helping authors write the best books possible.

But what she’d described above is what I’m seeing everywhere: the constant focus on the bottom line to every business. It’s all gone to bean counting. Bean counters are even making heady corporation direction decisions, all based upon what’s making money and what’s not. That’s not a good perspective. A good perspective would be the overall picture/health of a company and what needs to be reworked…sometime a “minor” correction in one department can generate huge, positive outcomes (yes, even positive revenue generation) elsewhere. It’s not just a “this makes money and this doesn’t.” What is working and what isn’t…how can we improve processes…more intelligently schedule…make better use of existing capabilities…make a better product/give a better service…and the rest will follow?

How can we publish better books?

Better cultivate authors?

Not just sell crap cause crap sells?

If all you have is crap (or “the same old thing”) available…that’s all anyone can buy. If you don’t challenge people, they do not grow.

A fair cost-benefit analysis (again, I find this different and more in-depth and useful than a mere “this makes money…this doesn’t…” indignance).

Just how much of a profit is really needed for an industry to survive?

Hire the people you need…staff the actual positions with qualified individuals…cultivate better authors…and let editors do what editors are supposed to be doing. I know all this “costs.” So do books. And there are other options out there for readers…for writers.

My dad always used to say, if you’re gonna do something…do it right, for God’s sake.

 

 

X-Files Returns!

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I just post my Intruders post when I see this X-Files tweet. I’ve known about the X-Files return since it was announced, but I really wanted to make this Intruders show known and hope it does return (Glen Morgan is associated with both The Intruders and The X-Files)!

Anywho, check out the updated information on the X-Files!

The Truth is Out There.

 

Award Winning…What?!

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Seriously?

Award Winning-Expertly-Milled-in-the-USA-Gold Medal-Premium Quality-Over-125-Years-of-Baking-Success-Enriched-Bleached-Presifted-All-Purpose Author, F. P. Dorchak (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak composition of some really, pretty damned good flour).
Award Winning-Expertly-Milled-in-the-USA-Gold Medal-Premium Quality-Over-125-Years-of-Baking-Success-Enriched-Bleached-Presifted-All-Purpose Author, F. P. Dorchak (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak composition of some really, pretty damned good flour).

When I see this associated with any author and not a bag of flour I cringe and immediately get all pissy.

It seems, methinks, that every author I come across has won some kind of award.

Even me.

My blog won a Liebster Award in 2013. Does that make me “award-winning?”

Oh, and I did take second place in a PPWC writing contest way back in ’92.

Award winning?

Now, I’m not trying to diminish everyone’s hard-won and legitimate successes, I’m really not, but it just really bugs me that I see so many “award winning” authors out there that, well, have awards from places I’ve never heard of or are awards that are, what I consider, kinda “incestuous” to only the organization “awarding” it.

Or such books are so labeled and I’ve never heard of them.

Or, you know, that they’re labeled at all.

It doesn’t even matter the reasoning behind it…it just annoys me on principle.

Yeah. It does.

I mean, “Hugo winner” used to mean something until I read Bob Mayer’s post. Same with NYT’s and WSJ’s Best seller lists, when I read somewhere how these are “fixed” (wish I could find that article but this one will serve the point).  I just don’t believe much in any award-winning labels anymore.

Except for flour. The stuff that works really, really well. And tastes good, too.

I’ve read some “award winners” and wasn’t all that impressed with most of what I’ve read (not counting Hugo winners when I was a kid; it seemed that might have meant something back in the day…but I’ve also found when I tried to reread some of the fiction I read as a kid that I thought had been great…that the writing actually wasn’t all that well-written, so am still kinda up-in-the-air about the whole thing…)

I’ve removed the Liebster award image from my blog. I felt weird putting it there in the first place and have wanted to remove it for a while and just never got to it. It was fun answering the questions and nominating others I thought really deserved it—and I truly thank and appreciate the guy who nominated me for it, I really do, that was très cool of you, Samir—but I really don’t want to get into all that “award labeling.” I’ve never been one for “pomp and circumstance” (not a fan of it while in the military…still not). Let the “thing” (whatever it is) stand and speak for itself.

I mean, do you ever really see or hear anything about “Stephen King, award-winning author…”? No. All you hear is:

Stephen King.

Then you pee your pants, clean up, know exactly what is meant by “Stephen King” (his name is always italicized). You don’t need any adjectives or adverbs or whatever those modifier-thingees are supposed to be called before or after his name.

That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Okay, okay, I know…there’s also the whole “best selling” debate, and King and others have been so labeled, but that kinda dilutes my whole argument so I’m just gonna ignore it. My blog, my topics.

The upshot of either discussion is that I don’t want to be coached into what you’re bringing to the table…I just want to see what your words do to me.

I want to read the jacket copy…take in the cover…check out what’s between the covers (kinda like checking out what’s between a person’s ears…). Now, I don’t have to like what’s between the covers…but I can certainly appreciate the wielded skill. I feel that way about a couple of authors I’ve read—damn good authors but don’t like what they write. I really can appreciate kick-ass writing even if I don’t like the content.

Yet (<sigh>)…I know it’s all about promotion and marketing annnd whatnot.

I know being on a best-seller list means more money to authors. I’ve read that readers like to see that kinda stuff on covers…but I gotta say, I just don’t know that I believe it. That readers really care whether or not “award-winning” (or “best selling”) graces the cover of any book. What I’ve got from my informal survey of the 3.5 people I’ve asked such questions of was that, no, they really don’t care. They just want a good story—in some manner—that grabs them. makes em cry, angry, or emote and associate in some way with the story. In some manner. I think it’s the media and the publishing industry that cares about what’s on covers. When I was a young kid buying books the only thing I cared about on the covers were how frigging cool the images and graphics were! As an “aware” adult author/reader the only thing I care about on the cover is how fricking cool the images and graphics are! Sorry, but I have to side with Franzen, here, I really don’t want an Oprah sticker taking up space on any cool cover graphics!

What the heck’s behind the sticker? Like author intrusion into a story, such embellishments intrude into the weltanshauung of the cover!

Is Oprah adrift and in the boat with that tiger and that guy?

Did Oprah just give the dirty and barefoot and smiling 1930’s kid money?

So, nothing against Oprah or all the authors who received hard-won accolades for their efforts—we all like to think we’re making a difference in this world—but, in the end…whenever I hear that someone is “award-winning”… I just automatically think of them as being nothing more than

A sack-a-flour.

Bob Mayer—The Terminator

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https://youtu.be/YvRb9jZ9wFk

I’ve met Bob Mayer.

Met him at the 2008 Pikes Peak Writers Conference (PPWC) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I’d read a couple of his Area 51 novels. Liked them. So, I thought, here’s a pretty cool guy…why not go meet him and see what he’s like. I liked how he didn’t ignore all the security measures in secure settings and write his characters out of sticky situations by just changing the scene (and instead had to show some crafty maneuvering around said security systems, not ignoring that there are measures to detect your every move and high security places would have them!). Anyway, I thought I’d introduce myself to him.

Yeaaah, about that….

Bob has said in posts that he’s become a bit more outgoing, more personable since he’s been out in the wild, but when I first met him, well…not so much. I remember when I first introduced myself to him at a PPWC mixer years ago and I found myself pulling my own teeth just to get him to talk. After a while I was answering my own questions…and it took me a couple of sentences to realize…well, he’d long since disappeared…

It was like he’d wielded some arcane form of Ninja Kung-fu sfumare on me.

To this day, I don’t know how he’d done that.

So…I was reading one of his blog posts last weekend, his “Traits of Successful Writers II,” and I realized I just had to share about Bob…as The Terminator. In this post he says words to the effect that the best thing about writers’ groups is not the actual writing stuff…but the different characters—the actual people, the writers—in the writer’s group. Trying to figure out their motivations…why they “act the way they do.”

OMG. Flashback…PPWC 2008.

You see, Bob is an extremely observant fellow. A former Green Beret (the big white words on this webpage say it all…).  He’s always watching…observing. I say this not because I know Bob any kind of “well,” but because I’d actually caught him doing so one night at the PPWC hotel’s bar. I was a few feet away from him, hidden by and blending in with the indigenous human foliage. As I scanned the room, I spotted Bob. By himself. And what Bob was doing was…

Studying.

Assessing.

Taking in the lay of the land.

I watched as he took it all in…the people, the terrain, and (I assumed) who was a threat…who he could take…how he could take ’em…even his own method of extraction. I wondered what manner of Special Forces (SF) witchery he had concealed upon his person…you know, besides his hands, feet, elbows, and head. I was sure in a pinch he could use his ear lobes in ways that would make grown men cry…or perhaps a better way of stating this is that Bob would have men use their own ear lobes in ways that would make them cry….

Anyway, as I carried on my insipid, casual conversation…throwing out well-placed laughter here and there…I observed Bob. He seemed to flit in and out of existence (dang it, how does he do that?).

He was laser-like in his gaze. I imagined his mind…his physical vision…was something very much like the Terminator Vision, above…

Scan Mode…

Analysis: THREAT

Assessment: NEUTRALIZE

MALE HT: 510

WT: 0173

ENDOMORPH

INEBRIATED…HITTING ON UNINTERESTED HOT AGENT

Weapon Selection: LEFT PINKY

Weapon Employment: MAXIMUM DAMAGE/EMBARRASSMENT

Yeah, that’s how I see Bob. As the Terminator. When he looks at you he’s not really looking at you.

He’s looking through you.

Into your soul.

And it hurts.

He knows how you move…what your beliefs are…which foot you use to step forward with…what your dominant hand is…and what you had for breakfast…three nights ago…yeah, that’s right…nights. He knew you ate your breakfast for dinner that night. All by observing how you hold yourself, how you behave in public, hold your drink, your mannerisms. The lies you’re telling agents and editors…your friends (you bastard!).

Special Forces training.

Ninja Kung-fu sfumare training.

So, when I read that blog post, those—and similar passages—where he always asks different questions than your average non-Green Beret (like, “There’s what they are saying and there is what they are meaning.“), it brought me back to that dark, crowded bar. To observing the silent, restrained “Quiet Professional” (because, make no mistake about it, however Bob described himself to the public, to the unlucky target-of-opportunity who tries to strike up a conversation with him…at least at that point in his life…Bob was still wound up in his SF mode from what I observed…) as he continued to stalk the jungles of his past….

He was frigging sizing up everybody…the layout of the bar…and why those who built the bar built it the way they did…and what were (and are) their thoughts on the current political climate….

I returned to my conversation. Tossed out (I thought) a rather well-placed laugh.

When I next looked over to Bob—

He was looking directly at me.

Eyes laser-like. Full of knowing.

He took a sip from his drink.

Never blinked.

I peed my pants.

He fricking knew everything about me—I damned-well felt my soul being downloaded into him.

What does that feel like?

Like your guts are being sucked out through your you-know-what. And the accompanying vacuum is like a black hole in your colon.

He knew I’d been eying him.

Knew I thought I knew what he was doing….

I checked myself. Yup, still peeing my pants.

Felt Number 2 close at hand.

I blinked.

Gone. He was gone.

Had he ever really been there?

I saw him—or thought I did—a couple times after that…but every time I blinked, he was no longer there. Curiously, during the rest of the conference I had the strangest urge to tug at my earlobes, come to my feet, and belt out a few choruses of Zip-e-de-do-da! in the middle of conference sessions.

More SF Ninja mind tricks?

I may never know.

Anyway, I like how Bob thinks. His blog posts go counter to traditional thinking (pun intended). He analyzes everything.

Motivations. Outcomes. Potentials. Probabilities. Blueprints.

He is the very definition of Special Forces: unconventional.

He is someone to listen to. Learn from.

Observe.

But just realize that whatever you think you’re observing about Bob…is only part of the picture…if it’s even there at all.

Sfumare.

He’s a master at this stuff. A master at obfuscation.

A master of unconventional writefare.

And he has his Terminator Vision set on you.

*********************

Fine Print: Mr. Mayer may surely be analyzing why I wrote this. Or not. In any event, I apologize, Mr. Mayer, for the current state of my mind and whatever you unearth in there. This post was written purely for the story and nothing else (it’s always about the story with me…even if it embarrasses me). No disrespect is intended to Mr. Mayer’s Green Beret background or himself as a person—I have nothing but respect for this guy and all his efforts in the publishing industry. He’s unconventional and forward thinking. We need more of this in many areas of life and I applaud him. Thank you, Mr. Mayer, for all you’ve done and continue to do…and thanks for not showing up behind me at my desk (yes, I just checked six…) after having posted this…

…at least I don’t think you’re that slightly different-looking part to my wallpaper I’ve never noticed before behind me and why the hell are my earlobes so damned itchy….

Bob Mayer’s Write on the River site: https://writeitforward.wordpress.com/

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The Grotesquery

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The Thing, Middle of Nowhere, Arizona. March 26, 2015.
The Thing, Middle of Nowhere, Arizona. March 26, 2015.

As we started our return road trip back to Colorado (curiously enough) two events occurred that could have drastically altered what would follow (to play off “the dramatic” and my earlier dead bird post…), and are definitely “cousins” to the title of this post.

As we headed out of Green Valley, AZ, two of us wanted coffee. So, just before hitting the Interstate, we pulled into a McDonald’s drive-thru. As we’re waiting in line after ordering, a loud hissing and an emission of a “steam-like substance” erupts from our vehicle! We turn off the vehicle, turn it back on…and all is quiet. As we get our drinks, we ask about mechanics and are told one is literally behind us, on the other side of the road. A Mr. Automotive. Long story short, we find out a relay had gone bad, causing our A/C’s internals to “vent” as it did. Freon. Well, whatareyagonnado? as my paternal grandfather used to say. So, we hung out and got it fixed. But, toward the end, we’re thinking about who wants lunch (I do) and when (now), so I volunteer to walk across to the same McDonald’s and get us some grub (curiously, as we headed across the intersection, to the mechanic’s, I had a mental image of me walking across this intersection, heading back over to the shopping center…).

I leave the shop.

As I’m walking towards the intersection—which is quite busy—another clear image fills my mind…one of me being hit by a car in the middle of this intersection. Cockily, I mentally chide myself: “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen….”

The light goes green. I proceed across.

Intensely checking out all the traffic because of my “vision,” I make my way into the middle of the intersection—when this car comes screaming out of the shopping center I’m heading toward…on a direct collision course with—yeah, you guessed it—me.

I stop and turn toward the car—throwing both arms into the air in a “What the HELL?!” gesture, as I wait for the car to stop.

It does.

In the car I see a blonde woman in her fifties or so at the wheel. Eyes wide. I think she had brown eyes. Clearly, she has just awoken from her nap, or cell phone, or whatever thing she (and the rest of the world) is in such a damned hurry to get to/from without watching where she’s going…while flooring the accelerator. A common affliction I am seeing more and more of from all drivers. Her driver-side window is open.

She apologizes profusely.

I drop my arms. I smile. I continue on.

For the love of cheeseburgers.

Sooo:

1) Coffee saved our bacon from this electronic relay failure happening out in the middle of the desert (thanks, wife!), and

2) A vision I rejected from my reality kept me from remaining down in Green Valley. Or at least, parts of me….

Onward!

We leave the mechanic after about two hours (and a fun pinball machine—thanks, Mr. Automotive, for getting us in pronto and back out on the road!) and head northeast.

One of the cool things about road trips are all the neat, hidden tourist traps that exist out there. It’s kinda like that movie, Vacation (one of my favorite movies):

“Hey, hey, easy kids. Everybody in the car. Boat leaves in two minutes… or perhaps you don’t want to see the second largest ball of twine on the face of the earth, which is only four short hours away.”

Or the House of Mud.

Or Dodge City, where you can go deaf from fake shotgun blasts across fake bars?

So, how about…The Thing?

What is…”The Thing” you ask?

No it’s not some frozen extraterrestrial creature waiting to be thawed out and eat us all (or is it?).

But it is a roadside attraction 17 miles east of Benson, Arizona and 40 miles east of Tucson, Arizona. Basically, out in the middle of nowhere (noted by the “miles east of” directions…). It’s a gas station. And gift shop. Oh, and a Museum. Where The Thing resides. And a way to get out of your vehicle and stretch your legs.

So, we stopped.

The Thing.

Now, my wife and Mom-in-law had already seen this…thing…they were just bringing me in on the fun. So, we paid our dollar-per-customer fare and entered…the lair…which took you back outside to walk between a series of warehousey building by following yellow-painted “foot” steps on concrete sidewalks. We went to three metal buildings, following these footprints, which (appropriately enough) ended back in the gift shop. In these three warehousey structures were all things that were “the thing” at some point in history…as well a crapload of driftwood art. Grotesque, creepy driftwood/root system art. Surreal. The stuff of nightmares, one could say. There were also a couple of torture exhibits I just didn’t get into…not that any of it was graphic…but just the intent…the notion of it was upsetting to me, especially since we were on a “quest for fun,” or, rather, were returning from said. Torture exhibits did not fit into that weltanschauung.

Anyway, there were some interesting things to look at besides the nightmarish tree root art, like antique cars, books, and a 1654 matchlock.

But, mainly, it was about the nightmarish tree root art and this “Thing.”

Note: the “green” of some of the images (below) was from the light illuminating through green fiberglass roofing.

Afterwards, as we munched DQ cones (did I write that out loud?), I asked the only guy at the front desk in the gift shop (there had been two others but they were now gone) about “The Thing.”

“Was it real?”

I just wanted to get “the answer.” The dude said he’d heard the owners tell conflicting stories (no doubt to fuel the whole “Thing” mystique…). One version was that “it” was found in the Grand Canyon. The other version was that it was…

Made by a company in California that makes things like this for places like this.

Okay, then.

Well, whatever it is, it got us out of our vehicle and got us to stretch our legs around this strange Compound of Weirdness out in the Middle of Nowhere, Arizona….

And it was only a dollar.

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