Yesterday we attended a Rockies baseball game against the Dodgers. We won’t speak of their loss, nor how close it was, nor whether or not they had fun (inside jokes with family), but we got to watch it from a private suite (sweet!), and afterwards, were treated to a spectacular fireworks show! Of all the fireworks I’ve seen, these folks at Coors Stadium kick royal ass! Coors stadium opens up most of the field to everyone to lay on the grass and watch, and the last two times we went, we laid out on the grass and watched in awe. This time, I stayed back with some of our family members who didn’t head down, and we watched from an outside landing…we were actually closer to the fireworks than being out on the playing field. But, in either location, at the hypnotic, finale fusillade, the explosions were so powerful, you felt the concussions actually pounding your body!
It’s nothing short of jaw-dropping.
Enjoy!
Rockies v. Dodgers, July 3, 2014
Loading up Coors Field for the Fireworks Display, July 3, 2014
Yes, I Know Where the Bodies Are. By American Museum of Natural History (http://adsny.com/nyindian/nyindianintro.html) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.I’ve been writing since I was six years old. That’s a long time, considering I’m in my early fifties. Admittedly, between the age of six and 26 that was sporadic, but in 1987, I got serious and began writing every day. I began (or should say continued) with short stories. Short stories and prose poems were where I began. I’ve lost track of how many I’ve written (I know it’s over a hundred, perhaps more toward 200?, is about all I remember), but only have a handful actually published. Someday, my plan is, is to published the better of those into a collection.
As I began indie publishing my novels, I thought it might be interesting to list out the order of the books, as I wrote them. So, that is what I’ve done here. I have also included in this list those novels I have not (and will not, as the case may be) publish, just to show the order of their creation, including my age when I began them. A couple of titles I will not give, since they are still works-in-progress that may or may not be actually released, or are novels I may yet return to, with titles that are more unique than what I already see out there. I thought, that might be an interesting point of view. How old was I when wrote Sleepwalkers?ERO? Was I your current age? What kinds of thoughts do you think of, now, at your age…that I might also have been thinking? Do my works portray an expected state of mind, in my progression through time and aging?
Note: only the hyperlinked novels are released. The rest are unpublished.
So, here is my chronological list of novels, listing the years it took to write them. 1993 was a banner year for me.
Updated June 16th, 2015:Voicehad been updated, #7, below. It is to be published July/August 2015.
Satan’s Stairs, 1987 – 1990 (26)
Village Idiot, 1990 – 1993 (took 2nd in a 1993 writer’s conference contest; 29)
(Title hidden), 2012 (first draft; possible series; 51)
Yes, I was—and continue to—write a fair amount. I take my writing seriously, and do try to write every day, but don’t beat myself up about it if I miss a day or so. I work a full-time job, so all this is part-time effort. A couple hours a day, and some (or not) on weekends. I’m less anal about the weekends the older I get. I do need some time off, you know.
Thanks to all of you who follow my social media and who’ve read any of my work. I do appreciate your time and effort spent on my words. I love playing with them. Thank you for sharing my fun!
Take a Look in the Mirror. Take a Picture, So You’ll REMEMBER. By http://www.flickr.com/photos/byflickr/ By flickr, Rohan Kar (http://www.flickr.com/photos/byflickr/2584948850/) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsWell, I’m sure this’ll make me extra popular, but I find this annoyance and anger with Amazon amusing.
Really, we’re dumping on Amazon?
Aren’t we also ignoring all the ills of the Traditional Publishing world, with stuff like, oh, yeah: price fixing.
Let me remind you who the “Big Five” were (are), in this little pricing fixing scenario:
Simon & Schuster.
HarperCollins.
Penguin.
Macmillan.
Oh, yeah, and Hachette Book Group.
Hachette.
And, hmmm, let’s see what else does Trad Publishing do that can be taken issue with?
Not helping authors with promotion and marketing.
Less author-friendly contracts (. e.g., sucky terms, grabbing as many of an authors rights as possible, and royalties).
Not including author input on covers.
Making authors feel like we are there only for them, instead of a more teamwork approach.
Not growing authors anymore in favor of a bean counting approach.
Archaic business model.
How they drag their feet in paying authors.
Giving away half your book’s value up front…and the returns, oh. my God, the returns!
All huge companies do what huge companies do, and that is…they do what benefits huge companies. Period. Most times it makes them look “okay,” and they fly under the radar, but periodically, they all do something that gets them in hot water, and they “auger in,” as the flying analogy goes, and crash and burn in the media.
And everyone loves to pick on Amazon. Especially bookstores.
I’m not saying that I agree with what Amazon is doing—I don’t—but to string em up like this is just making for great sound bites and videos. The public has a short memory.
Liars, Liars, Pants On Fire! (By HarperTeen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)Over the weekend I got into a short exchange about book blurbs. It was mentioned that during the BEA, that there was a “lot” of talk among editors about how important book blurbs are, now, for debut works to be taken seriously. I watched some of the comments, and saw that not everyone (as readers) seemed enamored over them.
Book blurbs are having some famous person giving a little mini review of your book, like “This is the best piece of literary action/adventure since Shakespeare!” It’s an “If all these people like this book, you will too” marketing approach. I have nothing against that. Personally, blurbs never really played much into my buying a book. As was mentioned by one or two others, it was always about plot, story, title, cover art (yes, I have bought books for the cool looking covers, before…but that’s no longer a factor, since I became a serious writer). That kind of thing.
Then one day, as the “serious writer,” I asked an acquaintance of mine to blurb one of my books.
This person got back to me within an hour or so (to be honest don’t remember the actual response period, but I do remember thinking this person could not have read the book that quickly) with a blurb.
A blurb that was written without having read my work.
I asked if this person had read the book and was, indeed, told no, they hadn’t. I thanked the person, but told them that I would not use it, because I wanted my blurbs to come from people who actually read my work.
Over the years, I had found that this was standard industry practice!
Yes, the traditional publishing industry, that place that brought you your Hunger Games, your Harry Potters, your Dragon Tattoos, even your Chicken Soups, or any of the Oprah-endorsed books…look at all those blurbs famous people wrote. It’s a sure bet most of those were written without the blurber having actually read any of the book in question.
Now, I could be wrong.
It could be that today’s publishing industry has grown morally and ethically since the 15-30 years ago when I discovered this from other authors (yes, I asked some others, and one or two even told me they’d supplied blurbs without having read the books…that it was just “the thing to do…how it was done.”)…buuut, I doubt it. So, I did some quick research over the Internet, and this article is representative of what I found. You might find it interesting, even if it is dated 2012, especially this little line: “Shteyngart admits that he hasn’t fully read all the books he’s blurbed….”
In this (and other articles I found online) nearly all of them all said the same thing: they don’t really sell books. They help get them into bookstores, perhaps, but readers don’t really pay attention to them. Oh, sure, the blurbers might be well meaning, helping out a friend or student…or are sleeping with an editor…or even have a gun to their head, one article joked…but a 2012 Bowker Market Research study showed that only 6% of readers become aware of books through jacket covers or testimonials…blurb effectiveness was anecdotal.
Back to my weekend comment: “So, given the comments, how in touch ARE editors with their readers? Are the blurbs more for official reviews?”
Yes, was the basic response, but when I mentioned that most blurb writers do not read the books they blurb, and make stuff up, the person I interacted with no longer responded. I found that extremely unprofessional on this person’s part. Really, when presented with a “hard” question, you simply…ummm…ignore and run away?
Funny thing, is, I really wasn’t even looking for a fight…was just “organically” responding with the others, and providing my POV, in that I also don’t pay attention to blurbs. So, really, I wasn’t (nor am I currently) looking to embarrass anyone, I was just trying to have a meaningful conversation, in which (I’d hoped) I would be told that, hey, “We, here, in the Publishing Industry no longer hold to misguiding the public with the practice of MAKING UP book review blurbs so you will buy our books. That was then…this is now. But, hey, thank you for bringing up that concern so, we, here, in the Publishing Industry, can address this heinous activity and set the record straight.”
Yeah, well, guess I got my answer.
Yet, we all got all bent out of shape and pissy with the Amazon review scandal of a couple years back, with authors doing their own fake reviews. When you’re making shit up—aka, lying—does it really matter who‘s doing it, if you’re all part of the same bucket?
One may say that they’re not useless, they still get books into bookstores, but getting books into bookstores is not the same as selling them.
Oh, and there’s still the lying part….
As to my own books blurbs, every one of those are from people who read my books (and, in one case, the screenplay I adapted from The Uninvited, which I allowed, because I adapted the screenplay myself and knew it was perfectly inline with the novel). I will also not give any blurbs to books with which I have not read. Yeah, like I’ll be asked, but I’m just sayin’.
Perhaps I’ll even stop my own practice of asking for them, given their shady nature.
So, be wary of any blurb on any book, by anyone. Seems like it’s still a damned good bet that they’re all made up.
Watch Out. We Do Bite Back. (By Sharla Perrin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)It’s really bugged me, this thing that goes: “write what readers want to read.”
It’s also really bugged me this thing agents and editors say: “can you make this into a series?”
You see, as an artist, I take a certain umbrage at being told I have to write what others want to read. To me—to the artist inside me—I want to write what I want to write. What begs to be written by me, the stories that percolate and surface beneath and onto the surface of my mind. For me to have to write what others want to read is rather mercenary, at best. It’s looking at the whole thing from the wrong point of view (in my not-so-humble opinion), at worst.
Do painters and sculptors paint and sculpt what people want them to paint or sculpt?
Oh, and try telling that to a poet!
What happened to writers doing what they wanted to do, creating and expressing their own inner muses and creativity?
What happened to the single-book novel, nay I ask, what is so wrong with the single-book novel?
Anything can be sold. Abso-fricking-lutley anything.
I don’t want to write about vampires (without the “-yres”), I don’t want to write fantasy. I don’t want to write romance. I don’t want to be easily pigeonholed. I want my work to bridge genres. In and of themselves, there’s nothing wrong with any of these genres…except that there are too many of “the same” IMNSHO. I’m all for writers being successful, and feel there is room for all of us, but I am not for crappy writing being thrown around and slapped between two covers just because it will sell. I’m not for tritely cloned stories. And I feel for the writers who partake in this, because they feel they have to, to make it in this biz. If they want to do it, then that’s all them, more power to them, but, please, don’t do it just to cow to the Powers of Publishing. I have tied to read a lot of mid-list books a couple years ago, and found I just couldn’t do it. To me, and for the most part, the stories were tired and flat. Uninteresting. Trite. Poorly written.
Yet they sell.
Now, one or two were well-written, but the stories just didn’t interest me. Okay, that’s fair. I’m not everybody, and everybody’s not me, and my work isn’t for everybody. Different tastes keep life interesting. But, please, don’t coerce, intimidate, nor cajole me into writing like some other story out there just because some people are buying that particular “thing.” Fine, compare me, if it’s complimentary, but don’t force me into something I’m not.
Please, allow me (and others like me) to write what we want to write. If you don’t like it, fine, don’t read it, don’t take me on—but do not not take me on just because I’m not like what’s already out there, because it’d take just a little more Brain Power on your part to market and promote me. For chrissakes, people have told me my work has given them nightmares! You don’t get nightmares from stuff that doesn’t interest you, doesn’t bother you, doesn’t affect you in some, moving, profound, way! So, I’m betting that someone out there will like it. I don’t say this out of ego…I say this out of understanding humanity. If I like something, chances are someone out there will also like it. We’re really all quite similar in how we operate as Humans. If someone likes something, chances are so will others of our kind. I’ve written and published three novels. With one exception I can think of, the reviews are all favorable. So, I know I can write something–stand-alone books, no less!—others would find interesting enough to read and review (and I thank all who took the time to review my books!)…have nightmares over!
It’s not that I’m so much against the Publishing World…as I am against the mindsets that drive it. I love most of the editors I’ve met, and some of the agents. I’d love to be able to work with a traditional publisher, regain agenting. I’m just asking for the mindsets to change…just a little. Become more open, more humane.
So, please, allow us to express our own unique creativity. Don’t force us into boxes that don’t exist. It is not a case of getting us to be more salable. You may think it is, but it’s not. You may have created a business out of distribution, but that doesn’t make it right that you impose your ways on us. You should work with us, as we are [trying to] work with you. You may feel like you have (or have had) the power to make or break us, but whether or not that may be the commercial case, that should not be the Human Way. You should not try to screw us over with your greedy, author unfriendly contracts. If you had no authors, you’d have no business. No power. If it wasn’t for us, you’d be nothing, and you’re power-purse-strings approach seems to squelch that for most, who succumb to your whims, but it doesn’t make what you’re doing right. This should be about distributing the work that we love and create—yes, with whatever needed improvements and polish that comes from professional editing—but, letting us do our job of writing what we love to write, and you do your job of distributing our work.
![I Have Skeletons To Unearth. By American Museum of Natural History (http://adsny.com/nyindian/nyindianintro.html) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Burial_Ridge_Skeletons.jpg)
![Take a Look in the Mirror. In fact Take a Picture, So You'll REMEMBER. By http://www.flickr.com/photos/byflickr/ By Byflickr, Rohan Kar(http://www.flickr.com/photos/byflickr/2584948850/) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Photography_and_The_Law.jpg)
![By HarperTeen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Prettylittleliarsletters.jpg)
![Watch Out. We Do Bite Back. (By Sharla Perrin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Running_from_Military_Working_Dog_Rronnie.jpg)