F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

Writing

By The Light Of The Moon…

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By the light of the moon

From the dirt where they lay

They crawl up through earth

To lurk and to prey

They’ve lived and they’ve died

Loved and they’ve lost

But all through this night

Your lives they will toss

             .

Dogs they do bark

Cats they do prowl

Seasons turn chill

And the winds always howl

             .

The myths grow more sick

As clocks do tock tick

For the hour draws near

Of the dark, dread, and fear

             .

Clawed up through dark soil

Within earth they cannot stay

Their legions do roil

Their skin away flays

             .

Leaves rustle, they scatter

Trees all play dead

Rotting bodies that shamble

Are all canted of head

             .

Twitching fright and dead leer

Slack jaws that just fall

Is that shuffling, you hear?

Painful groaning, oh dear!

             .

Prickly skin sent a-crawl

With grand sights of appall

It’s your soul they ill seek

For much more than a peek

             .

Heinous hungry they are

And with them you’ll soon be

Scent of the grave, taste of death

Damp decay you’ll soon cheek

             .

You run and you hide

Scream and you plead

But in truth be it known

Your death is their need!

             .

As civility slumbers

And the retched do creep

Eternal rest will ne’er be

As the dead they do reap

             .

From dirt deathly fearsome

From dirt yet we run

But tis dirt that we are

Tis dirt we become

             .

By the light of the moon

From the dirt where we lay

We crawl up through earth

To lurk…and to prey….

Joe Konrath and Jeffrey J. Mariotte on The New Publishing World

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Here’s a great post by Joe Konrath and Jeffrey J. Mariotte. Things are changing, and here is some stunning proof there is some good in all this publishing upset (and all for $2.99!). As the post indicates, it’s not about writers screwing The Big 6, agents, or anyone else–it’s about writers making a living. I love agents and print and even the Big 6, but a publishing outlet is a publishing outlet, and unless and until things change in the current model, the exodus will continue.

On Writing…and Promotion

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An “inciting incident” recently happened to me. I was involved in a discussion about blogs and self-promotion. It seemed to me that some view blogs purely as self-promotion. And self-promotion = evil.

It (like many things) got me thinkin.

I’m a writer. There are many of us out there. So, when I say “I” or “me” I’m not saying I’m anyone special, I’m just making the discussion more personal. I’m pretty sure what I’m about to discuss is true for many writers out there, so don’t take offense that “I’m so special” and you’re not. Other thing is I can’t speak for anyone else out there, so I’m speaking for myself; how I feel, how I am. As contradictory as this may sound, it’s all I can do, right (pardon the pun)?

I write.

I love writing.

I truly feel all writing helps all writing (as I’ve put in my signature block). I love the long and short forms. In one, you get to the point quicker, in the other, ya got all day. Blogging is but another form of writing. It’s immediate, punchy, timely. Instantly global (and how cool is that?). Both a good and bad point, it doesn’t have to go through an additional editor. It’s simply another writing “mechanic” (I’d use “platform,” but in the writing world that has a different connotation).

It’s fun.

I write because I feel the innate need to communicate. I don’t need to explain this, it just is.

Painters paint.

Actors act.

Readers read.

Writers write.

I love the written expression. Have always reveled and been excited about seeing a blank page…and that I was about to give it life. Make it come to life with words. I love the form (sentences, paragraphs, white space) words take on paper or a screen. The images they conjure. I enjoy wordplay. Love reading. To write helps clarify my own thoughts, my life. To write helps others experiencing similar issues, but who are unable to quantify, categorize, or internalize said issues, and therefore to understand their issues through me. To write imparts knowledge. To write is to question. To write entertains. To write is to mess around with the imagination. To write…is to express one’s soul. Writing is many things to many people, especially those with far more intense issues than my little world. Writing to these individuals is…

Salvation.

Sanity.

Release.

But, for me, it’s what I do, and I do a lot of it. Every day. I truly enjoy it.

Promotion.

Such an ugly word to many.

Now, I don’t know who coined the phrase (which I personally find funny and actually kinda like), but I find it does more harm than good: “shameless self-promotion.”

In this “inciting incident” mentioned earlier, “shameless self-promotion” and “blog” were associated with each other in a less-than-honorable manner. Now, I don’t know if people really can distinguish between self-promotion and honest communication (or they just don’t trust anyone), or if they just use the aforementioned phrase to look down on those who do blog–I can’t speak for them, as I said–but I can say that I get annoyed when I hear “shameless self-promotion” constantly levied at blogs and bloggers.

Where’s the evil?

If, as also pointed out earlier, writers write, and blogging is merely another avenue for writerly output, where’s the harm? Where’s the finger-pointing ethical issue with a writer writing a blog and sharing that information with the world? Because, if writers write, and readers read, writing is meant to be read. You just can’t get around this.

Self-promotion. Shameless self-promotion.

I have news for those who equate blogging with “shameless self-promotion”: You are shameless self-promotion.

Everything you do promotes YOU.

When you open your mouth, type an e-mail, or smile or not smile at another human being, you are promoting yourself.

When you comment or give attitude to another, you promote yourself.

When you talk behind another’s back, you promote yourself.

When you help out a stranger, you promote yourself.

How you promote yourself, promotes yourself.

You really wanna talk so-called “shameless self-promotion”?

When you push your book or short story, you totally promote yourself.

That’s shameless self-promotion. And it should be shameless.

Promote:  “to help or encourage to exist or flourish; further”; “to encourage the sales, acceptance, etc., of (a product), esp. through advertising or other publicity.” Courtesy of The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged.

Shameless:  “lacking any sense of shame: immodest; audacious,” and “shame” defined as “the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous.” Also courtesy of The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged.

So…why should someone feel shame when talking about their “honest communication”? Talking about something near and dear to their souls? For the most part, promotion in and of itself is not a bad thing. Sure, it makes a difference in the venue and with how one expresses it, but to blog–in and of itself, in its arena-of-pertinence, to write as a writer–where’s the issue? Again, I can’t speak for or to everyone else out there in Internetland, but to writers, I think I can come pretty darned close.

Writers write.

Readers read.

How you present yourself every moment of your life promotes who you are.

If you’re a writer, write.

Fear and Loathing in Bookland

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Wow.

So much negativity and fear about Amazon Publishing.

So much focusing on what’s so “wrong” with it, what could happen–and in a bad way.

I’m not perfect, not a saint, nor do I mean to minimize others’ opinions, but why can’t all us writers focus on writing the best possible work, and finding the best possible outlet. Does it really matter if it’s one outlet over another? Will one idea topple all of civilization? Is the sky really falling?

Change happens. Change has been pined for within the world of publishing.

Well, here it is, folks. Welcome to it. Those who kept putting it off just got slapped in the face with it.

Focus on what’s good about this new development—cause it ain’t going away.

And in the meantime…just frigging write.

Amazon Publishing – New 47North Imprint

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Just announced yesterday, Amazon.com has launched yet another new imprint, one specifically for Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror, called 47North (the imprint’s latitude).  Amazon.com readers are big on SF/F/H.  See the PW post or the MarketWatch post.

Here is the actual Amazon.com 47North link.

See my previous post on Amazon’s publishing.

Updated Oct 20: See NYT’s post on Amazon Publishing.

Once, again, I see this as a good thing, if done right.

The Long, Slow Sine Wave of my Work….

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Something just dawned on me as I sat down, this morning, to write. For several years I’ve had a hard time writing…the blockade I talked about in earlier posts…and it just hit me what it was all about. Up until some three years ago, I wrote like a dervish. I got up and was able to hit the keyboard within minutes and pound out a first 100K draft in a month. That was my method.

I’ve changed.

Or at least, my current work’s very structure has changed.

All my previous efforts had a “higher pitch” to them, my short stories, my novel-length work. But, this newer effort…it has a longer, more drawn out sense to it. Like the sine wave of its very structure is far more elongated. “Lengthy” doesn’t do it justice, and it’s not so much that I’m describing the pace of the manuscript. It’s like the background…what’s behind the story, the physical effort involved…is what’s at the heart of the matter. Think of the carrier wave that carries content, like radio waves carrying music. The music is what it is, but the carrier wave–that which carries the music to your ears–it’s frequency, it’s pitch and amplitude–have all changed. The content is still carried forward, but it is now done…differently. Perhaps it takes a little longer to “get there,” but get there it will. Perhaps its delivery will be somehow different…but it will be delivered.

This just hit me this morning, and it was like an epiphany.

Cool.