National Lampoon

A few weeks ago I contacted the creator of Trots and Bonnie, Shary Flenniken, and asked if she’d be interested in doing an email interview. She agreed, but warned that her answers might not come quickly. She was finishing some college classes, and was very busy. Excited that she’d actually said yes, I assured her there was no hurry. I sent her my list of questions, and told her to deal with them as time permitted. Heck, just exchanging emails with Shary was a rush. If she never got around to actually answering my questions, I’d still consider it a big positive.

But answer them she did. Not in the way I’d anticipated, however. Instead of typing it all out and hitting SEND, she sat down in front of a video camera and answered the questions aloud.  Even better!

I’m excited to share those clips with you today, and want to thank Shary for being so cooperative and friendly. It’s great when someone you admire also turns out to be really cool.  I’ve had other experiences where that wasn’t the case…  Anyway, this is Shary Flenniken, in her own words:

Clip 1  Here, Shary talks about her father, who was a Rear Admiral in the Navy, and growing up in exotic locales surrounded by men and boys.  She also explains the role her father played in her becoming a cartoonist, speaks about her days working on underground newspapers, and discusses the office environment at the National Lampoon. Near the end, she pays tribute to the late Doug Kenney.

Clip 2  Shary talks about Trots and Bonnie, how it was developed, and how it ended up in the pages of the National Lampoon.

Clip 3  Shary talks about a Trots and Bonnie collection that was released in France, and the possibility of an American version. I asked her if she still draws the characters, which she addresses, and also gives us a shocking update on Bonnie’s friend Pepsi.

Clip 4  Shary brings us up to date on her current projects, including a recently completed college degree in multi-media, her in-process novel, and her love of creating modern fairy tales.  She closes with some advice for cartoonists, which seems simple but is probably ignored more often than not.

I hope you enjoyed the interview as much as I did.  Shary says she is open to answering follow-up questions, as time permits.  So, if you have something you’d like for her to address, please leave it in the comments section below.  You can keep up with Shary Flenniken news at her website, and also check out the Slave To Her Pets page.  Thanks again, Shary!  And thanks to you guys, for reading (and watching).

On Monday

It will be interesting to note the differences in the processes.  Theoretically, the upcoming project should be less of a challenge, since non-fiction has always been my “thing.”  But I know better than to jump to any conclusions.  Conclusion-jumping often leads to tears and/or the repeated slugging of oneself in the genitalia.  …Hello?

During this go-round I’ll be writing about my days growing up in West Virginia, during the 1970s and 1980s.  It will be a memoir — heavy on the humor and light on the Oprah-style life lessons — of my first 23 years.  I left the Mountain State (a place I vowed to never abandon) when I was 23, in search of better opportunities.  The new book will chronicle my ridiculous life, up to the morning I drove away from there with a giant lump in my throat.

At the Surf Report I asked readers to tell me which stories they’d like to see me tackle in the new volume.  I’ve been maintaining that site for almost eleven years now, and longtime followers have read many of my tales multiple times.  Hey, if an accomplished storyteller like Jean Shepherd was allowed to recycle, I sure as hell can, too.

And one story that was mentioned repeatedly, occurred outside the proposed scope of the new book.  It was something that happened after I moved to North Carolina, aka the land of opportunity.  So, I thought I’d briefly re-tell it here, instead.

I was living with my brother in Greensboro, you see, in a rabbit hutch-style apartment which cost $336 per month.  It wasn’t a horrible place, but we were certainly horrible housekeepers.  We existed in self-created squalor.  The neighborhood was nice, and the apartment complex was reasonably OK, but the part we had control over?  Yeah, that’s where everything broke down.

The kitchen was always a disgraceful mess.  The trashcan routinely had garbage piled three feet above the rim, and we just continued to balance stuff on top, like some kind of Jenga game of incredible laziness.  The counter tops were constantly covered in multiple layers of soiled plates, bowls, and pans.  It was a disgusting display.  But it obviously wasn’t bad enough to cause either of us to actually hoist ourselves out of our beanbag chairs and clean up our act.  I mean, let’s be serious.

One time an awful funk developed in the kitchen and saturated all our plastics.  It was one of the worst things I’ve ever smelled — completely breathtaking — and we never found its source.  But we were forced to wash our dishes (it took several days), and throw away all our cheap Tupperware knock-offs, ’cause that stuff will soak up a stink like nobody’s business.

The rest of the apartment was only marginally cleaner than the kitchen.  A couple of my co-workers showed up there one day, unannounced, and the place looked like news footage of a house that had been ravaged by catastrophic flood waters.

“Oh, man, look at that ‘za!” one of them shouted, as he pointed at an open pizza box on the floor.  Inside was a single petrified slice, so old the tip was curled up on the end, like a court jester’s shoe.  I was mildly embarrassed.

Occasionally we’d be forced to clean-up the place.  This was usually due to an impending visit by our parents.  We’d stay up until three in the morning, drink massive amounts of beer, and attack the dump.  And it was during one of those rare clean periods when the much-requested story was born.

We were having lunch, I remember, actually seated at the dining room table.  This didn’t happen very often, because that table was generally all Jenga’d-up, like the kitchen trash.  And my brother was having trouble getting ketchup out of the bottle.

This was before advanced squeeze technology did away with the problem, and he was pounding the bottom of the bottle and cursing like an auctioneer gone bad.

Finally, he announced that he’d thought of a solution, and stood up.  He held the bottle straight down, with the neck pointed toward the floor.  Then he began windmilling his arm, using centrifugal force to move ketchup to the top of the bottle.  And somewhere around rotation number three, the lid flew off.

I started howling in protest as I watched a wide red stripe form across the carpet, the couch, up one wall, across the ceiling, and down another wall.  “Stop it!” I hollered, but it took a while for him to power-down the flywheel, and it seemed like it went around another two or three full rotations.

Wotta mess!  And I actually got up on my high-horse about it, if I recall correctly.  Which took a lot of nerve, considering the way we’d been living…  After it was cleaned up, there was a light oily stain on the walls and the ceiling, which was still there when we moved out.  I remember the landlord doing a walk-through inspection, and me holding my breath hoping she wouldn’t notice.  And she didn’t.

So, there you go.  That’s the story, in a slightly abbreviated version.  The upcoming book will be full of other such shenanigans, but from an earlier era.  I’m excited to get started on it.

Jeff Kay’s first novel, Crossroads Road, is available now at Amazon, the Kindle Store, and NOOKBooks.

My new friends.

When I was in fourth grade my parents scared the hell out of me by looking for a larger house in town, a roomier place for us all to live.  I didn’t understand why this was necessary, our place was just fine.  In fact, it was more than fine – it was home.

Old black & white photographs seem to confirm that my folks rented an apartment when I was very young, but I only remembered living in the house at 307 21st Street.  The thought of leaving it seemed nonsensical to me.  This was where we lived, for godsake.  I couldn’t fall asleep in some foreign room.  And another kid sure as hell wasn’t going to be putting his booger-spangled Evel Knievel posters on MY bedroom walls.

In what kind of parallel universe was any of this even possible??

I launched a campaign to convince my parents they were making a big mistake.  I approached it from several angles – tantrums, level-headed logic, etc. – but they were not impressed.  Their minds, I could see, were made up.  They were determined to ruin my life.

My best friend was a kid named Doug.  He lived across the alley from us, and we spent our summer days side-by-side.  We got into loads of fantastic trouble together, rode our bikes a million miles, and were literally blood brothers.  We’d cut our fingers with a pocketknife and mixed our blood by pressing the self-inflicted wounds together – an idea we’d cribbed from some TV show I can’t now remember.

No more Doug?  I couldn’t even imagine it.

And there was a tree in our backyard, which I would climb and lounge in its branches.  Was I supposed to just leave it behind too?  How can you ask a kid to abandon his best friend and favorite tree?  The whole scheme was absurd on its face.

But the day finally arrived, and we left my beloved 21st Street for – get this! – 17th Street.  Yeah, the new place was only down four blocks and over one, but it might as well have been Chernyakhovsk, Russia.  I didn’t know any of the kids over there, and was now zoned for another elementary school.  (Gulp!)  I was fully destroyed.

And did I mention that the new house was a shithole?  Oh, yeah.  The previous owners kept a herd of ludicrous dogs, known as Afghan hounds.  They were high-steppers with pipe-cleaner legs, and caused our new “home” to smell like we were sleeping inside the urethra of a bull bison.

My brother’s new bedroom previously housed a cage that was roughly ten percent smaller than the room itself.  And what’s the point of such a thing?  Why not just put the dogs inside the room?  Why would you have a room with a room-sized cage inside?  Regardless, it clearly served as a urination chamber.

Plus, the bathrooms were filthy, and the kitchen was a mess.  There was a hot water tank in there, beside the refrigerator.  Again: WTF?  We left our nice, cozy house for this??  And I couldn’t even escape it by going out to play, ’cause all the kids were unknown and strange.  I was plunged into a deep depression.

But a funny thing happened…

My parents kept insisting that the house had “good bones,” and began work on it.  They cleaned it from floorboards to attic (whenever I smell Pine-Sol — even now — it reminds me of that period), whipped the yard into shape, had new carpet installed, and painted every square inch of wall and ceiling.  Within a few weeks, it was like a different place.

Plus, I started hanging out with a few of the kids in the neighborhood, and learned they weren’t so bad, after all.  I played a lot of Wiffle Ball, and was accepted into the local kid-ranks with no problem whatsoever.

And one day I realized it was better over there.  My folks were right.  The house did indeed have good bones, and turned out to be a wonderful place to grow up.  Now, thirty-some years later, I have a great fondness for our 17th Street house.  My parents no longer own it, but I’ll always consider it my boyhood home.

And I’m still friends with many of the “strange” kids from that neighborhood.  I have no doubt I’ll be in contact with them until my mind starts to go, and I constantly believe I’m 13 years old and attending the 1975 World Series.  I’m certainly not missing any of the action to talk to those old farts.

I saw Doug not too long ago, and he’s a good guy.  But it’s been too long, and we grew apart.  He was at the center of my world when I was a little kid, but now he’s just somebody I knew a long time ago.  And my favorite tree?  It’s long-gone.  New owners of the 21st Street house added a room to the back of it, and the tree was a casualty.

But those are the only negatives, and I often marvel at how my parents were able to look at that situation and see the possibilities in it.  I couldn’t have been more opposed to the move, yet it turned out to be a grand slam.  The new house was as solid as they promised, and I had a great childhood growing up there.

As an adult, I try to see the potential in a new situation, and not be guided by emotion.  Just like my mom and dad did it.

One of the early readers of my novel told me the main characters dwell a little too long on the Big Decision they’re forced to make.  But that process is fascinating to me.  Some new situations (like houses) have good bones, and some do not.  I’m interested in the way people decide on a course of action. I trimmed the section a bit, but not as much as he suggested.  I felt like it needed to stay.

Like most people, I’ve had to make Big Decisions during my life, and often chose the scarier route.  I learned, when I was in fourth grade, that the easiest option sometimes isn’t the best one.  Even if you have to say goodbye to an occasional blood brother or lounging-tree along the way.

Jeff Kay’s first novel, Crossroads Road, is available now at Amazon, the Kindle Store, and NOOKBooks.

Well, I didn’t know him

In the previous update I wrote about MAD magazine, and how big of an influence it was on me.  You can read that piece here.  Once I was into my teen years, however, I started to outgrow MAD a bit and promptly discovered National Lampoon.  John Hughes was my favorite writer there.

I came to the Lampoon a little too late to know the original geniuses: Doug Kenney, Henry Beard, Michael O’Donoghue, etc.  But it was still a great and funny magazine, and I felt the same exhilaration as I had when my exotic Ohio girl-cousin introduced me to MAD when I was eight years old.

National Lampoon was much racier than my previous obsession, and featured some sexual content, as well as occasional nudity.  It certainly wasn’t pornography, but some nervous shopkeepers stocked it with the porn anyway.  This undoubtedly made it even more exciting to me: a humor magazine so rude it couldn’t be housed in GenPop.

In fact, Spring Hill News, where I bought many of my mags, kept the Lampoons behind a brown curtain of shame.  You had to pass through this thing (I didn’t even like to touch it) to get to my new favorite monthly.  They kept it on a special rack in the corner, obscured by a curtain, alongside the filthiest periodicals I’d ever encountered.

I was a normal teenage boy, and thus no stranger to Playboy and Penthouse, and their various competitors.  Oh, I was far from a Quaker.  But some of the magazines behind that curtain were low-rent affairs, possibly foreign, and quite terrifying.  The people on the covers looked like they might have been Russian, strung out on drugs, or both.  Many of the photos were shot inside cinderblock rooms, with concrete floors.  The descriptions always mentioned “Greek love,” “golden showers,” and other confusing things.

A couple of times I parted the curtain, and there was already another guy in there.  This always made me feel awkward and embarrassed.  I tried to get in and out without anyone noticing, but when I surprised some other dude…  There was always a lot of throat-clearing, feet-shuffling, and averting of eyes.

It was worth it, though.  I sometimes felt cheap and sleazy while buying it, but I absolutely loved the Lampoon once I got it home.  I obsessed over the cartoons (Trots and Bonnie!), the fake letters to the Editor, and, of course, the monthly features.

After I’d spent quality time with the magazine, I started to realize that my favorite piece from each issue was often written by the same person:  someone named John Hughes.  I knew nothing about him, but after a while I began scanning the table of contents every time I bought a new issue, hoping his name would be there.  It almost always was.

“Vacation ’58” was the first of his articles to cause my brain to fly apart.  It was the basis for the Vacation movies, with Chevy Chase, and recounted a disastrous family car trip to Disneyland, from the Chicago suburbs.  It’s much darker than the films, and features Clark Griswold robbing a motel, crashing his station wagon through a police roadblock, and shooting Walt Disney with a handgun.

The story is told from the oldest son’s point of view, in casual language, and it’s one of my favorite Lampoon articles — even including the early material by O’Donoghue and the gang, which I eventually read.  It’s over-the-top, hilarious, and brutal.

Man, I wanted to write stuff like that.  More than just about anything…  It blew me away.  That story felt like perfection to me.

He also authored a pair of articles called “My Penis,” and “My Vagina.”  In the former a 16 year old girl wakes up one morning with a penis where her traditional parts used to be.  And in the latter, it’s the other way around: a boy wakes up with a vagina.  Both are excellent, but the first one is better.  A teenage girl freaking out and describing her new life with a schlong is comedy gold.

Many of Hughes’ stories were narrated by kids or teenagers, in deceptively simple language.  It made me believe I could do it, too.  But whenever I sat down and tried, I learned the meaning of the old adage, “the greats make it look easy.”

I liked the movies Hughes wrote and directed during the 1980s, and later.  For the most part, anyway.  But his work for the National Lampoon is what really affected me.  “Vacation ‘58” was the piece that caused me to go beyond wanting to be a writer, and actually giving it a shot.

When I learned that John Hughes died of a heart attack, in 2009, it felt like someone punched me in the gut.  He was only 59.  I never met the man, or even corresponded with him, but he had a big impact on my life.  Even before he achieved Hollywood cool.

Jeff Kay’s first novel, Crossroads Road, is available now at Amazon, the Kindle Store, and NOOKBooks.

In 1971

That side of the family was (and is) lousy with children, so it was pandemonium.  The kitchen and living room were filled with chain-smoking adults, and the sound of twenty people talking at once.  Outside, in both the front and back yards, were the kids — roughly self-segregated by age group.

The Ohio cousins were two or three years older than me, and a bit intimidating.  They were from out of state, for one thing, and that seemed wildly exotic.  Heck, even people who lived in the same tiny West Virginia town as we did, but in a different neighborhood, felt like beings from another planet at that point.

But there was something else about those two.  They were kinda… untamed.  Both enjoyed many freedoms my brother and I had never known, and seemed destined for lives filled with drama and calamity.  I could sense this, even at a young age (and couldn’t have been more accurate).  When the Ohio cousins were around, anything was possible.  Or so it seemed.

Indeed, on this day the older sister showed me something that rocked my world, something from which I’ve never fully recovered.  Yeah, I know that sounds like the beginning of a Penthouse Forum letter, the Jerry Lee Lewis edition.  But it was nothing like that.

It was a MAD magazine, the first one I’d ever seen.  She was reading it and laughing, and I asked her about it.  It turned out to be the April 1971 issue, and she allowed me to take a look.  I was probably extra careful not to wrinkle the pages, and she probably couldn’t have given a crap one way or the other.

And as I perused this strange, possibly naughty, thing, it was like an electric current passed through me.  I remember exactly where I was standing, the weather conditions, the direction my body was turned, etc.  I’d never seen anything quite like it.  It was rude and obnoxious and completely amazing.  I didn’t know the word or the concept then, but it was also wildly satirical, which is the part that really did a number on me.

I remember a collection of cartoons that re-imagined then-current TV commercials with over-the-top violence.  One was for Colgate toothpaste and showed the announcer smashing two boys in the mouth with his fist.  Afterward, one was missing most of his teeth, and the other still had a set of white, gleaming choppers.  The former didn’t use Colgate, you see, and the latter did.

There was also a Don Martin cartoon featuring a pair of Siamese twins repeatedly rolling over in bed, sending one crashing to the floor.  Or something along those line…  In any case, it was Siamese twins humor!

Man, this was nothing like Archie comics, or Dennis the Menace, or whatever else I was reading at the time.  I was instantly hooked, and begged my parents to buy me a copy of my own.  It required some campaigning, but they finally relented and I read and reread that thing like it contained the key to the universe.

I became fully and completely obsessed.  It was the only thing on my mind, and the one subject I talked about:  MAD magazine.  I began visiting Miller’s Drug Store on a far-too-frequent basis, always hoping the next issue would be available.  I would hold my breath as I turned the corner at the magazine rack, desperately wanting a pristine, new edition to be there – even though the latest one might have only been out for a week.

When I was in fifth or sixth grade I discovered a girl at my school who was also into MAD.  I wanted her to be my girlfriend so we could make-out for a while, talk about the latest issue, make-out some more, etc.  A girl – a normal non-Ohio girl – who liked MAD?  Yeah, that’s powerful stuff.

I eventually started telling people I wanted to grow up to be a writer for the magazine, and was being completely sincere.  And, like I mentioned before, it’s something I was never able to shake.  All my life I’ve dabbled with humor writing, and it started with that April 1971 issue with the photo of the White House on the cover.

During my teen years, as I was beginning to outgrow the magazine a bit, everything kicked-up all over again when I discovered National Lampoon.  I wasn’t going to be allowed to escape…

Now more than forty years have passed since I experienced that initial jolt of electricity, my hair is starting to go gray, but I’m still chasing the dragon.  I self-published a comedy magazine for many years, have maintained a humor website since late 2000, and just published my first novel.  And all of it’s enhanced my life in a million tiny different ways.

Please don’t tell anyone, let’s just keep this between the two of us, if you wouldn’t mind.  But I STILL suspect the key to the universe was contained inside that first issue of MAD magazine.

Yeah, I knew it when I was eight years old, and I know it today.

Jeff Kay’s first novel, Crossroads Road, is available now at Amazon, the Kindle Store, and NOOKBooks.

A couple of months ago

But here’s the thing… Even if I’d allowed myself a full year to prepare, I KNOW I would find myself in Week 50 flailing and thrashing toward the finish line.  Because that’s the way I roll.  Just ask any of my teachers from high school, they’ll tell you.  So, I know it’s not really the procrastination part that’s bothering me (I’m a seasoned professional), it’s something else.

When it comes to writing, I’ve learned, there are two extra-difficult parts of the process:  starting and letting go.  In other words, the beginning and the end….  The stuff in the middle isn’t nearly as stressful.  It’s important, of course, but it usually doesn’t keep you up at night.  There’s room to breathe in the middle.

I knew a guy in California who was forever preparing to write his novel.  He had character sketches, and huge loose-leaf notebooks full of outlines and various notes.  He worked on it constantly, and was the exact opposite of lazy.  But during the time I knew him, he never wrote a single word of the actual manuscript.  I don’t know what ultimately happened to him, but he might still be “preparing” out there, and carrying his notes around in a U-Haul trailer at this point.

The thing with starting is that once there are words on a page (reality), they’re usually not as magical as the ambiguous ideas inside our heads (fantasy).  It’s great when we’re brainstorming and getting excited about new plot twists and situations.  But once there are actual sentences on the paper, the spell is broken.  Now there’s something to second-guess, and feel self-conscious about….

Eventually, of course, those feelings begin to fade, and a person can usually get into some kind of writing groove.  It’s scary to exit the warm and fuzzy “planning” stage, and enter the harsh reality of real writing.  But if you can get over the hump, it gets easier.

Until it’s time to let go, that is.

And that’s where I am now.  The woman who is going to be doing my formatting (print, Kindle, ePub) has a full schedule, and my appointment with her is practically cast in stone. Oh, I might be able to postpone, but it would likely cause problems for her, and the next available date on the calendar is undoubtedly many months away.  Besides, I’m sure I’d have the same feelings no matter the date.  So, I need to just suck it up and deliver the materials when promised.

I might be biased by my current situation, but I believe letting go of a manuscript is even more stressful than starting one.  The realization that I’ll no longer be able to tinker with the wording, and polish and improve things, terrifies me.  My book isn’t high art, nowhere near, but I like knowing I can keep making it better.  And in two weeks, that all goes out the window.

I’m sure all this will get easier, the more I do it.  This is my first book, so I’m probably being over-cautious like a first-time parent.  Maybe someday in the future I’ll look back on these days and chuckle knowingly.

But that ain’t helping me now….

Have you ever struggled with starting a creative endeavor, or letting go of one once it was “completed.”  How did you handle it?  Do you have any advice on how to deal with this particular problem?  Please tell us about it in the comments

And I’ll see you guys again next time.

Youth in Revolt

After I learned that the book was originally self-published, I was further intrigued.  I wanted to know more about it.  And when I decided to feature interviews at CrossroadsRoad, the first person I approached was C.D. Payne, author of Youth in Revolt.

To my amazement (I’m always braced for disappointment), C.D. agreed to talk with me, via email.  And today I’m excited to share that virtual conversation.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Thanks for taking my questions.  I’m a big fan, and it’s an honor to speak with you.

CD: My pleasure.

I grew up near Charleston, WV, and noticed in your bio that you also spent some time in the Mountain State.  Whereabouts?

CD: My earliest memory is living down the block from Fenton Glass in Williamstown, WV. When I was 5 we moved across the river to Marietta. We left the area for Akron when I was in the first grade.

Just curious, did you know anyone named Mothersbaugh when you lived in Akron?

CD: Nope.

You’re a very funny writer, obviously.  Is it more inherent, or learned?  Lots of people can make witty remarks in a high school health class or whatever.  But few can translate it to the written page, much less sustain a series of hilarious novels.  Did you have any specific inspirations?

CD: I did make a prolonged study of humorous writing when I was in my 20s. My favorites at that time included Robert Benchley, S.J. Perelman, James Thurber, E.B. White, Frank Sullivan—your basic New Yorker school of humor. I suppose some particulars of comic writing can be learned, although it probably helps to have a knack for it.

Can you tell me about the process of writing Youth in Revolt?  Had you written much fiction at that point?  I assume you were working a day job at the time?  Did you work on the book on weekends, and that sort of thing?  How long did it take to complete?

CD: I had written only short humor pieces (a few sales) and spec screenplays (no sales) before YiR. My day job at the time was only 3 days a week, leaving me long weekends to work on YiR. Still, it took me three years to slog my way through it.

And you eventually decided to self-publish?  How frustrating was it, not to be able to find a traditional publisher?  You must have suspected you’d created something special?

CD: The agents I had at the time assured me that they had shown it to all the major New York publishers with no takers. I had a long history of rejection by east coast editors, so my lack of success did not come as a big surprise. Deciding to self-publish was something of a no-brainer at that point.

I also wrote a comic novel, and my agent warned me in advance that I was making a mistake.  He wanted me to write non-fiction humor.  Why do you think there’s such a resistance to funny fiction?  And why was I surprised when he turned out to be right?

CD: Humor is pretty subjective. It’s hard for a comic novel to work its way up the approval channels at a publishing house without someone along the way saying “This isn’t funny.” See all the readers at Amazon.com who give popular comic novels one star. Some people are just not going to get the jokes.

How did Youth in Revolt finally end up at Doubleday?

CD: I got another agent (Winifred Golden), who sent my published version around. For some reason, seeing it in print got publishers interested. Doubleday made the best offer of the three we received.

What’s your opinion of self-publishing, in general?  Has it improved through the years, with print-on-demand technology, and eReaders?  Would you recommend it?  What are the pitfalls?

CD: Self-publishing can be a good option if you’ve exhausted all other channels. It’s much easier now with print-on-demand, since you no longer have to pay big printing bills and stuff your garage with pallets of books. Amazon.com’s Createspace and Kindle format make it so easy to get your book out there on the cheap. The BIG problem, if you go that route, is getting anyone to notice it. I suggest dating a celebrity and getting his/her high-profile friends to talk it up.

Tell us about your latest novel, Invisibly Yours.

CD: This is a comic take on the “invisible man” theme. I had this in mind for years. I wrote it last summer, then decided to publish it myself because my agent was having major health problems. He’s better now, and is working on finding a publisher and/or movie sale. Meanwhile, it’s out there now for readers who are interested.

I know you like to collect vintage campers and travel trailers.  Do you ever use one as a writing cabin?  Where do you write?  Do you have a structured schedule, or just write when you find the time?

CD: I don’t generally write in trailers, but I like to get away in them to relax and wait for creative inspiration. I write at the computer in my study, starting right after breakfast. I only do one thing at a time, so writing is just an occasional activity. For example, I spent three years remodeling my house and didn’t write a word. Right now I’m working on a screenplay for a micro-budget feature movie I intend to shoot on high-def video. The working title is “Showmen.”

What did you think about the recent film version of Youth in Revolt, with Michael Cera?  I liked it a lot, but missed certain scenes from the book.  Of course, the movie would’ve been ten hours long if they’d kept everything in.

CD: I think they did a fine job considering YiR is 500 pages and the film is 90 minutes. Michael Cera and the director Miguel Arteta completely rewrote the script. They are the true authors of that film. Michael Cera is a very witty fellow, and it was a pleasure getting to know him.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.  I love your work, and really appreciate it.  Do you have any general advice for new writers, trying to navigate the publishing world for the first time?

CD: My advice is not very original: persevere and have faith in yourself, ’cause you may be in for a difficult time. It’s a bit easier if you can get an agent, but keep in mind they get their submissions shot down all the time.

Thank you, very much!

Youth in Revolt and Invisibly Yours are available at Amazon, along with C.D. Payne’s other novels, which include several sequels to YiR and a book starring a group of cigarette-smoking, hard-drinking pigeons.  The movie version of YiR is now available on DVD, and C.D.’s website is at NickTwisp.com.

A few weeks

“Hullo, this is Jeff,” I said into the phone, and things went downhill from there.

Oh, he was friendly, and there was a brief beating around the bush period, but eventually the bad news was delivered.  The agency felt that the book couldn’t be sold in “the current climate,” and were opting not to show it to publishers.  This, after they’d put me through months of rewrites, and positive feedback.  I felt like mashing the accelerator to the floor, whipping the wheel violently to the right, and letting the chips fall where they may.

I was given a speech about the weak economy, and how publishers are being super-selective in what they’re buying, and a comic novel by a first-timer is an uphill battle, even during the best of times…  He said that if they offered the book now, it would almost certainly be rejected, and thus rendered “dead forever.”

Fantastic.  Dead and forever are a couple of my all-time favorite words.

I went to work with cartoon blue jays flying around my head, and throughout the evening I emailed a couple of friends with the bad news.  And one of them got all defiant, and told me I should just self-publish the thing.  “Screw them!” he e-hollered.

And that comment, undoubtedly meant to inspire, plunged me into a dark two-hour funk.  Self-publish?  Is that what it had come to?  Was that really my only option at this point?  Self-publishing, I believed, is the dodgy domain of hacks, mental patients, and old men obsessed with genealogy and/or wars.  Now me, too?

I wrote it off, and contacted another agent with whom I’d exchanged a few emails.  She agreed to take a look at the novel, and came back with almost the exact same assessment.  The book is a lot of fun, and it’s possible that she could have sold it five years ago, but not today.  Grrr…

I sighed, and joked that it looked like self-publishing was going to be my future.  And she cautioned me not to dismiss it so quickly.  Technology has changed everything, she said, and if it’s done the right way, a person can enjoy a lot of success via the various print-on-demand services.

It requires an attention to detail up front, I was told, and a lot of marketing once the book is available.  But the marketing part is necessary, even if your book is being published by Random House.  So, it’s not like the old days, when it was just circling-like-sharks vanity presses preying on the desperation of frustrated “writers.”

Print-on-demand, and e-readers like the Kindle, make self-publishing an attractive option, she said.  Royalties are high, there’s no inventory to maintain, and success stories are noticed by traditional publishers, possibly greasing the skids for some future project.

Interesting.  It felt like she was trying to talk me into it.

Since that conversation I’ve read maybe a million words on the subject, and have decided to publish my novel via Amazon’s CreateSpace, the Kindle store, NookBooks, etc.  I’m hoping to have it available by spring.  We’ll DEFINITELY be talking more about it in the future.

And I’d like to get your opinions on self-publishing in general.  Are you like me, and kinda look down your nose at it?  I’m starting to come around, obviously, but it was out of the question three months ago.  I believed most self-published novels looked like this one.  And I’m sorry, but I don’t really want to be lumped-in with such works.

I now realize there are plenty of success stories out there.  Some folks have leveraged their Kindle store activity into contracts with traditional New York publishers, and there doesn’t seem to be as big a stigma as in the past.  Almost like computer dating…  When it first started, people (like me) believed those sites were populated by nothing but desperate losers, serial killers, and morbidly obese people who have to use a wiping-wand.  Now it seems to be the default destination for normal well-adjusted folks seeking relationships.

Also, it’s not really called self-publishing anymore.  It’s now indie publishing, and that’s much cooler.  Right?  Like indie music, and independent film, and that sort of thing.  Yeah, I’m totally behind the re-branding of it all.  Indie publishing is something I’m prepared to embrace.

Of course, the quality will have to be there, and here’s a funny article about why the stigma might not die easily.

So, what are your thoughts on the subject?  Please tell us about it in the comments.

And thanks for reading!  I’m planning to add a few interviews soon, with some interesting folks.

So, please stay tuned.

A few days ago

It’s a joke, of course, and it’s somewhat amusing.  However, there’s no shortage of automatic rejection mills in the real world — or so it seems.  Some of them have been around for a couple hundred years or more.  Oh, there’s plenty of genuine rejection to go around…  So, it might have been funnier if they’d created a fake journal with an important-sounding name, which automatically accepts all submissions.  You know, so writers can pad their lists of credits.

But whatever.

The website got me thinking about rejection, and how I’ve dealt with it through the years.  I have a much different attitude toward it than I did during the early days.  I now understand rejection a little better, and am almost able to remove myself from the equation.  In other words, I don’t take it as personally as I once did.  I’m still human, give or take, but I can now shrug off a disappointing response, where it would have devastated me in the past.

When I was but an ugly youngster I read a book called How to Buy and Sell Your Sense of Humor.  It was written by a guy who’d become successful in Hollywood via sheer persistence, and I thought it was just about the greatest thing ever.  I read it two or three times in a row, and it got me fired-up about submitting jokes to comedians, the same way the author had gotten started.

This was the early 1980s, when there were still a few old-school comedians banging around.  Most of them bought material from outside contributors (supposedly), and I started cranking out packets of jokes, and sending them off to people like Milton Berle and Bob Hope.  Heh.  I swear it’s true…

I remember being especially proud of one of them:  She’s so fat, when she changes her clothes she has to pull the blinds down in three rooms. I sent that one to Phyllis Diller, and was CERTAIN she’d voice her approval with a check for $25, or whatever.  Which I would’ve likely framed, and never cashed.

But I didn’t even receive a response, and it felt like someone punched me in the gut.  I sent more jokes to other comedians, and received the same non-replies.  Apparently I wasn’t even worthy of acknowledgment.

I started having doubts, and beating myself up for being so stupid as to think I could write material for world famous entertainers.  I’d see them on TV, and their jokes didn’t seem a whole lot funnier than mine.  But I knew there must be something missing from my work — something I couldn’t identify because I apparently sucked, and didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

So, I quit.  I became discouraged, completely disregarded the “persistence” message in the book I’d so admired, and gave up.  My confidence was shattered, my ego crushed.  I was practically curled up in a corner, sobbing into a pillow.  It hadn’t taken much to break me…

But after I licked my wounds, I began writing again and discovered self-publishing.  I started doing a zine, and side-stepped all the gatekeepers.  I undertook a rejection avoidance campaign, and it turned out to be a positive experience.  I’m not sure I’d recommend it, since it requires a lot of time, but it worked for me.

I published a paper zine for many years, and it eventually morphed into a website.  That site has been in existence since 2000, and during the ongoing self-publishing years I’ve probably written more than a million words.  Consequently, I’ve improved as a writer (I think), gained confidence, and figured out a few things about rejection.

The most important of those things is that it’s nothing personal.  I know this now.  Rejection is simply a part of the process.  In fact, it’s the default setting.  Almost everything submitted is rejected or ignored, and that’s an unfortunate fact.  It often has little to do with the person who submitted the material, it’s just the way of the world.

The decision-makers are overworked, like everybody else, and have likely developed a personalized toolbox full of rejection-triggers.  I envision them sighing heavily, and reluctantly slogging through a mountain of submissions.  And muttering, “Nope, nope, nope…” as they flip through each.

I worked for a guy, years ago, who would rip through a stack of applications from prospective employees, and instantly disqualify people for the most trivial of things.  Like penmanship, or color of ink used.  He had all these nutty pet peeves and biases…  And I have a feeling it’s a similar situation with magazines, agents, and publishers.

In the old days I believed they considered each submission carefully, maybe had a few meetings on the subject, and finally issued a decision.  And when they said no, they were saying no to me — the person.  And it was a final withering judgment.

Of course that’s ridiculous.  I suspect mood becomes a factor in the process, as well as workload, and a thousand other tiny things.  Maybe even weather, for crying out loud.  And I imagine each submission gets roughly ten seconds of consideration, tops.  A little more if you’re querying an agent, but not much.

That’s not a criticism, just reality.  I’d likely handle it the same way if someone kept pushing wheelbarrows full of envelopes up to my desk.

There are certainly some ways for a writer to lessen his chances of being one of the initial “nopes,” and professionalism is at the top of the list.  Amateurs make the same mistakes, over and over again.  So, if you can avoid those mistakes, you have a better chance of making it to the next level.  And once you make it to the next level, your piece had better deliver the goods.

But we’ll discuss all that stuff later.

As for books, market realities come into play and things get even fuzzier.  The author’s “platform” is a major consideration, which means his ability to promote.  Does he have a radio show, or a popular blog, or some other way to get the word out to thousands instantly?  That’s a big part of it, unfortunately.

So, the odds are stacked against us.  And I fully expect to be rejected, whenever I submit a proposal or an article.  I know that probably seems morbid, but it’s true.  I work hard to remove the rejection-triggers I can control, try to make the piece as good as it can be, and hope for the best.  I’ve had some successes, and many, many failures.  You just need to realize that the latter is almost inevitable, and keep plugging along.

And take it from me, it gets a lot easier once you stop taking everything as a personal rebuke.  Curling up in a corner with a tear-catching pillow can take a lot out of a person, and does little to advance his writing ambitions.

How do you deal with rejection?  Has your reactions changed through the years, like mine?  From which Big Names have you collected rejection letters?  Which was your favorite?  Please use the comments link to tell us your stories of creative disappointment and woe.

And I’ll see you folks again soon.

In 2007

I’ve read that losing a longtime job is similar, in many ways, to a death in the family.  There’s a very real grieving process that needs to take place, complete with a series of emotions (disbelief, anger, bargaining, etc.) that supposedly occurs in the same order with everyone.  The final emotion is acceptance, and it took me a while to get there.

I kept backsliding to anger.

Once I finally achieved some version of acceptance, I decided I wasn’t going to allow this thing to defeat me.  I’d turn it into a positive, I proclaimed.  And I began writing a book.

I’d been carrying around an idea for a comic novel, for several years.  But I never found the time to actually do anything with it; I was working fifty hours per week, had a wife and two kids, a website that was doing pretty well, and a house to maintain.  Oh, the excuses were built-in, and I was just another guy who was going to write a novel someday.  It’s not exactly an elite club, believe me.

But after my breakfast meeting, I took the plunge.  I began working on the book in the mornings and after dinner, and applied for jobs in between.  I’ll undoubtedly go into more detail about the process in a future post, but it turned out to be easier than anticipated in some respects, and harder in others.  Bottom line:  it was nothing like what I’d envisioned.

I was spurred-on by a possibly unhealthy “I’ll show ‘em!” attitude.  I even penned a dedication, which I planned to include at the front of the book:  For Michael, who fired me and provided the free time I needed to start writing this novel.  Thanks, prick!

But, over time, the anger faded and I found a new job, and it was almost like the previous one had never happened.  Except, of course, for the giant cut in pay…  I continued working on the manuscript, on my days off and during occasional writing holidays inside a yurt at a nearby state park.  I’m a big fan of yurt writing, and endorse it without hesitation.

The first draft was completed in December 2009.  It was more than two years after I’d started, but the thing was written in fits and starts.  I wasn’t able to crank out the proverbial thousand words a day, it was more like 50, zero, zero, zero, 200, zero, zero, 1000, zero, zero, zero, zero, 1500, 1200, 100…

I sent the draft to my agent (something else I’ll discuss in the future), and he provided a long list of reader’s notes.  In other words, stuff he wanted changed and fixed.  By the time I’d gone through the process twice, almost another year had passed.  But I finally had a completed novel.  I’d done it, and it wasn’t even for spite anymore.

The name of the book is Crossroads Road, and it’s not anywhere near literature.  But I think it’s a good story, and provides the reader some laughs.  I’ll tell you what happened with it, as we continue here.

The reason I decided to give this website the same name as the novel, is because the experience of writing it was intense, and the circumstances were extraordinary.  I will remember that period of my life as especially challenging and rewarding. I learned a lot, absorbed many good and not-so-good books and articles on writing, signed with a reputable New York literary agent, and strung together 65,000 words in a certain order as to suggest a novel.

Crossroads Road will always be about the process and the education to me, and it seemed like an appropriate name for a website dealing with those subjects…

I certainly don’t consider myself to be an expert on writing or publishing.  But I’m interested in both, and want to connect with others who share the same passions.  I’ll be posting about the general problems writers encounter, and will be counting on your input.  I also plan to conduct interviews with creative and interesting people.  And, of course, I’ll blog about my ongoing writing journey.

Thank you very much for reading this first post, and I hope you’ll stick around for more.  With your help, I think we can build a fun, supportive, and rewarding hangout for new writers and creative folks in general.

Have a great day!