Pages to type before I sleep...

Northwest Tutoring Center Conference

2012-02-25T20:58:00.001-08:00

The big project at the writing center recently has been preparing to host the NWTCC. Today, that all came to fruition. And what a day it was.

Sleep now.

Watching the Clock: Keeping track of the third 'W' in your writing.

2012-02-24T15:54:00.001-08:00

I was recently re-reading an old manuscript when I stumbled across the following passage...

"Jordan paused before turning the corner, wondering what she was going to say to the old man that would make any difference. She toyed with her lighter, but couldn’t bring herself to light it. MacLeod had done nothing to earn her disrespect; his house, his rules.

She could smell the old man’s cigar smoke on the late-afternoon breeze and wondered what she’d have to do to earn the latitude Pastor Kipfer seemed to enjoy. Maybe he'd share his stogie, turn it into an ersatz peace pipe.

The rattle of gravel echoed off the garage wall as a car pulled up out front and she hesitated. She didn’t want to do this in front of an audience. She stalled for time, stowing the lighter back in her pocket and hoping it was just a deliveryman.

A gruff male voice yelled “You Ashleigh MacLeod?"

“Maybe, who’s asking?” growled the voice of the pastor.

A sound like twin thunderclaps shattered the afternoon silence. Light flared, casting harsh shadows against the garage wall, freezing the moment like a camera's flash. The moment of inrushing horror seemed to stretch to infinity the moments before Jordan screamed..."

Did you catch it?

The muzzle flashes of the shooting we're witnessing through the main character's eyes are bright enough that she sees them from around the corner. Moments after noting that it was mid-afternoon.

If you've ever been around guns much, you know that's just silly -- it's a gunshot, not a lightning flash.

I know exactly what happened. The first time I wrote the scene, the two characters (Jordan and Pastor Kipfer) had just risen from the supper table and dusk had fallen. During a rewrite, I removed a bunch of material and shifted the preceding scene from dinner to lunch.

End result: The sun was still in the sky, but the way I was describing the scene still assumed it was dark.

Who, What, When, Why, Where, and How? Sometimes the third W seems obvious, and sometimes it bites you in the butt.

Incidentally, I checked my notes from the beta readers and one of them even mentions that this scene has timing issues. I remember going through looking for things like this and still I missed this one. More than once.

It goes to show the value of close-reading during revisions.

There are many ways to keep track of this. I've known some authors to keep an account of every scene with a minute-by-minute timestamp. I'm convinced that the trend in thriller novels to include a timestamp at the top of each chapter started with an author's attempt to keep track of what was happening when and then forgetting to erase it.

Instead of military-style timestamps, I've started using an Afterthought Outline (patent pending).

It's not a new idea. In high school and college, instructors would require me to turn in an outline for a paper. Because I didn't see the value in them then and still don't, I would write the paper and then generate a fake outline after the fact. They're fine for those they help, but an unnecessary chore for those they do not.

Good thing I'm not teaching high school English, I suppose.

These days (since long after I wrote the passage above) I've started using the afterthought outline as an editing tool.

Instead of writing from an outline, I have a short precis of the story and some notes about how the main characters will interact. Sometimes I have character sheets for the characters detailing their descriptions and mannerisms, sometimes I don't. Sometimes, I just pin all of my cocktail napkins and bits of paper to a cork board in approximately the order in which they will unfold. Then I start writing and let things happen organically. It's not until the second or third draft that I start seriously jot noting how the story finally settled down and start flagging pages with Post-it notes to indicate where certain events begin and end. This helps me sort out the flow of events and ideally, notice discrepancies like the one I mentioned above.

To avoid the kind of mistake I detailed above, I often note the date and time at the top of each scene either in the manuscript or in the attached outline: This happens and then this happens. And it's ___ o'clock. And in that location at that time and date, the sun would be ____.

So it goes that even an organic writer (so-called) finds it necessary to outline at least a little. Because if they don't watch the clock, at the very least they're going to have lighting issues.

Write Everywhere & Everywhen: A pocketful of ideas.

2012-02-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

Sitting at dinner among other writers, I am often struck by the number of times someone says "I'm going to write about this as soon as I get home!"

I usually hear this as I am tucking a scribble-covered napkin in my pocket and wondering why they're waiting.

I once told someone that I started a new book whenever I didn't have anymore room for my wallet or keys. And it's not far from the truth.

I would imagine that in a world where almost everyone carries a tiny computer in their pockets, we could stop waiting until we get home to write something down. The sad fact is that even with the ubiquity of smart phones and other devices, we still rely on our memories to preserve the ideas that spring fully-formed into our heads at the drop of a word.

There's magic in places where different minds meet. Conversations in real life are fertile ground for ideas. We're told to keep our eyes open and watch for the stories all around us, but what good does it do us if we don't write it down?

We spend a lot of time on writing blogs and at conferences reminding aspiring writers to keep a notebook on their nightstands for those 3 am epiphanies. (I've moved mine down the hall to the bathroom cabinet because turning on the table lamp wakes up my wife and I got tired of using a headlamp.) But I think we don't spend enough time stressing the need to carry a notebook (or equivalent) at all times where we're out with friends.

Not that I should throw stones; I don't always have a notebook with me either. That's no excuse to let the ideas slip, though. I'll use a napkin or an envelope, or my hand, or a patient passerby if necessary... pretty much anything that will take ink will suffice.

They're not all gold, of course, but they're not all dross either. And the only chance I get to decide which is which is if I stopped for a second to jot a note and shove it in my pocket. Ideas are transitory things. They'll slip away from you if you don't get them down while they're fresh in your mind.

I've never had anyone tell me they find it rude, but I accept that some people might. It's all part and parcel to befriending an author, I'm afraid, occasionally we'll get that far off look in our eyes and start searching our pockets for a pen.

I think that it's a goal we should all have: to come home at the end of the day and find that our pockets are full of ideas.

The Colbert-Patchett Interview

2012-02-22T23:14:00.000-08:00

Stephen Colbert sat down with bestselling author and newly-minted bookstore owner Ann Patchett for a throwdown on the book biz.

In case Jeff Bezos reads this: I am appalled, shocked and appalled.

It's a terrible thing. . . honest.

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My Time Machine: Born in the wrong era?

2012-02-22T10:14:00.002-08:00

As a writer, I spend a lot of time delving into the past and exploring what life was like at various points in history. I've written about WWII, Prohibition, the Great Library of Alexandria, and Shakespeare. And a question I often hear is "Do you feel like you were born at the wrong point in history?"

Frankly, I'm a little disappointed that since I wrote Howard Carter no one has asked whether I was born on the wrong planet.

It annoys me at times, but I suppose it's a fair question.

Let's face it, I have a lot of skills that aren't of much use in the 21st century. And by the metric of the rest of the country, my childhood was more on like my dad's than it was like the rest of my peers. We didn't have a video game system or computer. Dad didn't believe in them. I learned to type on a typewriter (as is right and proper.)

My friends refer to this as a 'sheltered upbringing' but I'm not sure I'd agree.

I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' farm where I made a lot of my own toys. I built rafts. I sank them. I swam to shore and built new ones. I played with GI Joe while we listened to Fibber McGee & Molly on the radio. I watched Star Wars like every other kid of my age, but read voraciously from a library that was stocked mostly with books written over a half century before I was born.

My childhood was a Mark Twain novel ghostwritten by Ray Bradbury, filtered through an Archie comic.
The world that was shown to me on MTV seemed distant and somewhat surreal, simultaneously more modern and less than the world around me.

I still prefer hand tools to electric, my typewriter to my laptop. It probably also explains why I have no real attachment to those wonders of modern technology that the people around me can't live without. It's not inarguable that I really am a man out of my era and I wouldn't blame you if you thought that if given a time machine and license to use it that I'd be off like a shot.

I certainly used to think so. Why, I may have been misplaced several centuries! I even said as much to my dad once. Dad looked at me and kind of snorted and said "Take off your glasses."

Touché, Dad.

I have allergies and poor eyesight and I have an asthma inhaler in my pocket as I type this. Even when I join in a historical reenactment and try to sink into a past age, never far from my mind is the fact that I never would have survived childhood in these past worlds.

Books are my time machine. Then and now, they are my preferred method of time travel. If someone offered me a trip through time I might not take them up on it if I cannot close the cover and return to the modern era any time I wish.

And it's not at all about the asthma inhaler. The women around me are valued as highly as the men. My wife is an engineer. My boss is a woman. I can see someone passing me on the street and talk to them without see more about them than just the color of their skin. I can say whatever I want here and as long as I don't libel anyone, no one can stop me.

Because honestly... the 'good old days' weren't that good.

So until the man in the Blue Box comes to escort me to the opening night of Hamlet and then safely home again... I like this time period just fine, thanks.

Writing isn't a major, it's a lifestyle choice: Advice for Aspiring Writers

2012-02-17T13:38:00.000-08:00

Because I work in a college writing center (and maintain this and other writing-related blogs) a question I get asked a lot is "What do I major in if I want to be a writer?" Because I'm online in several places, those questions now come more often as emails and messages.

Here's an actual message sent to me on Tumblr the other day...

"I'm a freshman in college with an undecided major. What do you think my major should be if I want to be a writer for magazines and websites maybe eventually write a book one day?"

The correct answer is: Whatever you want to major in is fine. Writing isn't a major, it's a lifestyle choice.

I've said it before and will say it again: Unless you want to teach, the schools aren't going to teach you anything you cannot learn much better and at less expense by sitting down and doing it. Major in business; it's more useful to an artist than an art degree, I assure you.

Ignorance of business principles is the number one reason why artists starve.

If I had my way, everyone who wanted to be a writer would get a business degree. In other words, major in something that pays the bills and minor in something that stimulates your soul. Because the 'starving artist' thing is overrated.

No, I'm not kidding.

YA authors, because of the age of their readership, get asked this question constantly. Let's see what New York Times bestselling YA author Maureen Johnson has to say on the topic.

I've heard dozens of bestselling authors give the same advice, MJ was just nice enough to put it on Twitter in her usual charmingly emphatic style.

Does Maureen Johnson saying it make it true? No. Neither does it make it true because Ann Patchett said it. Certainly, majoring in Creative Writing or English isn't going to hurt you. But as Ms. Patchett points out, this isn't medical school we're talking about here; you're not very likely will never recoup the cost of your degree by working in your field.

As I've noted before, I majored in journalism and then left that program to go to art school. Art school taught me nothing about art and a lot about finances, mostly student loan interest and structured payments.

Everything I actually know about art or writing, I taught myself or learned by doing it. Everything.

I think anyone interested in becoming a writer after college should read an essay by Lawrence Block called "Dear Joy" (you can read it for free by following that link). It is written as a letter to a college freshman who wants to become a writer and should be required reading for anyone else who wants to do the same. It's worth noting that he doesn't tell her not to major in a writing-related field. He just tells her the pros and cons.

It really is a great essay and I wish I'd read it as a high school senior.

Which brings me to this: If you're in college right now, majoring in writing or English, I am not advising that you change your major or drop out. For heaven's sake, finish your degree. No one is going to look down on you or refuse to publish you for having completed a college degree. I work in a college writing center; I know how hard it is to get from your admission letter to your diploma.

When you walk down the aisle in your cap and gown, you'll have genuinely accomplished something. You have every right to be proud.

But in all honesty, an arts education isn't something that happens at an institution, it's something that happens in your head. The ivy covered walls, the brick paths, the echoing classrooms... it's all stage dressing for the artist. That what I mean when I say that art and writing aren't majors, they're a lifestyle choice.

When you're majoring in the visual arts, your college admission garners you access to valuable and expensive studio space and things like ceramics kilns that you cannot afford on your own. But for a writer, it's all about what's between your ears. And you don't have to pay for the privilege of using that space, you just have to do it.

Reading is the only education a writer gets. The only thing you need to get access to that education is a library card and those are usually free.

Read. Write. Experiment. Pack your inner art studio with all the supplies you can get your hands on and then sit down at a keyboard and see what you can do. When you type The End on your first novel or short story, that's a graduation of its own. No professor required. The story is your diploma. You have genuinely accomplished something. You have every right to be proud.

That diploma is not what allows you to call yourself a writer or an author. Like Ms. Patchett said: This isn't medical school. You don't need a license to practice (and no one dies if you do it wrong).

The only thing that qualifies you to be a writer is writing something.

Designated Dreamers

2012-02-16T10:00:00.000-08:00

Cover Story: Designing 'The Dragon Ring'

2012-02-09T12:11:00.000-08:00

What more can any man hope for than to sit and be creative among friends?

When it hits the digital shelves of your local online bookstore, it will be called The Dragon Ring but when I read the first draft of Maggie Secara's sweeping fantasy epic, it was still titled Sparrow's Dragon.

I was enchanted. I remember thinking: Boy, I'd love to do the cover for this...

So when Maggie told me her publisher was looking for a cover designer, as you can imagine, my hand shot up. Luckily, I've done some web design for Maggie in the past, so when I stepped forward, she welcomed me with open arms. We talked about. We talked some more. Then I received a sketch of a dragon from noted folklorist, artist, and author Ari Berk and Maggie said "Yes, something like that" and it was on.

How could anyone pass up the opportunity to put themselves in the middle of so much talent?

Cover design is more than typesetting and Photoshop manipulations; there's always an element of art direction and packaging. The photos or artwork has to be gathered from the illustrators, the client has to feel that the images and typefaces chosen correctly reflect their desires, balanced, of course with legibility and style.

And somewhere in there, you have to create something that also fits your own aesthetics.

Photo from Wikipedia: Used under Creative Commons License

The description of the eponymous Dragon Ring is that it's viking in origin. Appropriately, the sketch that Professor Berk sent me is loosely based on the intricate viking-era serpent carvings like those found in the Urnes Stave Church in Norway. (see photo)

I took Ari's sketch, fed it into Photoshop and started sending ideas to Maggie for comment. One of the hurdles for any project of this sort is the mental image the author holds of their ideal cover, their ideal heroine, or in this case, the ideal artifact at the center of their story. In this case, I was lucky enough to have full participation from an author who understood that cover design is not about illustrating the story, but about creating an accurate impression of the story inside. And not to get in the way of the reader opening the book to begin with.

Fifteen or so emails later, we had a couple of final ideas to send to the publisher for them to choose from.

This is a unique experience in many ways and one of those things that distinguish the "Indie" authors and small presses from the big guys. At larger publishers, the covers are very polished. The cover art is chosen mostly for marketing concerns and often drawn from stock sources rather than commissioned from artists who have read the book and discussed them with the authors. The authors are given very little input on cover designs in the classic publishing model. I've heard stories of authors managing to get covers changed, but not very often and only with great hardship.

That's neither good nor bad. I certainly understand why it has evolved that way. I've talked to authors who would have to back a Brinks truck up to my studio to get me to take their call. People who cannot put away "This is pretty" and say "This will get people to open the book (or click on the thumbnail) and give my words a chance to capture their hearts."

Maggie gets that. Gets it in spades.

What else can I say about Maggie? We've been the 21st century equivalent of penpals for quite awhile now. She is part of my online writing group and one of the many great and surprisingly close friends I have met online but never in person. She's been a great friend and an excellent sounding board for ideas when I'm contemplating anything to do with history.

Dragon Ring has a lot of time travel in it, and seeing someone with genuine historical chops take on a story like that is always exciting. Maggie is the force behind Life in Elizabethan England: A Compendium of Common Knowledge, a one-stop shop for all matters Elizabethan. Whenever my work wanders into the time of Shakespeare, as when I was writing the first draft of Mummer's Masque last year, Maggie's website is my first stop. (She has handily turned the website into a book, which you can buy in all the finest online establishments).

Look for The Dragon Ring from Crooked Cat Publishing, available March 16, 2012!

Cover Design by Scott Perkins, Ari Berk, Illustrator.
Copyright 2012, Crooked {Cat} Publishing.

Ben Harper, an American living in England, is an organizational guru with a popular British TV program and a great family. It may not be the career his theatrical and musical training prepared him for, but it’s a good one, and he does have a definite knack for bringing order out of chaos. But for all his success, Ben remains unhappy, aching to find a channel for his pent-up creative talents.

A chance meeting in the pub leads to an offer from some guy who claims to be Oberon king of Faerie. Oberon--if that's who he is--tells Ben that he can help him with the career crisis in return for a favor. All Ben needs to do is take a dragon arm ring back in time and deliver it to Alfred the Great so the medieval king can make peace with the Vikings and get down to forging modern England. If this doesn’t happen, Oberon says, the world Ben knows will cease to exist...

The Dragon Ring is filled with music, adventure, faerie magic, and dry humor. It also has solid roots in history and folklore, and some indebtedness to the worlds of Brian Froud, Neil Gaiman, and Marie Brennan.

Read a synopsis and sample chapters here on Maggie's blog.

Dickens is beyond modern kids? I beg to differ.

2012-02-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

Today is Charles Dickens's 200th birthday.

Naturally, the world media is alight with stories relating to Charlie and his works and whether he's still relevant and so on and so forth. Likewise there's a lot of utter and complete nonsense flitting about, including the usual trumpeting of the downfall of civilization. In case you missed it, Dickens biographer Claire Tomalin in a BBC interview said:

"Children are not being educated to have prolonged attention spans and you have to be prepared to read steadily for a Dickens novel and I think that's a pity."

I hear this sort of stuff and nonsense all the time. Kids these days (with their shaggy hair and baggy clothes and loud rap music) just aren't able to follow the complex story lines and stay with a story the length of David Copperfield. To much TV, too many video games.

They rot your brain, you know.

To which I reply: Really? Have you ever seen a Harry Potter novel?

I'm going to give Ms Tomalin a pass on this one since she went on to say that the last time a truly Dickensian character caught the limelight was Basil Fawlty, bought memorably to life by John Cleese back in 1975. I think it's safe to assume that's when she stopped paying attention to such things because quite frankly, Harry Potter is David Copperfield with a magic wand.

But let's leave Harry and Ms Tomalin alone for a moment. Let's just talk about attention span and the ability to follow complex story lines.

There's a generational disconnect displayed here between people who see video games and TV as methods of storytelling and those who paint it with the same broad brush as brainless entertainment.

Tomalin's comments remind me of when movie critic Roger Ebert decided he needed to tell us all how he's not only never played a video game in his life, but also knew everything about them and could confidently predict their future development, I picked apart his argument on the basis of 'What constitutes art?' instead of 'What constitutes storytelling?' but he loses on both counts and so, I think, does Ms Tomalin.

Rather like dance has always freaked out the older generation who have conveniently forgotten how freaked out their parents were at the way that they danced, new avenues of storytelling continue to befuddle the generation whose preferred meme is getting replaced. Television has been doing this since its inception and video games have picked up where TV left off.

Video games are reaching a point where they are a storytelling medium in and of themselves. With plot twists and puzzles that would befuddle the likes of Ms. Tomalin or Mr. Ebert. The Uncharted series is interactive Indiana Jones. HALO is to Star Wars what Star Wars was to Flash Gordon. Each is the next iteration of our society's urge to tell stories and to immerse the listener/viewer in our tale.

These video games average more than 20 hours of focused gameplay. And they are played over and over again by their adherents. Games like Skyrim are effectively infinite once you take into account all of the add-on quests and downloadable additional content.

Tell me again how people raised in the internet age cannot focus on an engaging story line for more than a few pages.

But what about books?

If I sat down and paged through the contact lists on my cell phone, I reckon that I could come up with a baker's dozen young ladies who have read every book Jane Austen ever wrote. In fact, if I got every daughter of every friend I have and forced them to confess to every book they've ever read, I would further propose that the pile would include (but not be limited to) the complete works of not only Austen, but also Louisa May Alcott, L.M. Montgomery, JK Rowling, John Green, and yes, Stephenie Meyer.

Every copy would be well-thumbed. E-readers would have fingerprints on the screens, I suppose, but it amounts to the same thing.

Yes, Virginia, kids these days can concentrate long enough to endure longform fiction.

The real question is how do you choose to engage them in it? By saying they're incapable and writing them off because their modes of storytelling are not the ones we're most comfortable with? Or by engaging them in the stories that these authors have to tell?

One more quote from Ms Tomalin and I'll get back to what I really should be doing (writing a book).

"You only have to look around our society and everything he wrote about in the 1840s is still relevant - the great gulf between the rich and poor, corrupt financiers, corrupt MPs, how the country is run by old Etonians, you name it, he said it."

Yes indeed. And don't you think that's a better approach than This is too complex for your minds, so pitifully addled as they are by modern culture?

---

Other Posts you might like:
The Thing About Charlie: Is Dickens Still Relevant?: (Spoiler: Yes. He is.)
Video Games and the State of the Arts: Yes, Mr Ebert, video games do have the potential to be art.

Inspirations for Book Design: A Followup

2012-02-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

Unless I start getting more book design gigs, I doubt I'll talk much more about the nuts and bolts of the thing*. If you have questions, post them in the comments thread on this post or the previous one and I'll try my best to answer them or send you someplace that can.

Please Note: The guidelines I jotted down yesterday are neither absolute nor inviolate (except the part about legibility. If I can't read your title, I probably won't read your book.) Professional designers break the rules all the time. Design rules are like grammar rules: in order to break them, you really need to know what they are first.

That post is purposely incomplete; it's just meant to get you started and keep your cover from getting in your way. It's a starting point; as always, the rest of the journey is up to you.

For Further Reading: Inspirational Links and Places to Get Ideas

The Casual Optimist: Dan Wagstaff's beautiful and minimalist blog about books, book design, and the culture of bookstores and book people. Celebrates book design in a way you don't often see, especially the minimalist, retro, and vintage stuff. My advice: Start here.
The Book Cover Archive: Exactly what it says in the title. Great stuff. The best of the best. Lots of images and inspiration. (Every image displays first as a thumbnail: proving my point that great design is scalable design.)
Chronicle Books: Some small publishers get it exactly right. IMO: Chronicle is at the head of that particular pack.
The Book Designer: a blog about books and design and how they interact. Lots of great stuff.
Melissa Evans: For those who are wondering "Yeah, but if I do buy that copy of Photoshop, what do I do with it?" I suggest this blog. Melissa is a graphic artist with a boatload of great, easy-to-follow Photoshop tutorials.

*Yes, I am for available to hire on a freelance basis. If you want to enquire about prices, email me and I'll try my best not to shock you with my quote.

Judged By Its Cover: An Introduction to Book Design

2012-02-02T08:00:00.000-08:00

Fact: 31% of book purchases are impulse purchases[1].

I haven't talked much recently about the business of publishing because I've been focusing on writing. Recently, I put on my graphic designer hat to design the cover of an upcoming novel, and before I take it off, I wanted to talk about that a bit.

While I was researching the design, I trawled through the dusty remainder bins of the internet and what I found indicates a disconnect between the burgeoning independent book industry... and its cover.

I spent years working in bookstores, watching patrons peruse the shelves, picking up book after book and putting it back without so much as glancing at the jacket copy. What were they looking at? Title? Cover art? What was it about the books they put back that didn't appeal to them?

I posit that in many of those cases it was the cover. Something about the cover got in the way of them opening the book and reading the words.

I admit the possibility of bias, but I've watched it happen too often to discount it. Publishers agree with me.

In fact, in "ye olde days" (which was actually about six years ago) the best thing a publisher could do to get a book in a customer's hands was to make a deal with a bookstore to put it on a table, an endcap, or on the shelf with the cover facing out. This is called a "Co-op" and it's been the way of things for decades in both the book and music businesses. Heck, they do it in grocery stores too.

Why does it work? Because publishers know that a decent cover can get you to pick up a book. And if you pick it up, you're significantly more likely to form a bond with it, and ultimately buy it. [2]

Here in the future (cue beepy futuristic Star Trek noises) where we buy most of our books online, all book covers get the full-face treatment (which is awesome) but they're shown the size of your thumb print (which is not).

On the screen of the laptop I'm using to type this, Amazon displays thumbnails at about 100 pixels by 140 pixels, or approximately 1/3 inch wide by about a half inch tall.

That's about this big:

Consumers do indeed judge a book by its cover. Is it logical or fair? No. Does it happen? Constantly. Do I judge a book by its cover? No, but I do judge publishers by them. . . or rather I take it as a measure of their faith and how devoted they are to marketing the book.

As both a reader and as a designer, the cover art tells me how seriously the publisher takes the book. It tells me that they invested the time, energy, and money in getting a designer and a book packager in a room together to give the book a visual identity and that ineffable thing we used to call "shelf presence" but I suppose we should start calling "thumbnail presence" that gets people to pick it up and give the words a chance to seal the deal.

At best, a book cover will make the buyer click on it (or pick it up) but really the best you can hope for in the thumbnail age is for it not to get in the way.

The fake cover shown above is frankly a bit pedestrian, but it works. It's imperfect to say the least, but it's still perfectly adequate cover for a science fiction book about melty buildings. I cobbled it together from a picture my wife took of the Experience Music Project which, frankly, looks a bit like Tupperware that melted in the dishwasher. (I felt bad doing this to a perfectly good photo. Behold the majesty of my lens flares!)

If nothing else, it proves that you don't have to be Saul Bass to make a workable book cover or poster. This isn't great, but it wouldn't hurt your book sales. Even with all the stops pulled, it still works as a cover.

Why? Because it adheres to some basics of proportion and composition (more on that in a minute). It uses a clean font that has been optimized for contrast with its background. There is nothing about this image that would make you skip clicking on it.

Let's look at a different picture that gathers together many of the most frequent cover design errors that I see as I trawl through Amazon's lists:

This is illegible. I see it all the time and it doesn't work on any level. A loopy handwriting font is bad enough, but it's in a color that isn't a sufficient contrast to the underlying image -- even in white against a black background as with the author's name you can't read it.

Note that this one barely works at a larger image size or higher resolution. Even blown-up, the red subtitle is gone.

Graphic designers are so touchy about handwriting fonts that it's nearly legendary. (Type "Comic Sans" into a search engine sometime.) In fact, I'm just shy of saying that all handwriting fonts should be banned from book covers entirely. Except that I've seen them work, but only in very select circumstances and in the hands of a trained professional.

Sometimes it's easy to see why one things works and the other doesn't. Even with all the silly Photoshoppery, When the Buildings Melt "works" not because it's brilliantly executed -- it isn't -- but on simplicity alone. Just being legibile will get you a long way. The curly font murders Swear Not by the Moon in its bed before we ever get to the contrast and composition problems.

This isn't my best work, but it is a bit better. At least you can read it.

The tapes and off-kilter type is very much a trend right now and it does look funky and youthful (I'm imagining this is a YA book). The font could be even clearer but I don't want to spend a lot of time on an example piece.

Note that I de-emphasized the author on this version just to make a point. Despite what our egos tell us, the least important part of a cover is the author's name. If you're not James Patterson or Steven King, your name isn't the prime selling point. It's a choice that not many are willing to take.

These aren't even extreme examples. Go through the lists of e-books uploaded by hopeful authors at any book site you care to name. You'll see every one of these problems and more that I haven't thought of.

The aesthetics of design are the work of a college degree and several library's worth of books. Which is to say that they cannot be adequately encapsulated in a single blog post. So why bring it up at all? Because it's the place where so many small publishers and self-publishers fall short.

Book selling used to be all about getting booksellers to lay your book flat on a table or turned face out on a shelf. Give the book prominence of placement and the chance for the cover to work its wiles and you're halfway to a sale. These days, it's all about clickable thumbnails.

A very basic understanding of graphic design is mandatory in that marketplace, but independent authors and small publishers the world over fail to fully appreciate the power of a thumbnail. If you don't believe me, go through the lists at your favorite online bookstore and pay attention to how many thumbnails are completely indiscernible.

Scott's First Rule of Design: "Possessing a copy of Photoshop does not make you a graphic designer any more than owning a stove makes me a chef."

I may be a foodie, I may even be an excellent cook, but it takes years of training, tasting, and all around hard work to become a chef. The best I can hope for is to be an enthusiastic amateur. And that's fine, but it doesn't mean I should open a restaurant. Technique is the product of training, taste is the product of training combined with experience. You cannot claim the funny hat without liberal helpings of both.

What you're going to turn out will be amateur work. That's okay. Make it the best amateur work you can. Honestly, you're ahead of the pack if your cover just doesn't actually deter sales.

Here are some very basic rules and/or guidelines:

Don't use Microsoft Word or Paint: MS Word & Paint are not adequate to the task. Your image will bust into pixels as you re-size it and you will be sad. Happily, you don't need the full Adobe Creative Suite. Photoshop "Elements" contains all the tools you're likely to need and only costs about $80.00. This is a business you're engaged in. Invest in your business.
Pixelation is bad. Work large and shrink it, don't work small and try to blow it up. While you're working, constantly apraise your image at every size it's likely to be viewed at. At art school, we were taught to think of every image as a postage stamp.
Use clear, strong, fonts in colors that contrast with their background. Keep it simple. Ornate fonts are your enemy and have to be applied very carefully if at all. If I can't read your title, the odds of me reading your book are diminished.
Learn the "Rule of Thirds" and stick to it. The Rule of Thirds is a quick way to attaining a decent level of composition and after awhile it becomes second nature -- without meaning to, I adhered to it even in the Swear Not By the Moon cover I posted above. The Wikipedia article on this topic really is pretty good. Click the link. Even professional designers and photographers only break the rule of thirds on purpose.
You do not have to use a photo. I see so may photos on book covers that I feel like someone, somewhere thinks it's a rule. It's not. Also, as we've seen, photos can complicate the legibility of your text. If you do want to use a photo, use your own if you can. Take the picture in the best possible lighting and at the largest format your camera allows. Do not use a flash. Most bad digital photos can be made better simply by turning off the flash.

If you feel you need to use someone else's photo, you need to familiarize yourself with licensing a fair use. CreativeCommons.org is an excellent resource. I urge you to use a photo that is in the Public Domain (the Library of Congress or Wikimedia Commons are excellent sources) or a Creative Commons image that the photographer licensed for commercial use. If you don't, the image owner has every right to sue you.
Fonts belong to their designers. The same rules of photo and image licensing apply to fonts. When you choose a font, you must be sure you have permission to use it commercially. There are a lot of free fonts available. Shop around. (Once again, the Creative Commons folks can help you out there. See above.)
The Three C's" Contrast, Clarity, and Composition. These are the three concerns you must always keep in mind as you're choosing every element of your design. As in storytelling, the parts are in service to the whole, not the other way around. I don't care how much you love the photo of the kids playing in the mud puddle, if it doesn't work, chuck it.
Go to a book store or a website that sells books and LOOK at the covers. Take note of what makes you want to click to see more and what doesn't. Go thou and do likewise.

[1] Source: Bowker: Making Information Pay 2009 -- GALLAGHER, KELLY (Bowker)

[2] “Why We Buy: the Science of Shopping” by Paco Underhill

Downhill Without Brakes: Lessons from Calvin & Hobbes

2012-02-01T09:10:00.000-08:00

Contrary to earlier claims by a certain rabbit, everything I needed to know in life, I learned from Calvin & Hobbes.

All you really need is someone who can actually see you.
Relationships don't care whether anyone else can understand them.
Make every day an adventure.
Two words: "Rocketship Underpants."
Subvert the paradigm; that's what it's there for.
Your imagination is a tool that should not be allowed to rust.
It's always more fun to get dirty than it is to clean up afterward.
Adults don't know what they're doing either. (Shhhhh! Don't tell anyone.)
There are very few situations in which a space helmet and cape aren't appropriate attire.
You craft your own reality; don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
All the preparation in the world doesn't guarantee success.
"You might get hurt" is a lousy reason not to try.
Life is a downhill ride in a wagon with no brakes. The best you can hope for is to make as big an impact as you can at the end.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore(Oscar-nominated short)

2012-01-25T09:14:00.000-08:00

The best movie I've seen so far this year is only fifteen minutes long.

From the "Things That Are Inspiring Me This Morning" files, this animated short by Moonbot studios of Shreveport, Louisiana has been nominated for the Oscar in a category that is usually dominated by Pixar. In fact, one of the founders of Moonbot was a conceptual artist on Toy Story, sprung from that fertile breeding ground for artists that is Pixar studios.

Speaking of Pixar, in order to take the trophy home, this little short is up against the Disney-owned juggernaut's "La Luna" and that's a pretty tall order. Still... I'm predisposed to root for the little guy.

The LA Times turned out some great coverage of the unlikely film from Shreveport, including the formation of Moonbot in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the death of Michael Jackson. But I think that Moonbot says it best in their artist's statement on Vimeo:

"Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, “Morris Lessmore” is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story."

http://vimeo.com/35404908)

Whatever its pedigree, it's one of the most delightful bits of animation I've seen in quite some time. But I'm such a booklover that I'm probably too biased to be objective. So I'll let you decide for yourselves.

For your consideration...

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

Writing is easy (but keep bandages handy)

2012-01-23T12:12:00.001-08:00

Predation Nation? Amazon and Pubs Faceoff (Via NPR)

2012-01-23T12:04:00.001-08:00

SOPA on the Ropes

2012-01-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

The latest in a long line of efforts to censor the internet is wavering. Congressional supporters are abandoning the SOPA/PIPA legislation like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Online protests from Wikipedia and Google (and many others) had their effect. Congressional switchboards were swamped with calls, Google claims 4.5 million people signed their petition, and Wikipedia reports 162 million pageviews on their protest page.

The people have spoken and they must keep speaking.

Because it isn't over yet.

If you've followed me for any length of time, you'll know that I'm vehemently anti-censorship. Sadly, this is not the first attempt to restrict the conversations we have and the things that we share. People who do not understand how the internet works are trying to dictate how the internet should work.

The whole world has noticed. I was contacted today by the German publication Zauberspiegel Online for a comment. You can read it here in German: http://www.zauberspiegel-online.de/ but this is an expansion of my comments to them, but really, it's a song I've been singing for awhile now.

Our lives are a collage of shared experiences, a patchwork of the culture that unites us. Our conversations are peppered with movie quotes, our events are back-dropped by the songs playing on the radio or piped through restaurants and coffee shop speakers.

Yet if we try to reflect that part of our lives online, we are "pirates".

SOPA is unnecessarily broad. It will have no effect on so-called media pirates who will simply go around. Instead, it breaks the relationship between the providers of service and the users of the services. It burdens internet companies, websites, and search providers, strangling startups and internet entrepreneurs with pointless regulations. It requires everyone online to have a working knowledge of some very esoteric legal principles in order to keep out of jail. And copyright is an area of the law so esoteric that even the man who wrote the SOPA legislation violated them on his own website!

This law puts the onus on the owner of the house for all that happens within. It assumes guilt and sidesteps due-process. (Which seems to be a recurring theme lately in Washington DC.) All in the interest of taming the net, in the interest of forcing it to fit a business model that was created before the computer was invented. Rather than evolve to meet the new model, certain powerful elements of our society are seeking to force the rest of us to back track to meet them.

I am a huge fan of copyright. The creation of copyright laws Fundamentally changed the lives of creative individuals everywhere. They changed the world from a place where Charles Dickens was the most popular author in America, but never saw a dime of revenue from the U.S. printings of his stories, to a world where authors, artists, and inventors could benefit from their own creations and use those revenues to devote their time to creating more.

But those laws were intended to champion innovations and advancements so that built upon a previous work to create something new. SOPA and similar laws that stifle, and many creative ideas and advancements are smothered in their cradle.

They were never intended to stifle them.

Otherwise, copyrights and patents would never expire.

If the world had been a place where riffing on existing music was illegal, we would have not jazz. If variations on a theme were illegal we would not have a great deal of classical or modern music. Likewise, if the world had been a place where cracking open your devices and tinkering with the works was illegal, we'd be driving the Model T silent and auto racing would not exist.

Creators have the right to protect their work. But this is not the way to do it.

As a copyright holder, I understand the frustration felt by other copyright holders and I understand the kneejerk lashing-out that can ensue. Likewise do I like to think that there's room for reasoned response and discourse. There has to be a middle ground where the artforms can prosper, the citizens of the world can incorporate their culture into their lives (and Thereby spread by word of mouth how great your material is) and do it all without throwing open the gates and making it so that artists simply can not support themselves by their efforts.

Censorship is never the answer and therefore, SOPA cannot be.

HR 3261: the so-called Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which is currently before the US Senate, and its sister bill the Protect Intellectual Properties Act (PIPA) can be found in their entirety by clicking on their names. Read them. Read this breakdown of the laws by the American Library Association. Go online and find the analyses from the major news organizations, read what your favorite authors and creators have to say about SOPA.

And than, as always, make up your own mind.

Stop SOPA

2012-01-18T17:10:00.001-08:00

The Typist & the Time Machine

2012-01-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

I sometimes compare my typewriter to the control console of a time machine. I lay my hands upon the keys and I am whisked away to another place and time for adventures untold. I play the keys and the universe dances to the tune of every chatter and ding.

Ever notice that there's a typewriter on the control console of the TARDIS? I rest my case.

I know that I sound like a Luddite every time I bring up typewriters. That's a cross I'll just have to bear. There's magic in a typewriter and I like them a lot.

Which makes people wonder: do I write with one?

Alas, no. I own several, but they're mostly conversation pieces and subjects for photography.

When asked how I use typewriters in my writing, I almost always say "Metaphorically."

You see, I hate the term "Word Processor." Think about that for a moment. Word processing? As if I could or should jot down a design for a new book on the back of a cocktail napkin and mail it off to a factory in China where an army of workers will assemble it into a novel for a dollar an hour.

No. Just... no.

Typewriter sounds better to my ear. It has the sound of craft about it. And face it, it takes a real effort to write with a typewriter. From the number of foot pounds of force you have to exert on the key to make a letter to the finicky nature of aligning the paper under the platen. Don't even get me started on the irascible nature of carbon paper.

Be that as it my, I use a word processing (gag) program just like everyone else.

I learned to type on a typewriter and I have long attributed my tendency to destroy keyboards to this fact. On this keyboard, the "T" is going out on me and often I have to backtrack to insert T's as I type this. By the time my last laptop finally bricked, it didn't have a working space bar and most of the keys practically required a hammer to get them to register.

There's a learning curve when using any writing tool that's more complicated than a Bic pen. A goodly part of every workday for me is spent walking students through the eccentricities of Microsoft Word. But when I write about typing, I don't see a computer keyboard in my head. I see the keys of my big black Royal typewriter that I call Matilda. That's her in the picture above. She's a thing of beauty, a real mechanical marvel.

Yes, I name inanimate objects. I also have a yellow truck named Woodstock. Don't judge me.

Matilda doesn't process words, she pounds them into shape like a blacksmith's hammer and anvil, forges stories out of base metal. She's practically a spirit totem for the modern writer, a talisman against the demons and distractions of electronica.

If writing really is 1% talent and 99% being able to ignore the internet, a return to the typewriter seems only natural to me.

Wifi? Twitter? This thing doesn't even have spell check!

See? I'm not looking backward toward the past, I'm looking forward into the future. I told you it was a time machine.

I wonder, though, what the proprietors of my local cafes would say if I hauled a typewriter in and started using it at one of their tables. If nothing else, it would save them from the endless complaints about not having enough outlets to serve the laptop brigade...

Lighting the other end of the candle :: The Perils of Helium Hand

2012-01-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

There comes a time when you have to make hard choices and for me, that time has arrived.

The candle is already lit at both ends and now I either have to figure out how to light the middle too, or something has got to give.

This is the main reason I haven't been blogging as much lately: I have a bad case of Helium Hand. When it comes time to volunteer for things, my hand just seems to rise of its own accord and before I know it, I'm letting things go that might further my career just trying to keep up with all of the things I volunteered to do.

I am a huge advocate of volunteering in your community. Help out anywhere and in any way that you can.

Education isn't something that should be delegated to teachers and then ignored, hoping they'll wave a magic wand and make our kids ready to take their places as a citizen. Hell, Washington State has a constitutional mandate to fully fund education and even they can't keep up with it. There are a number of reasons for this, among them that there's too little money, too many tests, and not enough hours in the day.

Never one to say "Go and do" without having gone and done, I kept putting my hand up until I needed a hand myself.

Awhile back, I was tapped to help create a new community Writing Center for the Tacoma area. We call it write@253. Out of that grew a wider effort to align all of the mentoring programd operating in Tacoma in a group effort to raise awareness and drive volunteerism in the south Puget Sound region.

They're both excellent causes that I am aching to lend them every kind of support I have at my disposal. The writing center is a specific cause, a cause near and dear to my heart where I get to directly help students find their words and assemble them into stories. Find an hour has a broader impact across the whole of the community. Every hour I spend with them, I'm theoretically helping an untold number of kids.

I am not saying that my presence or absence is the lynch pin for the whole effort. Far from it. Neither will fall apart without me. I cannot imagine walking away from either, but I'm coming to realize that I only have time for one of them.

Setting aside the fact that I see my family and friends less than I would like (because who can't say the same?) at this moment, I have two very personal novels ready to move center stage. Also, there's also a large-scale write-for-hire gig standing in the wings, clearing its throat and ready to push everything else aside with a real deadline. Oh, and I have a day job that I love.

Even when you only sleep four hours a night, you only have so many productive hours in a day.

My first impulse is to pick the very personal project that allows me to help students one-on-one. It came first anyway, the other just sort of happened. But I want to do both.

I believe that every writer carries a debt to the person, the place, and the culture that put the pen in their hand. It is a debt that is repaid by encouraging more writers and spreading a love of reading and writing, an appreciation of our history and culture.

How do I keep the candle burning when I can't seem to keep my head above water?

A gentle reminder to myself and others...

2012-01-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

Fart Jokes, Humor, and Dissecting Frogs

2011-12-30T10:40:00.000-08:00

When someone asks me how to write humor, I often remind them that the world's oldest joke is a fart joke. (It's nice to know someone's keeping track of these things.)

If you can learn how to write a fart, you're there.

That's a bit glib, but it gets to the central problem with writing humor: many things are only funny because the situation makes them funny.

By the way: My eleven-year-old self would like an apology from everyone who ever lectured him using the words "That is not funny..." He had historical precedent is on his side. It's in the genome, nothing I can do about it; farts were funny in ancient Sumer!

(Nephews take note.)

To drag this up a notch from the archaeology of bodily functions, I was listening to an NPR interview with the great Canadian humorist Stuart McLean the other night. In the interview, McLean refused the interviewer's polite entreaties to analyse his humor.

He quoted E. B. White, who said: "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog; the frog dies in the process." He said that it wasn't his job to know how it worked, it was just his job to do it. And that stuck with me long after I turned off the car engine and the radio fell silent.

Somehow, when someone asks me how to write humor, or how I write humor, I can't bring myself to say "It's not my job to understand it, just to do it."

I want to understand it. Moreover, the teacher in me wants to be able to answer the question with something more than "Learn to write farts."

Exempting physical humor (which is almost impossible in written form) I see three common types of humor. It's really not that hard to be funny in real life, because almost all humor is physical, topical, anecdotal, or situational. The moments when you laugh so hard that you're literally ROTFL are usually a combination of all four.

(Someone keep an eye on the frog for me. Is it dead yet?)

If writing is supposed to be an honest reflection of our world, then most humor we write will be situational. Being funny in real life isn't that hard because it isn't about telling jokes, it's about a given moment when what happens is funny. Farce is another thing entirely, worthy of its own frog... er... blog post.

For the most part, writing humor is and will always be about creating "You just had to be there" moments between your characters and your readers. Some people can do this instinctively, what Stuart McLean called 'writing from the belly'. Some have to learn how to do it, and in order to do that, I'm afraid you're going to have to exploratory surgeries on some frogs.

Part of being a writer is examining our own lives and interactions, mining them for moments and ideas that will breathe life into our writing. In order to do that, we must take scalpel in hand and pull them apart at least a little.

Why was it funny when Aunt Bethany farted? If you accept that bodily functions aren't inherently funny, you're left with the incongruity, the surprise. Why was it a surprise? Because it was your prim Aunt Bethany? Because it was Thanksgiving dinner? Because she'd just told off your kid for doing the same thing?

If nothing else, watch a video or an episode of a good sitcom. Pick them apart and look at how they work. At first, you'll just be staring uncomprehendingly at the broken parts of a dead joke. Eventually, you'll start to see the function of each piece and how they fit together. Eventually, you'll be able to reassemble the joke, better, faster, stronger than before.

I guess you had to be there? Let me put you there...

In the meantime, don't tease the frogs.

Holiday Break

2011-12-22T17:55:00.000-08:00

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, or some other that I am unaware of, may the season be a blessed one, full of togetherness and hope for the new year to come.

We celebrate Christmas here at Fool's Paradise, so I have a lot of Santa traps to put out before the big day, so I will be taking a short break from the blog to make sure we get him this year. If you don't see him, you'll know we got him.

To all of you out there in Internetland, don't forget to be silly.

Scott Walker Perkins

The Safety Epidemic: Dear Mister President...

2011-12-19T10:18:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. President,

I hope this letter finds you and your lovely family well.

I wanted to share a story with you about something I noticed recently about our country. This should be of especial interest to you since, if memory serves, your daughter Malia suffers from allergies.

I was shopping recently when I flipped the bag of nuts over and found a warning label, alerting consumers that this bag of nuts, may contain nuts.

Quelle surprise.

The packaging might have been more effective if it read: "Fair Warning: Our lawyers may be nuts, and if you sue us for finding nuts in your nuts, you may be nuts too."

Don't get me wrong, I have allergies. They have put me in the hospital several times recently. Some of these allergies are terrible and could, conceivably, kill me. I and my wife carry epinephrine injectors with us at all times, just in case the worst should happen. And I want there to be product labeling that warns me when something might be hidden in my food that could kill me.

And I worry that too many senseless warnings are making us numb to the real threats. Can't we just agree that coffee is hot, knives are sharp, a jar of nuts ~~may~~ will contain nuts, and if it causes cancer in the state of California, it causes cancer everywhere?

I ask because I'm not sitting down to write you a letter today about healthcare, or FDA mandated warnings, or allergies. I want to talk about safety and risk.

America seems addicted to safety and our politicians - you included - are unapologetic enablers.

One of the reasons that our national anthem pairs "land of the free" with "the home of the brave" is that the two cannot exist without one another. Risk is inherent in freedom. In a free society, there are always risks. Free speech means the risk of someone saying something we disagree with. The right to a presumption of innocence means that a guilty person might go free in order to ensure that the innocent person does as well.

And we accept those things.

Because we are the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Before I started my writing blog, I spent some time in the trenches as a political blogger. I wasn't very good at it, because I was and remain far too reasonable to succeed in that field. I'm not a firebrand for either the right or left, I'm just a guy trying to raise a family and carve out some space to write his books. This blog was meant to be a place where I don't need to be political. A place where I could talk about writing and nothing but writing.

Then my government tried to pass a law that would turn my homeland into a battlefield and simultaneously strip me of my unassailable right to due process. A law that could condemn me or one of my countrymen to indefinite detention if someone with sufficient clout were to accuse me of being a terrorist. Not prove me a terrorist, mind you, just the accusation would require indefinite military detention.

No trial, no confronting my accuser, no airing of the evidence against me, no jury of my peers. Detention in a military prison 'for the duration of hostilities' in a war in which there are no clear goals or metrics for measuring victory, and therefore no end in sight.

Why would my government do this? Why would you sign it?

Because our government, because your office, has become so accustomed to the idea that the citizenry wants to be endlessly protected to the point of absurdity. Because you seem to genuinely think that we want to be so coddled that we need a warning label on a bag of nuts telling us that it may contain nuts. Because the public has been trained to believe that safety is a right that must be defended with tear gas and infinite detention. That freedom is fragile rather than resilient, that it is so important to protect the Constitution that we should keep it under glass -- where we can see it, but safely out of reach.

I don't want to be that safe.

I want to take up my rights in one hand and my obligations in the other and I want to strive for the ideal that made this country free and brave.

I want to make something abundantly clear: I do not for a minute think that you or anyone in our current government means to misuse this law. I have no doubt in my mind that this is undertaken with the best of intentions.

But if the last eleven years has taught us anything, it's that you cannot predict, nor can I, what the world or the country will look like eleven years from now. Or twenty. Or thirty. And the laws that you sign today have force and effect beyond the limits of your term in office and any of our terms on this Earth. None of us can say for certain how future politicians will use this bill or whether and how this interminable "War Against Terror" might end.

The precedent being set here is chilling. If not for me, then for those who follow me. The implication that the unalienable rights endowed by our creator, supposedly enshrined in our constitution can be set aside in the passion of an historical moment us nothing short of a violation of your oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

I voted for you in hopes of better.

My forefathers risked everything for this country. Grandparents and great grandparents fought and died for the preservation of this country. They were challenged by their government to stand up and fight, to accept the risk inherent in their citizenship and the obligation to the world and to those who would come after them. This is not to say that our country has always done the right thing. Japanese internment and HUAC spring to mind. A law similar to this one was vetoed by Harry Truman in 1950 and then overridden by congress. But every time we have done the wrong thing, the thing that later generations regretted and had to apologize for, it was done out of fear.

The British humorist Douglas Adams once noted that human beings are unique in their ability to learn from their mistakes, as well as their apparent unwillingness to do so. But then, he also said that anyone capable of getting themselves elected president should on no account be allowed to do the job.

You have a chance to prove him wrong on both counts.

As a constitutional scholar, you know these things, and yet here we are anyway. You are faced with an historic chance to stand alongside the great leaders in history who brought their people a sense of shared sacrifice for a common ideal, or to become another also-ran. You are facing reelection soon, and what I am asking for is a definite risk to your quest for a second term, but you once said you would rather be a great one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. It's time to prove it to us.

I think that most Americans are waiting for the chance to step up and the vocal few who want to hide under their bed until someone from the defense department sounds the all clear... well, I'm not willing to live by their standard. This country may contain nuts; It's right there on the package.

I believe that America can be both free and brave at the same time. I believe that we must.

Just as I accept that I may be killed by a psycho who slips through the system because the rights of the accused are protected in this country, so too do I accept the idea that I might be killed by a terrorist because I refuse to shred the founding documents that made this country worth defending.

I once told the Bush administration that if torturing someone will save me, don't bother, I would rather die. So too do I tell you: if my absolute safety comes at the expense of our Bill of Rights, then don't bother to save me. Because whether or not I ever stood before a magistrate and took the oath required of naturalized citizens, I understand that it applies to me anyway. I know that I can, should, and must support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; bear true faith and allegiance to the same; bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; and perform other work of national importance.

And I take this obligation freely and without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

Veto the NDAA and any subsequent bill that comes to your desk stripping Americans of their right to due process. Because there really is such a thing as being too safe.

Yours sincerely,

Scott Walker Perkins

Kinetic Text: Ira Glass on the Creative Process

2011-12-15T23:28:00.000-08:00

I meant to post this video when I first found it and then I forgot about it a few times. This is excellent advice from Ira Glass of This American Life fame. It's aimed at the beginner, but just as important for the middler, or or even those of us who've made a living at this and are still assailed by the occasional (or more than occasional) doubt.

The Internet Is a Strange & Magical Place

2011-12-14T15:50:00.000-08:00

An amusing aspect of having a character in one of your novels named after an historical figure is the number of hits your blog receives from school kids looking for information for a school report.

<Waves hand> This is not the Howard Carter you are looking for. </waves hand>

At least I deal with the mummy thing in the first chapter or two. I'm still having fun imagining the kinds of reports that sort of 'research' might generate. "Howard Carter discovered King Tut's tomb and then went on to defend the earth from an alien invasion, using an army of robots and a recipe for instant pudding."

I'm not a history teacher, but for my money, that should be an A+ paper.

Yes, I've been looking at my blog stats again. Yes, I'm blogging about blogging again.

I apologize. I'll go back to other stuff in the next post, I promise.

I used to ignore blog stats that Google coughed up for me (mostly because they made me sad) but then Blogger incorporated them into the actual site and it became a one-click thing. Which means that I've been forced to acknowledge that I'm no longer talking to myself.

It also provides endless amusements and quite a bit of head-scratching because it lists the search terms that got some of you here. My favorite search terms of this week are: "eschew your words carefully". Now, that certainly sounds like me, though I don't recall saying it.

It almost lost out to "legal pen feathers law desk" which somehow got three people to my blog this week. How? I HAVE NO IDEA! But it's true. And I'm happy to see you! Please leave a comment. I'd love to write more about these legal feather desk pens.

The internet is a strange and magical place.

Well, however you got here, welcome and well-met!

Please be aware of the following:

Please comment and play along. At its best, a blog can be a conversation and create a sense of community. At its worst, a blog is someone shouting down a well.
The name of the blog is in reference to my chronic and apparently unsolvable insomnia. I keep meaning to go back and chart the time stamps of my blog posts sometime, but I'm afraid it might force my family to finally do something about it and I hate sleeping pills.
Some people have an inner child. Mine is afraid of the dark, so I like to let him out to run around in the light of day rather more often than most people. You should try it sometime, it's good for you.
I am a bit of a nerd. If you don't notice that right away, go back and re-read a bit; you probably missed a Star Wars reference somewhere.
If you don't find something funny, that's OK. Come back and re-read it at three am and you'll probably find it funnier. I certainly did.
Nothing found herein should be construed as the entire view of the author or anyone else living, dead or existing in an indeterminate state caused by fluctuations in space and time.
If you use anything I've written in a school paper, good luck to you. Don't blame me when your teacher docks you points for including that bit about Howard Carter inventing the Otter Pop Fusion Reactor.