No Blank Pages

Forget the Blank Pages...what about a blank mind

2010-03-06T06:21:03-05:00

I always found it strange when people would complain about how much they hated writing. As a writing slut, I loved it all--dumb news releases, announcements, corporate white papers, speeches, strategic plans, and even some fiction that was somewhat better than dreadful. What I used to call my rhetoric machine was nothing more than an over-active unconscious from which words would spew uncontrollably, often with me being just as surprised as anyone else as to the outcome.

Alas, it seems the rhetoric machine is on the blink. It's not writer's block. There's no dearth of ideas, simply some age-related neurological condition. Instead of words flying as fast as my fingers can type, now every word has to be dragged kicking and screaming from my conscious mind. And my conscious mind is nowhere near as interesting--or erudite as my unconscious. For the first time since I knew I could put words on paper, I no longer think of myself as a writer.

But...don't cry for me Argentina. I had a great run and had more fun than anyone has the right to expect. You gotta play the cards you've been dealt, not the cards you wish you'd been dealt.

But rather than let these blogs languish or even kill them off, I've decided to use them for short rants & links to interesting articles & books & ideas.

What I probably won't do is promote them as much--but who cares?

And remember,

In Jameson Veritas

No Blank Pages? Try No Pages At All.

2009-03-24T19:03:31-04:00

Yesterday & today, the Washington Post announced how it's shrinking--both the comics & games section and the business section. It already killed the separate book review section on Sunday. In the last few weeks, three or four other major urban newspapers have either gone under or gone on-line.

In the publishing world, which I confess I don't follow as closely as I should, it seems that consolidations & shrinkage dominate the news.

Independent book stores continue to shutter their doors & windows. Libraries are now being used to store town lawn mowers in winter & snow blowers in summer.

Am I an old fogie who wants to read paper, a dying breed laughed at by the new generation that can actually read newspapers, long articles, and books on line & enjoy them?

I look through my bookcases. Every book I own tells a story, has a bit of history connected to it, is part of my, pardon the expression, soul. It's looking at them and touching them that reveals that story, that history. If I buy a Kindle2 and store a couple of thousand books, how will I be able to even find them, since the wandering through book shelves is a random experience? If I stumble upon a book with story and history on line or on Kindle, will I be able to relive that experience simply by seeing the title on a screen?

FULL DISCLOSURE: If you check out my other blog, you'll see that I'm on a campaign to get Amazon to send me a free Kindle2. It's not as crazy as it sounds. I got the good folks at Jameson Irish whiskey to send me free samples of some of their best stuff. But that's because I'm a tech junkie.

There is a solution. All of us, even you internet-raised types, must subscribe to more newspapers and magazines. We all must buy more books--from independent books stores if possible, but buy them. Yeah, I know times are tough, but I have a horrible feeling they'll be a lot tougher when print goes the way of 8-track tapes.

In Jameson Veritas

Say No To Agents?

2008-12-24T11:51:09-05:00

Firstwriter.com is another useful website you should have in your arsenal, and, in my inbox this morning came these two articles from authors who ignored the agent route and went directly to publishers.

Hmmm. Avoid the agent route? Leave yourself alone and naked at the mercy of the publishing world? Not an unheard of concept, but one that is generally not recommended...particularly by agents, LOL.

Worth considering, anyway. And keep on truckin'.

In Jameson Veritas*

I suppose now I have to call this a paid advertisement--at least until my free stash runs out.

Once Again Into the Fray, Dear Agents: Queries, Alas

2008-12-08T14:04:02-05:00

I recently read an agent's blog where he had the audacity to say that writing a query was easy, may he emerge in his next life as an unpublished writer in search of an agent.

To be fair, he went on to explain all the things one has to do to accomplish this easy task, but he's dead wrong. You spend months, years, decades creating, nurturing, and editing your baby, and then you're told to cram the essence of it into a paragraph or two. Pshaw.

But I come not to rant, but to encourage the query-crazed to visit two sites. The first is already on the Writers Resources list to the left, Backspace, which I'm reengaging in. There's tons of good advice and people who'll critique your query, although note that many, like me, are unagented...so what do we know. (For the record and my ego, I once had an agent, but he became ill & had to give up my beloved child for adoption...or something like that.)

The second, which I've only spent a little time on (and will be added to the list) is Query Shark, an agent at fineprintlit.com. You can submit queries for on line humiliation, although it looks as if the chances of getting picked are slim.

So stumble on bravely, fellow unagented people. And keep your ego hid away--this ain't a process for the proud.

Great Excuse for Writer's Block

2007-07-02T14:14:02-04:00

I haven't been posting much to this blog...or anywhere...for quite a few months. I've been sleeping. Turns out, I've got chronic Epstein-Barr disease--a virus with no cure. You just have to wait it out and keep pushing.

But it wreaks hell on writing. I've gone back to the first novel I was trying to peddle after my agent got ill and left me alone again in the wilderness. After managing to do a pretty aggressive edit in moments of clarity, I've been sending out queries, but now I'm happy with one or two every few days rather than two or three a day.

As for writing, there's really little I can do, alas. The last week or so has been pretty good, and late last night I started fooling around with a straight noir crime novel/story. I came up with the opening line, "The glass was half empty," and went from there. I do envy writers who can outline books and then write them. Once I outline something, whether it's fiction or a business article, I completely lose interest in it.

Anyway, I'm going to try to resurrect this blog and find interesting articles and links...as long as I'm not asleep. Right now, I need a nap, LOL.

Still Trapped by Brain Fog

2007-03-29T00:35:37-04:00

O.k., this has been going on long enough. I've got two novels that need edits, both of which have received rave reviews from my mother...but my brain is still fried by this sleep problem.

This isn't writer's block. This is not being able to access that part of my brain where the rhetoric machine lives--or the creative part--and the strategic part. It's getting scary. It's also why I'm not blogging much these days. I can't. Hell, I'm not even going to send this around. Anyone still interested can read it & wish me well.

It's been 6 months now. Docs are befuddled and unconcerned--hell, it's not their brain. Called a friend at Baylor College of Medicine & sent him all my reports. They've got a sleep clinic there...so maybe I get to spend a few nice days in Houston. Hell, I'd take anywhere at this point.

But...as a wannabe...no, goddamnit, I'm a helluva business/non-fiction writer, but as a wannabe fiction writer, this has been wondering--whatever this is, is it permanent. Is this what my life's going to be like...and what do I do without writing. Blogging is different. That's stream of consciousness. I'm talking about real writing.

Oh well...at least there are words on this page now.

In Jameson Veritas

Humor Vs. Serious: That is the question

2007-02-06T04:17:50-05:00

For more months than I'd like to think, I've had this sleep impairment that not only leaves me sleeping 12-16 hours a day, but has left me with very few words in the rhetoric machine...which leaves me way too much time to think about my writing.

All my life I've wanted to write serious fiction -- Gabriel Marquez, Steinbeck, Robertson Davies, and many others, but, let's face it boys & girls, I can't do it. I've got two finished novels that've been read by two relatively neutral parties & they agree that the more serious one has no focus--as if it doesn't know what it wants to be, and the absurd one is wonderful but hampered by a couple of over-serious passages where the main character reveals his flaws and is...well, not reborn, but at least put back on the path of righteousness.

What's weird is that when I write something serious in essay form, such as 3 Steps from the Cave, people seem to be very attracted to the serious side of my writing.

What to do? I always hated it when Woody Allen decided to become Igmar Bergman. Anyway, ol' Woody didn't appreciate the value of humor in the human equation. Worse, he didn't see that serious stuff lived in a castle for which he had neither the key nor the invitation.

Two men die at the same time and appear at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter's sitting there, gnawing on his pencil, and the first man says, "St. Peter, all my life I helped others. I was a priest, a rabbi, a minister, a (oh fill in the fucking blanks so I'm not not PC). I hope I merit a welcome into heaven."

St. Peter looks at him and says, "Dime a dozen. Yeah, go find a flock of sheep to tend."

The second guy figures he's toast. He hems and haws, and finally St. Peter gets pissed and says, "Buddy, out with or you're going to be lighting your butts with your butt."

"Sir, I was just a comedian."

"Harumph. Did you make people laugh?"

"Yes sir.

"When they left where you were playing, were they happy?"

"I believe so, sir."

St. Peter shakes his head back and forth.

"Man, have we been waiting for you. Go see the guy all in white up there; you play the Palace in 20 minutes."

---------------------

I just made that up -- in case you were asleep. If I can't be Buddha -- and believe me, I can't -- at least give me the tools to make people smile, to make them laugh.

So,why is that important? Because I rank comedian right under St. Teresa? Yup. Why? (Imagine echo chamber on the why.)

Every philosophy, every religion I've ever studied (with a few bizarre, drug-infested exceptions) had us focusing on the bad, the corrupt, the evil, the sins that human beings bring upon the world with the best of intentions. Gimme a break. I'm sorry but those religions are just wrong. It's stupid.

If you think about it rather than get all spiritual, why in the hell would God create a world where a good life was equivalent to a life of pain, sorrrow, self-denial, blah blah blah. If I were God, I wouldn't do that? Would you? I mean, isn't that a stupid thing for a God to do?

But, like most writers, I don't have a choice, I have to write. I think I'm discovered that I'm very lucky--no thanks to You Know Who. I can write fiction that's funny and absurd and write non-fiction that people don't throw up all over.

It doesn't make up for all the junk God dumped on us, but, for one miserable little creature, I gotta say thanks.

...but I'm not ready to give up...someday I'm going to write a serious novel...right after I grow hair on my bald head.

And remember,

In Jameson Veritas

And Yet More Advice on Queries

2006-08-15T12:39:44-04:00

I have been fiddling with my query, with great help from the folks at Backspace just after Noah landed on Mount Ararat and I could power up my notebook. I've written about it before, linking to articles that I thought were useful, but after searching for new agents to harass yesterday, I came upon the blog for Wylie Merrick which also has some very useful information.

The problem, of course, is that getting agents to agree on the proper form of a query--or a bio or a synopsis--is harder than getting economists to agree on which direction the economy's going. This is a bad thing for writers.

It is not a bad thing for agents, and the fact that so many have gone to so much trouble to help us suggests that they really do care. It's just that they don't agree. I mean, It's not like building an airplane. Put the wing on upside down, you've got only a slim chance of getting off the ground. Queries are as much an art form as body piercing. Chaque a son gout, as the French would say (which means "Check your goat." I don't understand the relevance, but, hey, the French have a way with words.)

Is there a point here? Well, of couse. Research, resesarch, research. One size does not fit all. That's why if you can get two or three queries out a day, you're doing well.

Here's what the good folks at Wylie say about queries on their blog:

"Maybe we are fuddy-duddies, but we like our query letters patterned after the business letter—no hype, no gimmicks, just plain facts. We like the important information (at least what we consider important) right up front. Things like the title of the work, its category (fiction or nonfiction, literary fiction, if literary, genre type, if genre, mainstream, if mainstream), word count, etc.

"The vital information we need can be placed in that first paragraph and your hook can begin with a new paragraph that is still at the top of the letter. In other words, don’t mess around and stick the vitals stats of your novel somewhere in the depths of your query where we have to search for it.

"The general theory being put forth by board gurus is that if you begin with a hook, the agent or editor is forced to read about your work to find the information they need. This might work, but I think those who assume this are taking a great risk. Faced with hundreds of queries in her inbox (if she even takes queries via email), many agents will only read a sentence or two before hitting the delete key or giving a standard or form rejection in frustration."

Great, except that I can find other articles that say, "start with your hook." And how about writing credits for unpublished novelists?

"Just on a personal note, I have never really understood the idea that if a writer has been paid to write something, an article in this case, that his skills would command monetary compensation in another area of writing. Let's look at it this way: If you were a novelist, would that count if you were going to apply to write articles for Newsweek?"

If you're going to query these guys, kill the credits.

Again, I'm grateful that they've taken the time to tell me what they want so I can design my query to their needs. It's just such a royal pain to have to do this much research for something that gets maybe 5 or 10 seconds of an agent's time.

There's got to be a better way.

(By the way, read the rest of the stuff on their blog if you're interested in querying them.)

Good luck & never give up!

It's Time To Kill The Myth of the Muse

2006-08-08T23:22:00-04:00

Vikk Simmon's, on his excellent site, Down The Writer's Path, recently wrote an article, "What is Your Relationship With You Muse?"

Far too many writers are content to play the romantic courtier languishing on the sidelines while waiting for even the briefest glimpse of their Muse, the supposed supplier of their creativity. They love being caught up in the moment, dancing among the glorious stream of words only to fall exhausted at their Muse's feet. When they wake, their Muse has vanished. Distraught, they sit and pine.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy defines "muse" as, "Nine goddesses of classical mythology who presided over learning and the arts. They were especially associated with poetry. Ancient Greek or Roman writers would often begin their poems by asking for the aid of the Muses in their composition. Writers and artists to this day speak of their “muse,” meaning their source of inspiration."

It's time to kill the muse, an over-used, rhetorical device that gives writers an excuse to avoid doing what we should be doing--writing. There are no goddesses who bestow some magical power that allows words to flow from our fingers. We know that, yet we continue to use the word, and words have power--in this case, I would argue negative power.

I responded to his post by suggesting a third path I laughingly call it my rhetoric machine...others would call it the unconscious. Scientists have determined that over 90% of our mental processes occur at the unconscious level--and these are sophisticated machinations. The unconscious is where we form judgments, values, opinions, evaluate our world, decide what is dangerous or safe, and even form behaviors. The bizarre thing is that we rarely have awareness of what's going on there.

All of us have had the experience of watching words appear on the page as if by magic having no idea where they came from. Well, they come from the unconscious lying outside our awareness.

Whether I'm writing fiction or non-fiction, I've developed a deep trust in my unconscious to lead me into surprising and wondrous realms that are as much as surprise to me as the reader. I may have a conscious idea about the theme of a book, characters, and plot lines, but almost never does it work out the way I intended. New themes and characters emerge unbidden, plot lines get twisted and sent along mazes I only can hope my unconscious is smart enough to get through.

(O.k., this is arrogant stuff for an unpublished novelist, but the same holds for my business writing, and I've been very successful in that field using the same techniques. For example, I cannot write from an outline. A VP used to demand outlines of speeches I wrote for the CEO. I'd write and edit the speech until it was ready, then do an outline and give it to her. She finally caught on and gave up.)

The verbalized theme of the current novel I'm trying to pitch to agents didn't really emerge until 3/4 of the way through the book. It's Thoreau's quote, "Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." When I found that as I was doing research for a scene, I thought it the saddest statement I'd ever heard. Most of us have heard the first line, but I'd never heard the second. But I also realized that that quote had been driving the entire novel, even though I'd never heard of it.

My conscious mind has an important role to play--just making sure that, in the end, everything comes together, that the paths taken by my unconscious aren't self-indulgent but actually drive the work (again fiction or non-fiction.) Particularly in the editing process, my conscious mind demands consistency and clarity, it rejects tired cliches and trite situations. But then my unconscious most often has to find a way to rectify those problems.

If you're not writing, it's not because your muse has abandoned you. More likely, you've let the outside world distract you to the point where you don't write, where your unconscious is so wrapped up in garbage that the rhetoric machine is unheard.

There are no muses. I would suggest that that's a dangerous concept for a writer, as if the inspiration came from somewhere else. There are only the wild and mysterious ways of the unconscious just waiting for permission to be released.

New Writers Don't Despair

2006-08-08T23:00:00-04:00

So you finished your manuscript. It's edited, error free (LOL), and ready to greet the world and be received with open arms.

Now what do you do? There are so many places on the web to get information and help. I've listed some articles and sites here, but I want to highlight one today that helped me finally get a query that doesn't cause my stomach to churn: Backspace. It's listed over on the left under writer's resources.

I'd used Backspace regularly to search for agents, but recently decided to drop the $30 and join their forums. Many of the members are published authors, and they are incredible helpful. I submitted the two versions of my query, and within a day got great help. In fact, one person went so far as to edit the "good" one to make it better. I also discovered that sending out 20 or 30 queries is kid-stuff. Be ready to sent out 70, 80 or more. While that's a little overwhelming, it's also reassuring. Great site.

Highlighting Backspace in no way is a move to diminish the other great resources--but it sure was worth the investment for me.

(Although we'll see when I post my synopsis...the most evil invention the publishing world ever imposed on writers, LOL.)