Money and Writing: Can you make a living just writing books? INKBLOTS

Okay, Inkblots could not help talking about the debate. The what? Has it really come to this? These two individuals are our two options for president of this country? Finally liberals and conservatives can agree: If I were a liberal, I would be sick, disgusted, embarrassed; I am a conservative and I'm sick, disgusted, embarrassed. The debate showcased the violation of basic things about good communication, written or spoken; let's start with honesty, clarity, accuracy. Who won? Lester Holt, slam dunk. Who lost? America, slam dunk. M. W. Jacobs' perceptive observation seems apropos: "There are men (think man and woman) whose independence of principle consists in having no principle on which to depend, whose freethinking consists not in thinking freely but in being free from thinking, and whose common sense is nothing more than the sense that is most common."

Itchy face or was Hillary playing catcher-pitcher with Lester?

The Scriptorium is warm and cozy this mild autumn evening. Debate teeth-gnashing behind us, we launched in talking about writing, about monetary return therefrom, and related topics about marketing and actually selling books. No author makes a living writing books. Authors make money when books sell. Funny thing is, I just had to field this question on the phone today; a man inquiring about the Luther tour asked me about making a living writing books. I assured him no author has ever made a living writing them; it is in the selling of books that an author makes a living. Facts of writing and publishing life. We have a small group tonight, five of us, serious about writing, loving writing (okay, not always), wanting to write better (always). True for all of us.

John leads off with reading a rewrite of a chapter we critiqued last time. A good strategy. It is helpful to hear it rewritten. This was the chapter that needed more fight, emotion, passion. Grace is the daughter of a cop who tends toward being racist, and she is pregnant with the child of a football star, African American. It is a confrontation ready to explode. I think she would not be able to tell him it was the black football player. Have the dad figure it out, incrementally making the connections. The mom seems pretty acquiescent, maybe too much so. The reconciliation seems to come too early in the chapter. Dean, the dad, tells about the black cop partner who saved his life (his wife does; he could come back into the room and finish the story). The dad is having to confront his racism. But wouldn't the fact that he was saved by the sacrifice of his partner have begun the change? There's an opportunity for him to acknowledge that he had not fully dealt with his racism. The reader should not be preached to at this point, but should feel the sense of this being true for the reader too. It is the nature of sin, racism included. And racism is not just one color. It's human. Regardless of race. There is an important opportunity to peel back the dragon scales of this constant in human sin, and to make this book even more white-hot relevant to current events.

We talked about racism. Racism only matters if it comes from a vantage point of power, so says the popular narrative, hence, white people are prejudice (true, let's be honest here), and so are all the other races, on some level. Since the fall. White people (Inkblots is, sadly, mostly, more or less, white people; we eagerly welcome authors of other races, for the record) tend to feel off the hook on our own prejudice when we see the prejudice of other racial groups. The best fiction confronts this, exposes the far-reaching tentacles of racism. John brought up the reality of entitlement and how that mentality destroys segments of our society. "Write what you need" (Lewis). I think this is the key. We will write far more engaging fiction, fiction that matters, that changes hearts (starting with ours), when we are honest about what we need.

Suicide mission. Patrick reads his speculative fiction space station narrative. Space station, Hector One, the telescope through which he had seen the ... The protagonist suffers from claustrophobia. Not a good condition for someone confined in a space station, in a space suit, magnetic boots, mask over his face. Yuck, if you suffer from claustrophobia. Dogwood deactivates his magnetic boots. I wondered how Patrick created all the intricacies of the space station and space travel. Can you show mannerisms, emotions, as he communicates with his loved ones. There is emotion here but it feels flat. Does he have an emotional mannerism. Yes, his breathing and heart rate increase, but it is only from anticipation of meeting the Jade Zealot (comic book character who helps him deal with his claustrophobia), and the launch. John wants to see the protagonist have a more central problem. My thoughts? Good stories are good stories. Regardless of genre. What is his real problem? How does the story confront that problem? And change him, and bring about some degree of resolution? Put in other terms, how is the reader going to be confronted and forced to reevaluate and change? Patrick had good answers to these questions. One of the limitations of Inkblots is hearing only a snippet.

Bob's words of wisdom. His theory of fiction: plot, description, dialogue, character development. Patrick is going to post more of the story so we can see where it is going. This is a short story. I think that is a good idea, and I would like to see more of us in Inkblots do this.

Bob reminds us of his guru from Soap Lake Healing Water Spa in Eastern Washington. Bob is clearly having a fun time with this yarn. Good details about a spa for sale near Spokane. Needs some TLC which may mean he could get if for a steal. So his protagonist Bill negotiates. Good details, smell of a truckload of hay on the highway. Lava lamp, year around iconic image, mostly enjoy all that Soap Lake has to offer... We get the deadpan irony of this. What were they smoking when they wrote that. Most of the buildings dated from the McKinley administration. Town smelled of rotten eggs. Bob is writing humor (Dah), in the spirit of O'Henry, to my ear. Personifying the building that couldn't remember when it had been painted last. Rocking chairs personified, couldn't remember when they had been rocked by someone last. Bob does a great job of putting us there, and he does it with specific details, blue cabinets the color of.  Slam on sophisticated Seattle-lites. We get that. Could Bill run his hand across the surface of the counter top or the mantle, or something, to appeal and awaken the reader's sense of touch? "Well, you're looking at her." Bill did look at her. This was a good segue, glue that kept your narrative and dialogue flowing together. I love the bargaining between prospective buyer (operator) and the seller. We talked about smells, and touch (running his hand across a door frame and getting a sliver, rat droppings behind a chair. And sound as Patrick suggested could come from turning a radio dial and not getting any stations only static and fragments of game shows or the farm report. John thought the seller should interject more in the bargaining.

I read from LUTHER IN LOVE. Bob though maybe that wheezing would make the face red not pale. Using his pet name for Katie, my rib, for the first time is confusing when Luther is having a fit of coughing; Patrick thought it sounded like he was having pain in his rib. Bob comments about the variety of details brought into the story, the sense of urgency, the elements that will come together as the story unfolds. I will post a draft of the first chapter to forthcoming LUTHER IN LOVE in another blog post shortly.  



We meet again Tuesday October 11. 

Self-Forgetfulness and Delight--Keys to Writing Well (and most everything else in life)

INKBLOTS, resuming our men's writing group, four of we old-dog regulars and joined by David one of my former students. I led off with a brief thought from Alan Jacobs, author of The Narnian, who said this: “Lewis's mind was above all characterized by a willingness to be enchanted, and it was this openness to enchantment that held together the various strands of his life, his delight in laughter, his willingness to accept a world made by a good and loving God, and (in some ways above all) his willingness to submit to the charms of a wonderful story.” Jacobs in his biography of C. S. Lewis reflected that "those who will never be fooled can never be delighted, because without self-forgetfulness there can be no delight." Which makes me recall Jesus' words about how essential it is that we be child-like to enter the Kingdom of heaven.

We talked about typesetting using Word rather than InDesign, the later requiring us to learn a new program... us old dogs. Not going to happen. David, author of Beyond Tweeting (read my interview with David) led off with reading an excerpt from the forward, and then chapter

one. I like how David makes this for the reader not the author. John asked David to explain what tweeting actual is, and things like hashtags. Track a topic or theme. Though you cannot own the hashtag so you could end up with your tag meaning something and connecting with some big distortion of your collection point. Bob brought up the question of whether Twitter monitors and censors tags or tweets. "How can we use twitter to sell books?" asked John. David pointed out how important it is to provide value for those following on twitter, not just about blasting the cyber world with your promotional plans. Use saferwhois.com to search for domain names so your searching doesn't get picked up by those who buy up domain names then sell them. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the way to maximize your position on the searches. David is helping us big time here. 

This morphed into a discussion of old dogs and new tricks. This has been fun. David, thank you for all your helpful insights into marketing and social media. I thought it would be good to segue to our usual creative writing readings. Dougie Mac leading off with an episode from his Monte Casino yarn set in WW II. As he summarized the historical context of this conflict, I can see it in my mind's eye, having been there with my family just a few weeks ago. Modern technology fails us. His computer just died. 

Bob took up the baton with one of his Bible study guides, this one on the Psalms. Bob read his rough draft introduction, a sweeping summary of David and his writing of various Psalms, and how they are relevant to the reader today and in every generation. That led to a discussion of greed, how exactly, I am not sure. Which led me to recalling Tolstoy's short story, How Much Land Does a Man Need, a well-crafted yarn that shows the destructive nature of greed, show casing a protagonist who is killed by his own avarice. 

John reads from his Russian yarn, after working on his protagonist's character who needed to be a bit more realistically flawed at the beginning so she has somewhere to go from there. Dougie Mac didn't feel like she was significantly flawed. Don't overuse 'beautiful' or 'exciting.' Have her catch herself for making the simile about heaven. You told instead of showing us her reaction to her own reference to heaven. There is a good deal of description of elegant clothing, but I didn't feel like I could actually see it. How about using more comparative image, figurative language, imaginative comparisons? You used beautiful a dozen times or more. Mouth watering is too cliche and needs another image. Could you give us more metaphor of what the dancers and their fine clothes looked and felt like to her? I like how she flashes back to dancing with her father; give us more of this kind of imagining on your protagonist's perspective. You drew me in with the shooting that she does not understand. The rag doll image is probably overused. I think you could play up her thinking it was all a play, just an act, when it was murder. As she thinks back on pricking her finger on the thorn of a rose, have her begin to acknowledge that it was real and her recollection was a desperate effort at escaping it all. This is getting better and better. 

Which made me recall a Lewis-ism. "Don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was

'terrible,' describe it so that we'll be terrified. Don't say it was 'delightful'; make us say 'delightful' when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers 'Please will you do my job for me.'"

David recalled a short story he wrote for a British Lit class in college, from the point of view of Helen, clever, imaginative perspective, employing a modern-world slangy syntax. Melodrama, which actually works pretty well with Greek tragedy, which has probably inspired more soap operas and country western songs than most classics professors want to admit. Having written this fiction piece for a class a couple of years ago, David cringed at some of his own writing in it, though it clearly shows the promise that is beginning to be fulfilled with his writing and his teaching/consulting for Microsoft.

Though I haven't worked on it for over a month (what a month it's been), I read from a chapter in War in the Wasteland. Once I can see my way more clearly and get some logistics planned out for future history tours and for the Oxford Creative Writing Master Class I'm planning out right now, then I can get back to writing. There are jolts that enervate creative writing, and ones that stimulate it. Still trying to figure out which kind this one is. A fine evening with 'Blots. Thank you gentlemen for your friendship, support, encouragement, and for just being a big 'Blot in my life.