>Dustin wrote:

> Subject: what do you think?
> Content: http://www.oklahoma.net/~silvrdal/tothop.html

Douglas replied:
Alex Toth died the other day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Toth

Or maybe you knew that.

At this time, I don’t find anything personally compelling about stories of innocent-minded wonder that would pull me away from a more gritty storyline. I was a fan of Super Friends, Johnny Quest, and even Space Ghost for a time–I was much younger (heart, mind, and body) then than I am today.

I think a person’s tastes and sensibilities evolve and/or cycle with their own lives. It’s not fair to suggest that just because I have developed preferences for a bit of grim prose and dramatic black-inked artwork that I am a bad person or encouraging others to be bad people. I was full of wonder when I needed to be–now I am not.

My guess is that with my children getting interested in books and movies that I will return to a renaissance of wonderment and be able to enjoy it through their eyes in a fresh new way.

What do I think?
Not worried.

Is that what you mean?

But now, in the middle of what’s clearly been a great relationship, he drops this turd in my lap.

I was once a teenage writer like you (see goofy picture to the right), although that was so long ago that between now and then, I could have been a teenager all over again.

I am no longer a teen. No longer in college. I am not even still in my first or even second career. And, near as I can tell from anecdotal evidence and my weakening memory I am several month’s John’s senior. Would that we were six and half and seven and I could lord the extra half year over him like it was a full year and I’d be back to being even after this helpful advice of his. He’s not talking to you kids, he’s talking to me. I am certain that the use of the word teen throughout the post is subtext for wannabe’s like me.

In the beginning, I didn’t realize how many writers there were out there. I was happy to dream about becoming a novelist–tomorrow. I had a dozen or so good ideas for stories that would eventually flower in the right soil–tomorrow. Then I had a bit of time and found myself actually getting busy becoming a writer: making maps, going to critique groups, reading about it online, buying a domain, and starting a blog and wiki. I had everything I needed to stop being a writer and becoming an author.

Then in the midst of all the reading about writing and the mapmaking and semi-related surfing, I started really getting what the net was telling me, "You need to write."

What the hell?

Writing?

What about the maps?

First it was Holly, then ironically John, and most recently Miss Snark. They all agree, writing and writing well is the key. Here ya go: shit on a stick.

Now, in the middle of trying to choke down that bitter pill for the last several months, John tells me not only is it hard to do in the first place, not terribly lucrative in the second, but that it’s also gonna take me ten years!

Fucker.

While I am not working with a fully flaccid motivation here, it’s admittedly barely half-staff…I don’t seeing it successfully hardening in that kind of time.

What can I do?

I regroup, take a few deep breaths, put the map away for a moment, and do a little math. I figure based on his discussion that I might be allowed to shave a few years off for no longer being a teen and for having had life experiences–one for each decade and two for the wife and kids seems fair. And, I am sure as shit gonna take the six months I have on him. Maybe another blog would help. Three plus two plus half earns me back five and a half years.

Maybe I could even find an online word processor so I could write on the road or a task management tool to help me organize, speed things up.

Hmm.

That leaves me four and a half years to even be good at all once I start writing–tomorrow.

Third, and most interesting to me is there isn’t a single NAME of a staff person, or company officer anywhere on the website.

While the entreprenurial side of me is a little less alarmed by POD and that ilk than most well educated authors are about self-publishing, I like her assessment for both what is says about PA and her relationship with authors.

I don’t question that it’s all a business.  I think that I embrace that more than many of my aspiring cohorts.  What the lady of sarcaustic advice is saying is that the real publishing business has people in it.  People that care both about your work and payoff, not just the payoff.  Or at least she is saying that once you crack through her crusty snarky exterior you’ll find a delicious chewy center.

But I remember Dad saying, how come you never see anybody like that in the stories you like? And I remember answering, maybe they didn’t have black people back then. He said there’s always been black people. I said but black people can’t be wizards and space people and they can’t fight evil, so they can’t be in the story. When he didn’t say anything back I turned around. He was in full recline mode in his chair and he was very still, looking at me. He didn’t say anything else.

…and then me (not that anyone will find this):

So I nearly nothing in the way of a frame of reference for my thoughts of opinions on this.  I have grown up nearly as middle-class white American as anybody that’s white and American could–as far as I know.  My three basic exposures to actual (not TV or music) African-Americans are thus:

1. My mother describes an incident from my unrecallable childhood in which I saw my first black person: “What’s wrong with him?” I ask. “Nothing, he’s just a different color than you,” Mom says. “OK”.

   Later, Mom finds me running around with a friend in the trees behind their house. I guess it looked somewhat oragized into a predator-prey type activity so she asks, “What are you doing?”, “Oh, we’re playing ‘nigger’.” I don’t know if she had a reply at this point or if she was just incredulous and decided to let it slide and not take the time to have a teachable moment of some sort.

   Finally, a few days later I run up to my mother as ask, “Where can I get a ‘nigger’ friend?” When she tells the story this is basically the crux and she stops there. Implicit in my mind and hers is the innocent lack of concern for color but the ignorance of language.

2. For a brief time in the third grade of the Catholic school I went to in Kansas (from what I hear not the same as Catholic school back east) there was a girl named Rochelle Ramsey that I was good friends with the left as mysteriously as she arrived. Maybe her family couldn’t afford the tuition–mine couldn’t 3 years later–maybe ‘the powers that be’ encourage the only family of color that school had ever seen to find a better place to integrate. All I knew was that my friend was gone.
3. Then a gap of decades until you find this author riding around in a low slung small-sized pickup with hip-hop playing so loud that the speakers in the bed are making the side mirror shiver–objects in mirror may be less blurry than they appear. Dan was from San Antonio, a former defensive lineman for a university around here. I think he took it on himself to reaquaint this white-boy with as much reality mixed with stereotype as possble. Other than a lost friend who’s humour was the only thing bigger than his waist that I have from that was that “niggas love orange soda”–I just don’t recall which brand.

So one thing come out of all that: where in all my experience am I supposed to reliably concoct a speculative fiction story that involves people of other (real) races?

Oh sure, you hear folks bather about doing research for a book, but I seriously doubt that they intend for one to ‘go live among the black people and learn their ways’. If I chose to write a story containing a more multicultural cast I would be at best able to call someone black at the onset, maybe a remark about brown eyes or crinkly hair and then I would be done. Every word out of his (sexist post later) mouth would be either as white as I don’t know how not to be or ridiculously contrived. I don’t (can’t) do this for the same reason I don’t write legal thrillers or romance or business books: I know nothing about the true subject.

I submit this is one of the underlying motives of authors for creating new races. We can invent elves and dwarves and the like and say they like fried chicken and watermelon without coming off as totally inept asses.

Though none of this matters a whit to me when I am writing or more likely when I am reading. I read the first Earthsea book for the first time about a year ago. It was nice and short, but other than a guy on a boat and some fog it didn’t really stand out as earthshatteringly evocative–not something I would read again. Also, I didn’t really notice he was not white. I suppose it’s mentioned in the first chapter or so, but that means nothing to me. I don’t recall his eye color, height, or sexual preference either.

When I read a book, nearly all that matters is the dialogue and action.  What one character says to another; what one character does with another. You know why? Because after all the description of a character is laid down at the first meeting all that the author gives me is what he says and what he does. Now I will grant that culture and language are indelible, but once I have read (or heard) the line “I ain’t saying she’s no goldigger, but she ain’t messin’ with no broke nigger” it gets put in my brain as meaning not color.

I searched for the right way to say what I felt, to arrive at a perfect aggregation of Ms Harris’ work–the blurby-kind that end up on the back of the book if you are a bit more noteworthy than me. Thankfully I have finally got it and in the interest of sharing you can take this next bit under a creative commons license so that if you are reading blog and you are more likely to end up on the back of this new author’s book with a blurb than I am, you can save yourself the rumination:

Kathy Lynn Harris’ writing is as warm as a table-top beer and as refreshing as that beer poured over ice with a wedge of lemon…and as funny.

There you go.

Free for the taking.

And spot on. There are other juicy bits I’d like to squeeze in but can’t since it would over burden the metaphor–just assume that’s all in the lemon wedge part.

I would love to tell you what the title might be, but I am not even sure she’ll know until that’s all worked out with her agent [place agent name here to look like I bothered to research]. I read it under at least two working titles. Hopefully I can come back an update this entry when the time comes.

Her main character, a young Texas woman named Bailey, is on a journey of the soul that she projects onto a physical journey to Colorado. Several friends, old and new, and as round as the writing books tell you to make characters (a little bumpy too) help and hinder her in various ways: inspire her to leave, beg her to stay, or turn her away.

At times you feel Bailey will discover what she seeks and at others that she will realize she has always had it. Or maybe that she never needed it in the first place. Whichever it turns out to be you will enjoy the real–no, robust…rowdy…rambunctious…risible…definitely something with an ‘r’–people inhabiting Ms Harris’ dusty Texas roads and clear Colorado skies.

To say that I have been influenced by my time in Scouting would be like saying a pizza is influenced by its time in an oven.

For 17 years I was either in a troop or employed by Philmont Scout Ranch. My first troop taught me all the basics: camping, hiking, and being a good follower. My next troop taught me how to have fun. And my final troop, Troop 21, taught me not only how to lead, but then expected me to actually do it.

I doubt I was the best Senior Patrol Leader 21 ever had, but I was the first. For me that stands as an important honor and I like to think that my involvement with Scouts since then has been colored by that honor. In the final month of my time as SPL, I became an Eagle, graduated from Edmond Memorial High School, and then went off to work for the summer at Philmont Scout Ranch encouraged to go by events and people I met here in 21.

Blessed with ten summers and a single autumn at the Ranch, I worked in food service, tent cities, and the backcountry. During those years, I made and lost friends and then made more. Not a day goes by that I don’t speak to a friend, several friends, I made because of Scouting. My wife and I met at Philmont, I proposed to her in the Villa’s gazebo, and our daughter’s name bears small homage to that Scouting place.

The strength of Scouting in my life has never been more evident than it was this past February when I joined with friends, many I hadn’t seen in 12 years, to bury a great Scout that was taken far too early. At that gathering was my wife, my business partner, a groomsman from my wedding, and my first tent-mate.

Most definitely Scouting has left me well done.

Tobias S. Buckell blogged a great follow-up to his request for advance amounts.

In lieu of actual writing, I like to distract myself with investigation into the business of writing. The above is the closest I think I am going to get to seeing an advance for fantasy in a few years.

To characterize the poor pay one makes as a writer as the reason I keep my day job is a little over the top, but the disproportionate ratio of pay to effort increases my respect for those that choose to make a living this way.

I think that most of us unpublished authors still nurse the idea that we are birthing a work of art and that our child will soon be discovered as the next big thing. The reality appears to be that it is hard to become an author, harder to make a living that way, and barely affordable once one gets there.

Those that make a living this way have clearly been able to pass over a threshold and are able to both create and produce.

We spend alot of time discussing the fact that posting our manuscripts in whole or part will nullify our first publication rights. To that end most crit sites, this included, make sure to make crit areas protected. Here, we now have two levels of safety to protect us.

I have seen a handfull of authors that posted their currently published in hardback books on the web first. Two even continue to offer their books online.

What are we protecting?

I am not talking about the name of what we are protecting, but the value. What asset, what freedom, what monetary amount is lost by posting on the unfettered web.

Just curious.

The replies were semi-on target. While I got a little more than I was expecting in terms of describing to me how the internet works and how that relates to traditional publication, I did end up with a few anecdotal aggregates which, after sluicing, produced these nuggets:
-some unknown percentage loss
-0 dollars (recieved twice)

But I remain skeptical–at least on the 0 dollars front.

Elsewhere I read a great description of the distinction between a vanity press and true publishing. Vanity presses are purely service providers, but true publishers are business partners. That said, I think it would be foolish to assume that it is a 50:50 partnership.

I also suggest that the lame assertion that published on the web is no different than published with some other publisher and now you are hoping for re-prints is one of the tools that the publisher–read: guy with more money–uses to get the bigger half of the pie from this partnership.

We all know, author and publisher alike, that websites featuring non-hardcopy novels on the web form a spectrum of publicity not a finite definition. Some analogies may be: ‘sitting on the couch in my home’, ‘garage sale’, or ‘abandoned on a park bench’. Very few, I would guess, can equate with: ‘placed prominently in every B&N in the country’.

So, if this IS a business partnership and WE are the inventors, the builders, the makers, why do we insist on being so weak? Why do we allow our partners to walk all over us?

If our novel is interesting and it’s made it to the point where at least one other person in the world agrees, then it’s still a viable product regardless of web exposure and should be treated as such from both sides.

I rephrased the question:

What SHOULD the percentage reduction for a novel previously ‘published’ on the web be?

For the purpose of this discussion I am not talking about the ability for any third grader with a ceramic ashtray to put that quality of work up on a site. Let’s assume that we are talking about work that a publisher has expressed interest in.

Note: I am not suggesting that anyone actually put their work out on the web in an uncontrolled manner without first understanding the risks or rewards. I don’t now, but I might someday.

I am just curious about how/why this got to be such a big deal.

They’ll start with something they figure we can all relate to: sunsets. Then they’ll throw in something about being closer to nature. At this point they feel they have you safely warmed up to discuss contrasts: the earth and sky, the historical and contemporary, and maybe even the spiritual and concrete. If none of those sway, they’ll roll out a mysterious conclusion about the light. “The light is palpable, even flavorful. Like the wind or the rain.”

All these things are true but not for either of these places. Santa Fe is a full blown city and nothing kills a gaian shakra like a few thousand gas stations. Taos, well you’ve been there, Taos is just too touristy.

I am no eastern philosopher, but I have to think that if a place is going to be a “The Place” it has to be able to remove you and replace the you shaped void with It. Not sure you even get the curteousy of being a vessel in this case. If that were the case then you could somehow carry a bit of It away; I seriously doubt The Place is going to stand for spritual evaporation of that magnitude.

I have been to The Place. Spent months and years in The Place. I have even spent some time in the The Place Within The Place.

There are a couple of cane chairs there. When I had first been there I might have told you they weren’t that old, but since those chairs are still there 15 years later maybe they are older than I would imagine. Maybe they came with TPWTP. The tile is not spectacular. But the wrought iron grills in the adobe archways are oddly turqoise–edging more toward the aged copper found in the nearby mines than the centerpiece of an awful squash blossom pawn necklace. “God, woman! Get a bra.”

Seems like things would grow better in The Place and maybe they do, but they seem to fail in TPWTP. I can only imagine that the roses suffer from the the same inexplicable malady I do. Sure they twine with the ironwork but only with the help of a few industrial twist-ties. Ultimately, they just aren’t really there as much as you might expect.

I have brought books here. I have brought pen and paper here. Even once, foolishly early on, I brought water-colors. But there was no point.

The book closed before I could call him anything, let alone Ishmael.

The pen was recapped before the night was dark or stormy.

The brush was a lost cause before I was stupid enough to show up Here with it.

I am gone Here. I am as important and as useful as the paint on the wall. Here I am an inanimate object. All my thoughts borrowed for a time while I am here, but returned without purchase in my mind. Don’t ask, I can’t tell.

Here, God huffs on the window of my soul and it does not fog up.

I just don’t understand why the mosquitoes can’t stay away.

Got drunk Friday and Saturday night. Wasn’t so hard a hangover on the first day – mostly liquor. But waking up Sunday was a bit tougher since we had wine, sake, scotch, beer, and food. Getting old.

Sunday was taken up with a long Mass and a trip to the cathedral. I had never been there and it was quite an experience. Need to get down there and take a few more pictures during the morning hours. Good lighting.

This week I start my novel writing class on Tuesday. This should be interesting. Though no one has said otherwise, I am pre-suspicious that a fantasy novel isn’t the kind of thing they are looking for, so I will have to come up with something more mainstream. I have already started down that path so it shouldn’t be too hard. Just need to remember to get those hours in.