Author: terribleminds (page 388 of 464)

WORDMONKEY

July 10, 2012 / 132 Comments

25 Bad Writer Behaviors

Lately, I’ve seen some writers acting like no writer should. And it occurs to me that there’s an unholy host of behaviors that writers sometimes manifest — myself included! — that we need to watch. So, here’s a whole list of said “bad behaviors.” These are not all equal and they’re not all going to bury your career or anything, but you should stand vigil against them just the same.

1. Being An Unprofessional Fucking Asshole

Most of the items on the list fall into this category, but it feels like this needs to be said just to act as a net to catch all the naughty writerly behaviors that will slip through — don’t let your “brand” become, “That unprofessional flaming shit-bird who did that really unprofessional shitbird thing and now it’s a stain on his career like a permanent skidmark that bled through his tighty-whities and onto his khaki shorts.” If ever you’re about to perform a questionable action in person or online, ask yourself: “Is this how a professional acts? Or is this how a rampant jabber-jawed cock-waffling jerk-monster acts?” Choose wisely!

2. Responding To Negative Reviews (With More Negativity)

Fact: some people are not going to like your writing. Some people will not like your writing for reasons that are incomprehensible to you or for reasons that may cause you to sit and simmer and twitch and pee a little. Some will write negative reviews that are insightful. Some will write negative reviews that have all the wit and wisdom of a moldy stump. Do not engage. Or, at least, do not engage with negativity. Sometimes, I like to kill them with kindness. Crushing them in an eerie robotic embrace where I politely thank them and recommend for them another work of mine or perhaps the work of another author I respect. But they’re due their opinion, even if their opinion is, “I read the first five-and-a-half pages and it made me so mad I had to write this cranky one-star-review on Goodreads.” Such is the Internet. Leave it alone.

3. Fighting With Other Authors

You know who wins when authors battle authors online? Time-traveling Nazi grizzly bears. Because they win whenever anything bad happens. Authors: don’t get in a scuffle with other authors. Or, frankly, with anybody. Disagreements are one thing. Discussions, fine. Arguments are even okay, long as everyone stays polite. But don’t let it become a scuffle. Don’t be prickly. Don’t call anybody names. Because even if you’re right, you’re wrong. Wrestle with pigs, you’re gonna get muddy. Not worth it.

4. Not Reading Submission Guidelines

Submission guidelines — be they for a literary magazine, a blog, an agent or a publisher — exist for a reason. They’re not arbitrary. A bunch of editors didn’t just get high one night and giggle-snort their way through a bunch of absurd guidelines (“I’m supposed to include an SASE, a hamster, and a naked photo of my mother?”). They’re not pulling the wings off a fly; these guidelines exist for a reason. It’s making somebody’s difficult job (a job that entails fishing through dumpsters of sludge to find a rare gem) just a wee bit easier. Guidelines aren’t suggestions. Follow them.

5. Querying An Unfinished Manuscript

“Here, I half-cooked a chicken. White on the outside, pink and gooey on the inside. I call the raw parts ‘cluck butter.’ It’s like salmonella sashimi. It’s so good.” You don’t hand someone half-cooked food. You don’t half-paint a room then trumpet your proud accomplishment. So don’t query your half-a-dick manuscript (or, for the ladies, a half-a-vagina manuscript) to the world. Finish. Finish strong. Then send.

6. Annoying Editors And Agents

Editors and agents have it tough. They get a lot of shit for being gatekeepers, but here’s what happens at the gate: they stand there, arms and mouths open while a garbage truck backs up (beep beep beep) and unloads a mountain of submissions upon them daily. And, spoiler warning, ninety percent of those submissions won’t cut it. Hell, a not unreasonable percentage are toxic enough that I’m surprised Homeland Security doesn’t show up with hazmat suits and flamethrowers. So, when you annoy them with constant emails, unedited manuscripts, work that’s already been self-published or with crazily presumptive tweets, well, it just puts them one step closer to a water tower with a rifle. I’m not saying every editor and agent is a shining example, but they don’t deserve you acting like a grit of sand in the elastic of one’s underoos.

7. Responding To Rejection With Rageface

I’ve gotten some really strong rejections that taught me about the work. I’ve received rejections that were as tepid and nutritional as a cup of warm salt water. I’ve gotten rejections that were mean — mean the way a yellowjacket is mean, mean the way an unsexed Internet troll is mean. Your response should be to learn something, then move on. Your response should not be to kick a hole in your drywall and then formulate the perfect scathing response (“I REJECT YOU, SCUM-SLATHERED GUARDIAN OF THE ELITIST PUBLISHING GATES”). Calm down. Drink some chamomile.

8. Rageface, Part II: Revision Time

Your work is an ugly rock that, when thrown into the rock tumbler, comes out a polished stone. The rock tumbler is, in this clumsy metaphor, the process of revisions and that often involves getting notes from others aimed at improving the story. Such critical notes are by no means automatically helpful, but what you should never do is dig your heels in and act like a petulant whiny-head who feels threatened by the editorial process. Editors and note-givers are trying to help. Be nice, even if you disagree.

9. Drunkenly Tweeting Awful Things To People

Yeah, don’t do that.

10. Spamming Anybody With Anything Ever

There exists a not-so-fine line between self-promotion and spamming-the-shit-out-of-people. The line is, in fact, thick as a brick. Self-promo becomes spam promo soon as you become annoying with it. Soon as you stop pushing anything but your ME ME ME solipsistic fap-wank and gain equivalence to some out-of-control spam-bot. Yes, you can promote your work. I don’t follow a writer hoping he’ll keep shut about his new book, film, comic, or pornographic memoir. I just want him to talk about other stuff too. Your self-promo needs to be a pair of pom-poms, not a pair of claw hammers. Oh! And if you Auto-DM me anything ever I will find you and throw you out of one helicopter and into the spinning blades of another. Your blood-mist will rain down on an unsuspecting populace and they will cheer me.

11. Acting Racist, Sexist, Misogynist, Any Of The Hateful -Ists

I don’t even need to tell you this and, if I do, you’re probably not going to listen anyway. But don’t be a prejudiced, hate-fueled fuck-muffin. Okay? Not on purpose. Not accidentally. Not at all. As they say on the tough streets of America: “You best inspect thyself beforest thou misdirect thyself.” Or something. I’VE GOT STREET CRED SHUT UP. *gesticulates made-up gang signs then weeps quietly under desk*

12. The Authorial Meltdown

Ahh, the writer. Greased up in his own fluids, sloppily slamming himself against the walls of his Plexiglas enclosure. Melting down in public (and trust me, “on the Internet” soooo counts as being “in public”). Something-something gatekeepers. Something-something some publisher did. Something-something Amazon. Or maybe just inchoate wails of gibberish. Button that up. No meltdowns. I know that’s easier said than done — it’s not like we control our meltdowns, exactly, but forewarned is forearmed.

13. Plagiarizing Somebody Else’s Hard Work

That’s a dick move, dude. And also so obvious I shouldn’t need to tell you that writers live and die by the things that come pouring out of their headbuckets and when you repurpose their creative brain-juice as your own, Zombie Ernest Hemingway rises from the grave with a double-barrel shotgun with one barrel for your face, and the other for your crotch. We are what we write. You be you. I’ll be me.

14. Blowing Out Your Deadlines

Somebody didn’t just draw your deadline out of a deck of cards. It’s a date that somebody needs you to hit so that things can happen as they’re supposed to happen — editing and design and whatever. You miss it, you just made someone else’s life harder. Now, if you’re a writer who assumes himself the center of the creative universe, well, hey, fuck it. But if you’re a writer who realizes his impact on others: maybe hit your deadlines so that somebody isn’t scrambling to cut the slack in your rope.

15. Ignoring Your Assignment

If you’re a freelance writer, you are likely to receive instruction — “I need 2,000 words on bear-sexing by Tuesday.” What you should not do is come back on Tuesday and say, “I’ve written 5,000 words on how Ukranian falconry created the secular celibacy boom of the late 1980s.” Do the work that is assigned to you. When developing games I saw this with some frequency, and man, it always irritated my peehole into a ragged, flaming crater. Though that might’ve also been, uhh, something else.

16. Making A Butt-Ton Of Excuses

I see you, writers. And I judge. Because I’m a judgey-faced judge-hole from Planet Motherfucking Sizing-You-Up whose sole hobby is analyzing the cut of your jib. I see you on the Twitters. On the Faceyspaces. In your bloggery cottages. I see your excuses. Time. Children. Work. Sick. Writer’s block. Sleepy muse. Elk attack. Ennui. And all I think is, “It’s awfully easy for us to dig a hole with a shovel made of our own excuses.” What you think are reasons, mmm, well, probably aren’t.

17. Writing Without Editing

Writing without editing is like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. Or dressing yourself with your eyes closed. Or trying to have sex with a bear without ever having read a manual on bear-sexing and also without wearing chainmail, which is a critical part of the “bear sex” equation, I’ve found. Haven’t you?

18. Self-Publishing Your Worst Instead Of Your Best

“I invented this thing when I was drunk last night. It, like, chops onions really fast. I guess. So, I’m going to slap my name on it and stick it on the shelf at Target. I wouldn’t let any children touch it because I’m pretty sure it’ll cut their fingers off. It’s also dog-fuck ugly, like, I mean, it looks like mannequin poop. But my name’s on it! It’s all me! Tell your friends!” Nobody does this anywhere but publishing, I suspect — and yet, that’s basically what too many “indie” authors do, they shove a blob of Play-Dough onto a dirty paper plate and call it a meal. Stop that. You earn a special place in Author Hell for that.

19. Fighting In The Trenches Of The Any Imaginary War

Indie punches traditional, Amazon karate-chops B&N, print pees in the eyes of digital, whatever. The only side you should fight on is the side of your audience. With weapons forged from the steel of Good Story.

20. Flinging Sour Grapes At Authors More Successful Than You

Your envy is not productive. Not when you keep it inside and, when you let it out, it actually runs the risk of being counter-productive. Eat a fistful of sour grapes, you’ll get that “looks-like-smells-shit” face. And nobody wants to be around anybody making that face. Jealousy is unattractive. And frankly, boring.

21. Bludgeoning Folks With Your Ego

Guy rides by on a super-noisy motorcycle or whips by in some psycho-fast sports car, I like to smile and wave and loudly compliment that dude on his very tiny penis. The louder and more ego-fed you are, the less you usually have to back it up. It’s like a butterfly trying to look like an owl. Fuck that. Be the owl. The owl doesn’t need to advertise because he’s a motherfucking owl, son. Cool the ego. Nobody wants to see it.

22. Acting Like A Bully

Taking the ego up a notch is when authors act like bullies. They have an opinion or a story or some measure of success and they use it to shove everybody around. It’s gross. You should be ashamed.

23. “Hey, Will You Read My Manuscript?”

First, this: “I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script.” Second, consider aspects not mentioned there: like, say, the fact that there exist legal concerns for an author reading another author’s unpublished work — I read your book about Hot Mummy Erotica and then decide one day I want to write my own Completely Different Hot Mummy Erotica tome (50 Shades of Mum-MAY? I’m so sorry), then you’re going to get all litigious on me. As a sidenote, this is very much one of those laws I broke early on. I asked Christopher Moore to read something of mine and he was very nice and very polite in putting me in my place.

24. Failing To Appreciate Your Audience

Don’t be rude to your audience. Don’t dismiss them. Don’t treat them like idiots or like they owe you something. They’re the reason you’re here. They’re the reason you get to do what you do.

25. Talking About Writing Without Actually Writing

I distrust writing advice from writers who appear to never write anything. So too do I see too many writers talking about writing without actually committing pen to paper (or fingers to keys or, I dunno, ink-dipped genitals to linoleum floor), and that’s a super-huge-mega-no-no. Now, I’m not averse to talking about writing. I talk about writing a lot. What do you think I just did for the last 2200 words? But I also wrote 2000 words today not in the blog, 2000 words today of “I’m walking the walk, talking the talk, slinging the ink, punching the panda.” Talking about writing is just another way to waste time, in public, except here the clever ruse is how very productive it feels. It ain’t. Writing means writing. Writing doesn’t mean talking. So get off the soapbox. Set aside the microphone. Pick up that pen before I stab you with it.

Want another hot tasty dose of dubious writing advice aimed at your facemeats?

500 WAYS TO TELL A BETTER STORY: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING: $0.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY: $4.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY: $2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

July 9, 2012 / 46 Comments

In Which It Is Time To Invoke New Policies With A Stomp Of The Wendigo’s Hoof

It’s time, I’m afraid, for some Terribleminds-flavored Wendig-themed policies up in here.

Or, put differently, it’s time to be a dick.

I hate to do it but, lately I’ve been getting… lots of emails. And the occasional tweets or Facebook message or G+ missive. I’m getting lots of folks asking me for lots of different things.

And most of the time, for a number of reasons, I can’t help you. Or I’m the wrong person to ask. Or you should know better. So, here I am. Being a big ol jerky-faced jerk-machine.

Apologies in advance. But here are the declarations. (They’ll go up in the menu bar eventually.)

Will You Read My [Novel / Script / Manifesto / Insane Screed]?

Mmmnope. Sorry! I’ll try to be polite about it if you ask, unless I’m having a bad day, in which case I’ll just point you to this. The reasons I won’t read your [whatever] are many.

I’m busy. I have books to write. Blogs to post. And there is a 14-month-old human tornado who fills my life with joy and chaos and sharp toys that stab me in the sole of my foot.

I’m also busy reading other stuff. Research. Work from colleagues and friends. Weird porn.

I also have books and things I want to read, but don’t have much time to do as it stands.

I also don’t want you to sue me.

I also don’t want to read your work and have it inform my work.

So, no, I won’t.

This (and many of the “policies” below) isn’t necessarily true if you and I are friends. Like, actual friends or at least well-established colleagues, not like, “Person I occasionally tweet to online.”

Will You Blurb My Book?

I may. But, like I already said, I’m hella busy.

Here’s my current blurb rules:

I prefer hard copies to electronic copies whenever possible.

If I don’t know you, you’re better off having an agent or editor contact me.

I can’t commit to a short deadline. (“I need a blurb by tomorrow at 2:3o!”)

I cannot promise a blurb, but I can promise I’ll try.

I may not like your book. Not because it’s bad but because, hey, tastes are tastes.

I am far less likely to consider blurbing a self-published book because, regrettably, the line between “unpublished manuscript” and “soon-to-be-self-published book” is razor thin. I am pro-indie author but I’ve seen far too many self-published books that just don’t meet the level of quality needed.

If I know you, your chances just went way, way up.

Will You Retweet My Tweet?

Probably not.

I know, it’s for your Kickstarter. Or your friend. Or your friend’s mom. Or charity! Who doesn’t love charity?

The problem? I get a lot of these requests. And I like to think that, while I’m no “tastemaker” (the very word makes my mouth taste like I just licked a dirty battery), I hope that when I do retweet something it’s something that my audience will dig. Maybe I like it and I want them to like it. Maybe it’s not for me but I think it’ll be for them. Maybe I just got a wild hair up my ass. Who knows?

Occasionally I’ll get the sentiment — “But I retweet your stuff!” — and to that I say, I appreciate that. However, my sincerest hope is that you’re spreading around stuff because you honestly like it, not because you think it’s some kind of favor. I mean it with no bile on my tongue when I say, please, don’t do that. Retweet my stuff because you think it’s awesome, not because you imagine it’s going into some kind of weird social media credit account. And if my stuff isn’t awesome, for heaven’s sake, don’t spread it around.

And, regarding charity: I am all for charity. Everybody’s got their own charitable inclinations and I don’t judge where or how you send your money to charity (only that I hope you do). If you really want me to check it out, you can bounce me the link over Twitter, and ask me to look at it.

Again: if I know you or you’re a friend, the rules are different.

Can I Write A Guest Blog For You?

Nope!

I’m sorry. I’m not accepting guest blogs at this time. I’d love to but frankly, I think your Awesome Blog Post would do very well at your own Awesome Blog Space. That said, if I ever open up a slot for guest posts, I will announce it here at the blog. I shall be traveling a great deal come fall, and may have some space. I can’t pay, but will give free books. Don’t pitch me a post, though — look for announcements on the blog.

Will You Write A Guest Blog For Me?

It’s unlikely! I do write guest blogs sometime for:

a) People I know and like!

b) People who are awesome and I respect and admire!

c) Big-ass blogs with big-ass traffic, because I am a big-ass word-whore!

d) Blogs that pay money! (Which is to say, a real rara avis.)

Can I Be A Subject Of A Terribleminds Interview?

Maybe! You can apply at terribleminds at gmail dot com.

I interview storytellers and writers of any stripe.

I am again prejudiced against indie writers. Not universally, of course, so you’re free to try. But I get indie writers hitting me up 2:1 and much of the time I’m not precisely impressed.

I am looking for people with interesting stories interested in then talking about stories. Just having a book out is not really a guaranteed “great interview.” What’s your hook? Pitch me on the interview.

A warning: I am seriously, seriously back-logged with interview requests. Interviews and responses are at present slow to come as the queue is quite, erm, treacly right now.

Can I Interview You For My Own Personal Online Space?

Lucky you! I love to talk about myself and my upcoming books!

Hit me at terribleminds at gmail dot com.

I Want To Send You Something Via Snail Mail!

Is it ticking? Twitching? Leaking? Vibrating? Screaming profanities at me from within its cardboard prison? Is it a Dybbuk Box? Is it Gweneth Paltrow’s head? IS IT ALL THE EVIL IN THE WORLD?

You can hit me up at terribleminds at gmail, and I will maybe give you an address. Maybe.

Where Is My Comment?

You left a comment at terribleminds, and it ain’t here?

A few things may have happened.

First, it’s awaiting moderation. I’ll get to it sometime, er, today.

Second, it’s clogged in the spam chute. It happens. I’ll hopefully find it, if not, use the contact form to alert me that you think you ended up somewhere in the pipes like a wad of oily hair.

Third, I deleted it. Rare, but does happen. Maybe I didn’t like your comment. Or I thought you were a jerk, troll or spammer. (This is not a cheerocracy, I’m afraid. Your right to free speech doesn’t apply at my blog.)

Can We Work Together?

Do I know you? Then maybe!

Are you a stranger? Then probably not!

Can I Repurpose Your Blog Post?

You may not. I mean, okay, technically you can — nobody is stopping you. I’m not going to call John Q. Internet Law, Jr. on you. But I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t nab my content and make it your own. You can, however, excerpt the blog and link back to the original. I’d appreciate the traffic driven here not, y’know, elsewhere. You nabbing my blog content is not a favor for me.

I have on occasion made exceptions for this for people I know or for awesome blogs with big signal boosts (Ted Hope has reblogged a few of my posts, as has the SFWA). But those are edge cases.

Are You The Wendigo, The Ancient Beast Of Native American Lore?

I am. But only when I’ve had a lot to drink.

July 6, 2012 / 66 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: Fairy Tale Upgrade

Last Week’s challenge: “Tell A Story In Three Sentences”

Today’s challenge shall be a curious one.

Take a fairy tale — any fairy tale at all you want, or a fable, or a Mother Goose story — and rewrite it in a modern context.

Now, “modern” is a little open to interpretation — if you took Little Red Riding Hood and set it in the 1920s, sure. Or The Ant And The Grasshopper and set it on a space station 100 years in the future, that’s fine, too.

Point is: avoid any sense of medieval-ness. Get out of the past. Into this (or the last) century and beyond.

As always: 1000 words.

Post on your blog, link back here.

Due by next Friday — FRIDAY THE 13TH MOO HOO HA HA. By noon EST.

Spin us a tale, won’t you?

July 5, 2012 / 21 Comments

Alex Adams: The Terribleminds Interview

As I noted yesterday, Alex Adams wrote the book White Horse, which I loved so much I don’t even have much rational thought to give it. I also note in that post that the book is in many ways a spiritual cousin to my own novel, Blackbirds, and frankly, it’s superior to mine in nearly every way. Go forth and read that book, but first up, inject Alex’s wisdom into your eyeholes. Then visit her site at alexadamsbooks.com and mercilessly track her on Twitter (@Alexia_Adams).

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

Once upon a time (because many good stories start out this way, and a lot of bad ones, too), my family up and moved to Greece, all because my mother was tired of New Zealand’s dreary weather. This turned out to be a Very Good Thing for me, because living in Greece taught me how to survive and also how to tell stories—which is often the same thing.

During my first year in Greece (I was eleven) I learned how to run. Not childish running, where the goal is to get from here to there or risk being tagged, but “Run, Forest! Run!” type running, where you’re going to wind up taking a beating and ending up in juvie if you don’t pour everything into fleeing. There may have been a church involved, and I may have been up in the church grounds’ trees stealing fruit with my cousin. And there may have been a very angry elderly caretaker shaking a large whisk broom in my face. And maybe I jumped down, gave the caretaker my cousin’s name, and bolted. Maybe.

During my second year my grandmother taught me about “eating what you know.” In this case, what I knew was a white chicken we’d named Star Wars. Not only was Star Wars mentally disabled, but she had this odd physical quirk where she walked with her head and shoulders hunched and tilted to one side, like Paris Hilton in Meet the Spartans. She never met a wall she couldn’t walk into.

Then one day Star Wars disappeared. That same night, Darth Vader (aka my grandmother, who was clad all in black after the death of my grandfather) served chicken with orzo.* “This is not the chicken you’re looking for,” she rasped when I asked if she’d seen Star Wars. (It’s entirely possible that I misinterpreted her words and what she actually said was, “Sit up, shut up, and eat up.”) But I recognized that stringy lump of chicken at the edge of the plate as part of Star Wars’ hump and knew my grandmother was a chicken killer. I never turned my back on her after that, especially not when she was wielding a cleaver and a bag of orzo.

(For the record, chicken that you knew personally tastes nothing like chicken.)

It was during my third year in Greece that I took a vow of silence when grownups asked me stuff. I learned the value of using sounds and body language instead of words. Why waste all that time saying “I don’t know,” when a well-timed shrug will do? That also saves you from lying, when you do in fact know because you’re the one who did it—or helped bury the (usually) metaphorical body.

Other things I learned in Greece: Donkeys are asses; they’re made up of two dangerous ends. Some women do have whiskers. Toilets you sit on? Yeah, those aren’t universal. Spitting wards away the Evil Eye, but not strangers on a bus. Physicists are doing it all wrong: we should be investigating the speed of gossip.

Finally, one day, my parents decided I’d learned enough and I was in danger of either becoming a scathingly brilliant criminal or a below-average lawyer, so we left Greece for Australia, where I lived happily ever after… Until I mucked up my life by deciding to write a novel.

The moral of this story is, if possible, to have at least one parent with dual citizenship and distaste for the local weather if you want to be a writer.

*Oddly enough, I can still eat chicken. I cannot, however, even stand the sight of orzo. Which says something about me. Let the psychoanalysis begin.

Why do you tell stories?

Because the world needs storytellers and I have some aptitude for it. Being entertaining is something I’ve always enjoyed, although my original career goal was to be Doris Day. Not only was the job already taken, but I can’t act. Can’t sing. Can dance a little. But really I just plain enjoy telling stories. And there are far worse fates in life than doing something you love.

I was in my early twenties when I originally wanted to start writing, but when faced with a blank page I realized I had nothing to write about…yet. So I went off and did some interesting things. Then one day I discovered the stories were starting to come to me, so I started nailing them to the computer screen. I go through a lot of monitors that way.

I was going to make a crack about how “storyteller” is a much nicer word than “liar,” but nowhere do you have to be more real than in fiction.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

I’m lousy at math, so let’s pretend two is the new one.

Get a life. A wild and vivid imagination will only take you so far; real life is where the true crazy happens, and if you’re at your desk, staring at the wall, all the time you’ll miss out. You need to get out there and live and see things and experience everything humanly possible and soak up the world like a fat, fluffy sponge. Worst case scenario, you’ll lead an interesting life.

The second is really a piece of publishing advice: Don’t be an ass. Publishing has fewer degrees of separation than Kevin Bacon, and if you behave badly… Look, we’re in a business that loves stories and storytelling, so you know how that’s going to wind up. We talk. Be an ass and we’ll talk about you. Probably, for sure, we’ll embellish.

What’s the worst piece of writing/storytelling advice you’ve ever received?

I wish I didn’t have to narrow it down to just one. But because two, as it turns out, isn’t the new one: Write what you know.

Who wants to write about something they already know? Bo-ring! I’d rather write about things I don’t know and get some extra educational value out of my job. Writers are (or should be) by nature insatiably curious people. We desire growth and devour new things. So it makes sense that we’d want to write about those new, shiny things. It keeps our stories from stagnating on the page. It keeps us fresh and interesting as storytellers.

The only exception here is that you have to know people—really know people—to be able to convincingly write about them. The best books are the ones that tell universal truths about human nature. I’m pretty sure I stole that last line from my sweetheart. He’s a wise man.

I could talk forever about bad advice. There’s more floating around out there right now than ever before, and it’s often bigger and splashier than the good. Bad advice is cunning because it dresses up as whatever it is new writers want to hear.

What goes into writing a strong character? Bonus round: give an example of a strong character.

Everything, including the kitchen sink, the garbage disposal, and the compost heap. Restraint is death to strong characters. The minute you start holding back is the minute that strong character winds up diluted and insipid. Often when I’m trying to get a strong character down on paper, I ask myself, “What would someone better than me do in this situation?” A strong character doesn’t always recognize their strength, either. They have moments of self-doubt and they fail. But if you can pull them back onto their feet and keep them moving forward toward their goal then that goes a long way toward painting a strong character on paper.

Note: “Strong” is not necessarily a synonym for kick-ass, bitchy or snarky. Some of the strongest characters are the quietest on the page.

Bonus round: One of my favorite examples of a strong (and recent) character: Myfanwy Thomas in Daniel O’Malley’s The Rook. From an older book: Melanie Wilkes in Gone With the Wind.

Sell us on White Horse in 140 characters — the space of a single tweet.

WHITE HORSE: It’s like THE ROAD, but with breasts, hope, and punctuation.

White Horse takes place during the end of the human world. Why set a book there? What drew you to the apocalypse?

I think there’s a little piece in all of us that wonders what the world would be like if everything suddenly ended. It’s the ultimate “what if?” scenario. Even as a kid I loved destroying my Lego creations as much as I loved constructing them. Why? Because it’s a chance for do-overs. Bigger, better do-overs. All that potential just excites the heck out of me, as a storyteller. It’s such an extreme situation and a real chance to see how far characters are willing to go to survive, and to discover what really matters to them. Like living people, you never know what characters are made of until you’ve shoved them over the edge.

Really though, WHITE HORSE’s apocalypse was one of those serendipitous things. I didn’t mean to write an apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic novel. It just…happened. One minute my protagonist was sitting in her therapist’s office, the next she was standing in Italy at the end of the world. I really don’t know why or how.

That sounds like total BS, but it’s true. All my best material is accidental. Even if you’re a staunch plotter, leave room for surprises.

Talking about this reminds me: If anyone out there is brilliantly funny, ala Christopher Moore, I’d love them to give Adam and Eve the LAMB treatment. Because I think the Next Big Thing in publishing will be beginning-of-the-world stories.

You wrote the book in present tense — why? What is the value that present tense brings to the page and the story? And what is the challenge of it?

I never really over-think tense when I start a new story. There’s always a clear stand out, a way the story wants to be told. Which sounds a bit woo-woo, I know. But when you’ve been writing for a while, I think certain things start becoming instinctual. Anyway, when I began working on WHITE HORSE, every line that popped out of my fingers, ala Spiderman (okay, so I know the silly string pops out of his wrists, not his fingers) was present tense. It felt natural so I went with it. For a few paragraphs I tried past tense, but the story refused to flow. Once I switched back, the story began pouring onto the page again. Why fight what’s meant to be?

The beauty of present tense is that it’s so immediate. The reader is right there as everything is happening to the protagonist. And it lends a certain feeling that anything can happen. There’s no foresight. With past tense you’re almost guaranteed that the protagonist survived the story’s events, and they’re telling their tale in retrospect. I like the uncertainty present tends lends to the situation.

But present tense is also extremely unforgiving. It’s the white pants of tenses. It can be tedious or too tell-y. And much like first-person, it looks deceptively easy. Solid prose can quickly become a list of events if you’re not careful. Couple it with first-person and risk burying your readers in a lint-filled navel-gazing pit.

What is your favorite (er, non-White Horse) end-of-the-world story?

No question about it: Stephen King’s THE STAND. I recently purchased a new copy because I wore out the old one. Not only is it a fantastic story, but it’s so huge that if the world ends you could use it as a weapon.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

Game: Monopoly. Go to jail and get out free if you have a special, magical card? Oh yeah, you just know there would be record-breaking box office there if only someone had the gumption to make that movie. I’m looking at you, Battleship producers.

Book: Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde

Film: Big Fish

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

The. It’s just so damn useful. Except in that last sentence, where it wasn’t useful at all. Fuck.

Which leads me to…

Fuck is my favorite curse word, and (as shown above) often more useful than “the.” My editor’s going to be SO surprised when I do a “search and replace.”

**Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)**

My go-to drinks are the humble screwdriver (vodka and OJ. Juice, not Simpson, because that would be weird) and rum and Coke. But right now I’m 34 weeks pregnant and I’d happily kill someone and then make a slow getaway in a white Bronco for a Pina Colada. I’ve been making do with fresh pineapple.

But there’s no funny story there, so let me tell you about this drink called a Flaming Lamborghini. Actually, I can’t tell you a story about that, mostly because I don’t remember it (I was in Australia, it was my 18^th birthday, a bouncer had to carry me out of the club, and on the way home I lost $20 and my favorite belt; that’s all I’ve got), but I can give you the recipe.

Flaming Lamborghini

1 oz Blue Curacao

1 oz Kahlua

1 oz Bailey’s

1 oz Sambuca

Combine the Sambuca and Kahlua in a cocktail glass. Pour the Bailey’s and Blue Curacao into two shot glasses. Set the combined Sambuca and Kahlua on fire, stick in a straw and start sucking. Halfway through, tip the two shot glasses into the cocktail glass and keep on sucking until the glass is empty and you have a lungful of plastic fumes from the melting straw. Don’t stand up too quickly, especially if you’re proving your clinical insanity by consuming more than one.

If you try this and Something Bad happens, don’t forget to blog/Tweet about it so we can all share in the fun. Bonus points if you provide Youtube links and/or proof that you wound up groveling in front of someone named Your Honor.

What interesting things did you do before you decided to start nailing words to pages? Don’t leave us hanging, now.

I’m going to answer this like my parole officer isn’t reading it.*

Where were we? Oh yes, I went off on grand adventures, after discovering that I had nothing to write about—yet. And by grand adventures I mean I moved from Australia to Texas and got married. If that doesn’t sound all that exciting, believe me, it is. I had to learn about all kinds of new, crazy things, like health insurance, tipping, and Congress. I suffered through endlessly amusing questions, such as “What language did you speak before you came to America?” and “Do y’all have these where you come from?” (The item in question was a watermelon)

For a time I taught English as a Second Language, which is probably the second best job I’ve ever had. It taught me two things: Celebrity gossip is a super-easy way to teach English; mules and elderly Russian men share DNA. Life’s always interesting when you mix with people whose life circumstances are wildly different to your own. Plus you learn new ways to curse. That’s always dead useful.

I traveled a bunch, ate weird food, spent way too much time in Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas is that you really quickly become sick to death of people and noise. Then you start to notice how grimy everything is behind the pretty lights. Then you wind up gnawing off your own hand at the airport, the one stuck in a slot machine, to get the hell out of there.

I learned to renovate a house. Don’t ask me to swing a hammer, because I suck at that unless you want a house filled with bent nails, but I can lay some pretty mean tile.

And somewhere along the way I may have tried to feed a raw steak to a bull. Let’s just say bulls don’t like steak. Or people running away from them. But you didn’t hear that from me.

There are so many other things, too, but…see first paragraph. I like to tease my fiance that we’re both the living embodiment of that old Chinese curse, “May you lead an interesting life.”

*I don’t really have a parole office, but I do have a mother. Which is kind of the same thing.**

** Just kidding. My mother is nothing short of amazing. That’s a real and unpaid endorsement.

Holy crap, you’re having a baby soon! Congratulations. You’re about to suffer a small apocalypse of your own — have you prepared your life for the beautiful storm that’s about to hit?

Thank you! We’ve been preparing for a reverse zombie apocalypse. Which means retrofitting our house to keep things in instead of out. We’re stocking up on everything humanly possible, because apparently we won’t be able to leave the house until our daughter goes to college. At least that’s what other parents tell me. I figure we’re already in good shape, too, because we’re used to spelling things out so our dog doesn’t understand them.

My guy is also sharpening his shotgun skills, for when the drooling teenage boys launch their invasion. I pity the fools.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable war against the robots?

I collect magnets and I know how to wield them.* And thanks to Daniel Wilson’s Robopocalypse I already know how to defeat the robots. You should probably buy his book and a can opener if you want to survive.

*This may or may not be true.

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

I’m currently shifting commas in Red Horse, book two of the White Horse trilogy. After I hurl that to my editor and duck, I want to work on a novel I’ve had brewing in my brain for about a year now. I can’t tell you about it because otherwise I’ll lose interest. I’m one of those writers: Once the story is told, whatever the medium, I can’t go back and retell it. But it’s going to be great. Or semi great. Or not-so-great any place except inside my own head.

All this is just code for “I’m just biding time until December 21.” If the world ends I don’t want to have done all this work for nothing.

July 4, 2012 / 87 Comments

Hear That Calliope Music? The Carnival Of Pimpage Is Open Once More

It is time to spread good cheer and do some straight-pimping. Er, not the kind of pimping where you exploit young runaways on the streets of Hollywood, because, ew. Nor will you be modding someone’s “whip” with an PS3 and rocket boosters and a fully-operational 7-11 in the trunk. No, this is the type of pimping where you say, “Hey, you should check out [INSERT THIS THING HERE].”

Here are the rules for this bout of pimpage.

You may pimp yourself but you must also pimp another.

So, you can say, “I just wrote a biography of Burger McGoob, daredevil ukelele player known for his invention of the nipple clamp in 1932, but first let me tell you why you should check out the masterpiece work of my pal…”

Or something.

For example:

I’m going to tell you right now to run out and read the novel White Horse, by Alex Adams.

I have the fortune of reading many great novels these days, sometimes ones sent my way by folks who would like to be interviewed here at Ye Olde Blog. This is just such a novel (and be advised: tomorrow you’ll see the interview with Alex). White Horse is a novel of a woman, a pandemic, an apocalypse, and a (mostly) unfulfilled love. It’s grim, beautiful, horrific, funny, sweet, and sad.

I have this problem when I read books where, generally, the only time I get to read is in bed at the end of the day, and with even the best novels I have to fight the urge to sleep to push forward into the story.

I did not have this problem with White Horse. The language pulled my hair. The story dragged me along. Zoe, the protagonist, demanded I watch her every step. The book was, in many ways, like being duct taped to an actual white horse just before someone kicked it in the ass and made that sonofabitch run.

Now, here’s the thing. I have this book Blackbirds, which I’m sure you know about because, well, I won’t shut up about the damn thing (now with 82 very positive reviews at Amazon!).

Blackbirds and White Horse are spiritual cousins of one another. They share artistic heritage.

Consider.

Both released in April, 2012.

Color + Animal. White horse. Black bird(s).

Both written in the present tense. In fact, in White Horse, Adams uses a convention where each sub-chapter is labeled either THEN or NOW, so you bounce back and forth between what happened and what is presently happening. An earlier draft of Blackbirds had exactly this (the Interludes now tell the “THEN” story, for those who have read the book).

Both are also written with an eye toward indulgent metaphors — I saw a review the other day that called Blackbirds one of the most language-drunk novels she’d ever read, and I would say the same thing about White Horse. Adams puts images and ideas together in ways that do not merely dazzle but actually create a more complete and powerful sensation — it makes the story feel all the more real and surreal.

Both feature “strong” female protagonists. Both survivors.

Both are “road” novels — they are about a journey, a journey based on love.

Both are also very much about death — death a hunting, haunting specter in each.

Both feature pregnancy in important roles.

Both feature a sinister European villain (Ingersoll versus “The Swiss”).

Both feature some really, really fucked-up scenes of horror and yet, at the same time, manage to be funny. (Well, I don’t know that Blackbirds succeeds — that’s on you to decide. But White Horse really is.)

Both are genre-agnostic. They cannot be easily pinned to a single genre.

Both have sequels coming out. (Red Horse / Mockingbird).

Go buy White Horse. You will not regret that decision.

Anywho. There’s my pimpage. Go forth and bring your own.

One for you.

One for someone else.

Happy Fourth of July.

July 3, 2012 / 37 Comments

Ask A Wendigo: The Speed With Which One Ejaculates Prose

Looking for the requisite Tuesday “list of 25?” HA HA HA IT’S NOT HERE. You just got served! Ahem. The lists-of-25 are going on an “every other week” basis as I wind them down to completion — that’s not to say I won’t do them from time to time but I’m looking to get another 10 or so for a book and then I’ll pull the ripcord, at least until I have something more to say on the subject. So! In the “every other, uhh, other week” slot goes this: you ask me questions at Tumblr and I answer them here. Let the inquisition begin!

I had two folks ask me very similar questions.

Anonymous Abby asked:

“My name’s Abby and I just bought your 500 Ways to Tell a Better Story (surely that means I count!). My question comes from reading Dean Wesley Smith’s blog. He often blogs about writing fast and not believing that the longer it takes to write a book, the better it is. I’ve heard of writers who’ve written books in just a few weeks and I was wondering, for a first draft, what’s the shortest time it’s taken you to complete a MS?”

And Anonymous Not-Abby asked:

“How fast can you, Wendig, type out fiction (of any quality) and, if you’ve honed this as a skill, how did you go about getting faster (and, perhaps, better)?”

Let me answer the second question first: I write at bare minimum 2000 words a day. Ideally I write 3-4k a day, but hey, not every day is ideal. It is, however, very rare that I dip below 2k per day — days where I’m sick or on vacation or eating the frozen hearts of wayward campers as I chase them through the woods with my big stompy Wendigo hooves, those might be days I don’t make my goal. But I only need 13 frozen hearts to survive one full century, so? Pretty rare. Rare as a bloody steak. Rare as a dodo orgy.

That means, for me, every week I’m generally writing 10 to 15,000 words of new content. That does not include blog content, by the way. By the end of a year I have, bare minimum, a half-a-million words chipped into the digital marble that is my computer screen.

Are those good words? Do they make up good stories?

Fuck if I know.

I like to hope they are. But they’re never good enough on their own — a word doesn’t just tumble out of my finger-holes as a pure and perfect entity, unmarred and forever impervious to criticism. Words change. They need to get extensions or repairs. Or have friends added to them. Or be thrown into a dark yowling abyss where they are eaten by ancient God-Worms and defecated out to form the deviant sub-layer of Gaia’s subconscious mind. (YO I’M DROPPIN’ MYTH ON YOUR FACEBRAIN, SON.)

And this leads me to the first question:

Speed is not an indicator of quality in terms of fiction. That’s true of one’s relative slowness or swiftness — taking 10 years to write a book or taking 10 days to write a book (or a comic or a film or an angry postcard) guarantees nothing in terms of how good or how bad that story is.

Put differently, the story needs what the story needs.

Now, I’ll grant you: many stories are like wine. With more time they ripen and the flavor deepens — not automatically and not without authorial intervention, but over time an author can sift out the sediment and play with additives and subtractives, changing the formula gradually over the many moons. Of course, some wines should be consumed young, shouldn’t they? Bottled and guzzled with, oh, a nice shellfish dish. Or the pudding-like brains of your foes. So, there the wine metaphor yields some truth across the board: some wines are better aged, some are better right after you squirt ’em in the bottle.

Which tells us, yet again: the story needs what the story needs.

If it’s fast and it works: it works. If it’s slow and it works: it works.

Who gives a fuck how many days it took if the story crackles? If it makes us think, feel, laugh, cry? The audience doesn’t care how long it took. The audience only cares if it reaches deep and grabs their guts.

Blackbirds took me yeaaaaaars to write.

The sequel, Mockingbird, took me 30 days. And was almost 10,000 words longer.

Ah, but here’s the trick: where some stories are fast and others come slow, one thing I believe to be true: the writer needs time to age. Authors need time and experience to reach fruition — and so you must have the patience to develop a voice, to train your skill and hone your talent, to practice the craft of writing and foster the art of storytelling (for that’s how I see them: writing is the craft, storytelling the art).

Give yourself that time. Because that’s how you get better. And, sometimes, how you get faster.

Worry less about how long it should take to write a story.

Worry more about how long it takes to become a storyteller.