Category: The Ramble (page 391 of 463)

Yammerings and Babblings

June 18, 2012 / 80 Comments

Ode To The Editor

The editor walks the craggy wasteland.

Maybe she’s a freelance pen-for-hire. Maybe her red ink dances for one of the corporations.

Doesn’t much matter. She is what she is.

Then —

In the distance, across a valley of charred manuscripts and killed-off characters she hears the plaintive cry of a writer lost in the woods, a writer with a soggy, boggy book falling apart in his hands.

And the editor rides.

Hoofbeats on broken earth. Her heart driven by the thunderous stampede — a heart hungry for the story, voracious for the words, desperate to find all the fiddly bits, all the commas and semi-colons and character arcs and thematic throughlines and save them from the hands of an author strangled by his own creation.

An author mad by his own whims.

And that is what she finds over the next ridge.

The author, kneeling over his manuscript. Punching it with raw-knuckled hands. Grabbing fistfuls of paper and shoving it into his mouth and moaning around the wads of crumpled story.

“I’ll make the protagonist a camel!” the author cries around dry, labored gulps. “I’ll write three prologues. Each weirder than the last. I’ll remove all the punctuation and make it one big run-on sentence and all the characters will fall prey to my plot and my plot will fall prey to my themes and my themes will fall prey to a half-dozen strongly-concocted gin-and-tonics and–” Here he eats another wad of his own manuscript. “GRASHAGRABLECHRAGGTERFUGGMBTZZ.” He falls to the earth, forehead against it, blubbering.

The editor kicks him off the manuscript. The author tumbles into the dust. Tears streaking dirty cheeks.

“You,” the author says.

The editor nods. Pops a white Chiclet. Crunch.

“But…” the author begins.

The editor just shakes her head.

Finger to lips. Shhhh.

She pats his head. Whispers something in his ear. It’ll be all right. That’s what she tells him.

Then she gathers up the crumpled story-boulders and pages caught on cactus spines and she again mounts her steed and rides to the next ridge. There she sits, alone. For hours. Maybe days. Pulling pages apart. Seeing what she has. Shining a light into dark corners. Finding sense. Fixing errors. Bringing sanity back to madness, chaos back to order, context back to content. Her red pen dances bloodily upon the page.

And when the time is right, she rides again.

Finds the author now sitting alone, perfectly still as if he had taken Herculean amounts of LSD and was afraid that he’d become a little teapot and any movement could cause his tea to spill.

She goes to him.

She shows him what she’s done.

He hates her — at first.

He froths and kicks and spits, a beast poorly corralled, distraught at what he sees — the ruination of my art, the muddying of my vision, poopy handprints on what was once a clean white wall.

But soon he sees.

He sees how things make sense.

How the periods and commas all line up proper-like. All reporting for duty.

His crutch words are gone. His plot has been untangled. The characters are no longer just cardboard cut-outs slotted into gaps but rather living, breathing entities, emotionally resonant and utterly believable.

His pile of word-slurry has been concretized. Into a marble bust. An aegis of the gods.

And when he looks up, the editor is gone. His satchel, too.

She’s riding off. A wasteland MacGuyver. An apocalyptic A-Team.

What she brings to the story is hidden behind every page. Lost in the space between sentences. Her repairs are invisible — the mechanisms of her craft hidden behind authorial drywall. Ever unknown to readers.

“But I don’t even know your name,” the author whispers — a whisper lost on the wind.

She’s gone. Onto the next writer sitting in his own waste. To clean up him. To fix his story.

To do what must be done.

* * *

All this is a roundabout way of saying Yay, Editors!

Not all editors are good, or great, and some are quite bad.

And no editor can take a bad story and make it good — dross does not polish into gold.

Oh ho! But an editor can however take a good story and make it great, harnessing the potential that lives in a pile of unforged story. Dross will not become gold, but iron can become steel.

What I’m trying to say is, I have recently been getting this question:

“Do you know any good editors?”

Folks email me and want to know if I’ll look at their work (I won’t), or if I know any good editors (I do, but not in a helpful way). And so I come to you, my bubbly lovely jubblies. Let us speak of editors.

If you’re an author who has a favorite freelance editor or who merely cares to sing the praises of an editor you’ve worked with at a publisher or elsewhere, please do! Sing, sing those praises!

If you’re an editor who is available…

Well. Please, let us know that. You may find clients here.

And let us all sing the ballad of the editor and tell their mighty stories. For it is the editor that lifts the story up so that it may catch the sun. And yet it is the author who swallows the syrup of glory.

All hail the editor.

June 17, 2012 / 17 Comments

My Father Ate Really Weird Things

My father was a farmer, not a foodie.

He ate and drank normal things most of the time, of course — steak a favorite, maybe a Beck’s beer. Or at night, a blackberry brandy. Or a blended Scotch like Dewar’s.

But between the margins lived very curious choices of food.

He’d eat whole cloves of garlic, raw. Munch, munch, munch. The resultant breath potent enough to punch a hole through a vampire’s breastbone and turn his heart to strongly-scented ash.

Horseradish could be grated onto anything. He’d also eat that raw, right out of the garden.

Hell, the raw garden was a good place to find him. Grazing like some kind of horse or antelope. Picking up green peppers, parsley, tomatoes, beans. Crunch crunch crunch.

If my mother made asparagus in boiling water, Dad would drink the asparagus water. A hot, tall, frothy glass of mm-mmm asparagus water. It looked like a big cup of pee. Which is, perhaps, appropriate.

You know Clamato juice? Clam Tomato juice? He’d drink that, too. Most people make dips from it, or use it in recipes. He’d drink a glass of it. Warm, cold, didn’t matter. Glug, glug, glug.

Hot peppers were always on the menu. Never seemed to bother him, either. He grew a wide variety in the garden and would occasionally go out and sample the wares by just popping them in his mouth like they were fucking Triscuits. Didn’t seem to faze him. He’d occasionally say something like, “Hot,” or, “This has good heat,” and then he’d see if I wanted a bite. And it was a trap. Always a trap. Because he’d goad you, tell you it wasn’t that bad, or maybe he’d say from the beginning that it “wasn’t hot at all,” then you’d eat it and from the first moment your tongue touched the thing it felt like someone had jabbed a sparking Stun Gun into your mouth. Alarm bells and synapses firing. And he’d laugh.

He grew these little tiny peppers — “Thai hots,” he called them. Bright red. Each no bigger than the tip of your pinky finger. He’d take two of those, break the skin with a knife (not even chopping them), then toss those two into a pot of elk chili that simmered for the rest of the day. That chili was the deadliest chili around. A turbid, blood-red brew. Delicious, admittedly — but it even got to him. Dad would sweat and snorfle and cough. And keep on eating. It was like a Szechuan hot pot had made sweet spicy love to a bowl of Tex-Mex chili. You could probably boil an elk alive in that pot.

He ate organ meat without batting an eye. Something I’ve only recently come to, myself. His favorite part of the chicken was the “gizzards,” which meant not just the gizzards but all the bird’s inner workings. Heart, liver, etc. All the little inner bits fried up in a pan with some onions and butter, maybe some old-school lard.

We’d go fishing sometimes and catch these gutter eels and one time he was like, “Hell with it,” and we put ’em in the cooler and took them home. He went at them with a cleaver and cut them up into something resembling hunks of garden hose, or maybe something out of an H.R. Giger artwork. Then cooked them and ate them. I guess they weren’t great but they did the trick. I wouldn’t go near ’em.

He ate a lot of fish that we caught. We had catfish at our pond that were big sonofabitches. Long as my arm, thick as my thigh. You’d throw bread into the water and there they’d come, slow like whales, mouths open wide, bread and water disappearing into that fleshy aperture. We didn’t kill or eat those fish, though. Hell, one time a great blue heron — beautiful birds, by the way — started paying visits to our pond and finding it a rather epic buffet. Spearing sunnies and bass and maybe trying for the catfish. So Dad shot it. Which was illegal at the time and, I suspect, still is. His reasoning was, “Bird was eating my fish,” and that was that.

We used to go and shoot birds sometimes — pheasants, geese, chukars — and then have to eat gingerly so you didn’t crack a tooth on the shot. That’s not weird so much, but it comes to mind so there it is.

Weird was pickled pig’s feet. He loved those. Mason jar of those looked like something out of a mad doctor’s laboratory. Fibrous hooves calling to mind a forensics scene where they discover a body in a swamp.

Food was a thing for us. We were a farming family — though by the time I was old enough to have a clue, we raised whitetail deer and that was it (and we generally didn’t eat those deer but one time we ate one and that, well, let’s just say that did not go over well). Later, elk. But farming life is hard and even though the sting of that hard life was gone from ours it still remained and so with it came that utilitarian “You eat everything,” and that meant whatever was on your plate and in your glass even if you didn’t like it. (Though that ended one day when I was forced to eat eggplant and I threw up at the table.)

Really though this isn’t about food. It’s about memory. What we take with us, what we forget. Who we become because of those things. Father’s Day will always be a reflection — like his birthday, like my son’s birthday, like Christmas, like all those days that ping the emotional radar — and it’s always interesting to see what memories float up out of that turbid blood-red brew. One memory leads to the next and the next and the next after that, feeling your way around the dark with open hands to see what you find. It’s good. Strange, but good. Someday, when I’m dead, my son will do the same thing, I hope. Piecing together those memories. Finding a thread and pulling on it until he gets to something he didn’t expect to remember. I guess that’s how we are, fathers and sons. And mothers and daughters and all of us with whatever memories we carry. Memories and stories and lost images found anew.

Happy Father’s Day, you motherfuckers.

June 15, 2012 / 56 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Crooked Tree

Last week’s challenge exhorted you to “Choose Your Setting.” Check out the stories.

I took that image above.

It’s a snapshot of a crooked tree in some fog (a tree that is, so you should know, no longer present — it broke and is gone). It’s maybe one of my favorite images — I’m a woefully amateurish photographer and when I take a shot that looks like something more than my intent for it rather than less, I’m always pleased.

And I think this photo has a lot of story potential.

What kind of potential? Well, that’s on you.

Horror, fantasy, literary, whatever.

You have up to 1000 words.

Post at your online domicile, link back here.

You’ve got till Friday, June 22nd, at noon (EST).

Tell us about that crooked tree, won’t you?

June 14, 2012 / 75 Comments

Two Ways To Win A Copy Of Blackbirds

I’m going to give away two mass market paperback copies of Blackbirds.

Er, first, though, watch that video up there — Book Show Book Show! I’d not seen this show before and thought it brimming with a foamy head of hilarity. And of course Danny was kind enough to review Blackbirds with equal dollops of hilarity-foam (at around the 6:15 mark).

Oh! And you can hear me talk about the book (and roadkill, profanity, elk masturbation) here.

Finally, come by the Doylestown Bookshop! Friday, June 22nd. 7pm. ‘Cause I’ll be there signing!

Okay, back to the giveaway.

I’m giving away two copies.

You’ve two ways to get one of these copies.

First way: in the comments below post your own “famous last words.” No more than 50 words, please. Your deathbed saying can be poignant or hilarious or sad or weird or whatever. My favorite will get a copy of the book. Only enter one such comment, please. If you start posting a bunch of entries, I’ll delete you and I’ll do donuts on your lawn in a garbage truck.

Second way: tweet the following —

I’d kill for a copy of BLACKBIRDS, by @ChuckWendig. Would you? http://bit.ly/LEkUP1 #carpetnoodle

That hashtag is key. So is the link (which takes folks to this very page). Only tweet this once, please.

I’ll choose someone randomly from the tweets.

You have until 9AM EST on Friday (6/15) to get in your entries.

You may enter each once time only — and yes, you can enter both.

I’ll pay for shipping if you’re in the United States.

Internationally, the shipping is on you, my friendly little ducks.

June 13, 2012 / 72 Comments

The Indie Writer Rejection Meme

That, above, is the meme.

It’s jet-skiing its way around Facebook right now.

It leaves me scratching my head. And my chin. And my nether-junction.

Let’s remove for a moment that this meme supporting indie writers has a number of misspellings — we can discount that because the list appears cribbed from this piece from Daily Writing Tips, which does not ascribe it any indie significance at all. The misspellings are from the original list. Originally I’d thought, “Ha ha, oh, the irony, some self-publisher propaganda that has — wait for it, wait for it — a passel of misspellings.” Ah, but it seems the “indie” banner has been attached only recently.

But that’s where I get lost.

Indie writers. Readers. Rejection. Support.

I’m trying to parse what these things have to do with each other.

“Great books have been rejected (but then published) so you should support indie authors because…” And here is where I start flailing about like an octopus on bath salts. Because indie authors have not been rejected? Is that somehow meaningful to a reader? “Because the reader’s opinion is all that matters. We write for you.” (As if traditional authors don’t write for readers?) So, self-publishers skip the submission/rejection process to put their books direct into the hands of readers. That’s fine, totally admirable, but that’s not cause to support anybody, is it? The motivations of the author matter? Not the story? Not the quality of the tale told? Just the motivations and business decisions?

Self-publishing is not charity.

It’s not a 6th grade trophy for participation. Readers don’t buy books by indie authors because they’re indie authors — well, I’m sure some do, but those readers are probably also indie authors themselves. Are you really hoping that readers will support you based on your decision not to tough it out in the traditional space? That they’ll “throw you a bone” because of a business choice? That, recursively, is insulting to self-published authors, isn’t it? That you should be patted on the head and given a lift because you made a different decision, not because you wrote a kick-ass book that deserves its space on all the bookshelves?

Here’s the other thing: this sends the wrong message about rejection.

It tells us rejection is bad. It’s not. Life is full of rejection. We need it. We need it for perspective. We need it to improve. Rejection isn’t always right. It rarely feels good. But it reminds us that we’re not special.

That we have to work for what we achieve.

Should we remove reviews? Because they’re a kind of rejection. Should we stop grading tests? Or trying to get jobs? Or applying for college, or scholarships, or internships? Maybe we should stop asking people out on dates and just bang a lamp or a pile of bean bags instead.

Now, you can make the argument that this meme proves how the system is fucked — how classic works meeting the Rejectionist’s Axe is proof of a broken machine. But that’s not at all what this meme suggests. Rather, these are books that made it. Books by authors who persevered and that ended up on shelves, in schools, in your hands. The very fact they exist — and have become the classics we all know and love (erm, excepting Chicken Soup for the Soul) — is proof that the system works. If these were all self-published after getting cornholed by the traditional system, hey, fine, I hear you. But these are books that the system supported. That became classics and sold bajillions out of that very system.

Sure, somebody rejected Harry Potter.

And it’s good they did.

Who knows what the book would’ve become under a different editor, different publisher? Oh, that rejection is proof that… humans are imperfect? That they don’t make perfect decisions all the time? Is the system flawed? Um. Duh? Of course it’s flawed. Everything is flawed. Nothing is perfect. No writer, no agent, no editor, no publisher. Could it be better? Sure. But that doesn’t automatically mean skipping the game just because you’re afraid you’ll skin a knee.

If anything, this meme proves that one rejection, ten rejections, two dozen rejections, doesn’t have to stop you. That you can keep on kickin’ and swinging for the fences because you only need one acceptance to make all those ugly motherfucker rejections fade into meaninglessness.

It doesn’t prove that you should be an indie author. Or that you should support an indie author.

If you want to be an indie author, go for it. It’s a path with value. But it’s not a path you take because of rejection. It’s not a path you should take because of something other traditional authors did or experienced.

You choose it because it’s right for you. Because you have the right temperament and ability. Because you want control. Because you think you’ll make better money and reach more readers.

Stop acting like the victim.

Stop making this choice based on your rejection of the “other” choice (or its rejection of you).

No more propaganda.

No more middle fingers to the “system” or its authors.

Oh —

And if you’re a reader?

Don’t support indie authors.

Don’t support traditional authors, either.

Just support good authors with good books.

WENDIGO OUT.

*peels out of the driveway in a cherry-red Geo Tracker*

June 12, 2012 / 82 Comments

The Victimization Of Lara Croft

I was hopeful. I saw the new take on Lara Croft way back when and thought, well, color me intrigued. The old Lara Croft never really spoke to me — comic book proportions, sassy British accent, short-shorts, whatever. No harm, no foul, but not the game for me. And then along comes this new reimagining — Lara Croft by way of John McClane. A rougher, tougher hero — kicked around but triumphant.

I was good with that.

I’m not so good with it now.

I refer you to this article: You’ll ‘Want To Protect’ The New, Less Curvy Lara Croft, at Kotaku.

From that article:

“When people play Lara, they don’t really project themselves into the character,” Rosenberg told me at E3 last week when I asked if it was difficult to develop for a female protagonist.

“They’re more like ‘I want to protect her.’ There’s this sort of dynamic of ‘I’m going to this adventure with her and trying to protect her.'”

So is she still the hero? I asked Rosenberg if we should expect to look at Lara a little bit differently than we have in the past.

“She’s definitely the hero but— you’re kind of like her helper,” he said. “When you see her have to face these challenges, you start to root for her in a way that you might not root for a male character.”

Well, sure. Because who could possibly relate to a — snerk, gasp — female protagonist? Better instead to assume that we’re just helping the poor dear along. Because if we don’t, well…

In the new Tomb Raider, Lara Croft will suffer. Her best friend will be kidnapped. She’ll get taken prisoner by island scavengers. And then, Rosenberg says, those scavengers will try to rape her.

“She is literally turned into a cornered animal,” Rosenberg said. “It’s a huge step in her evolution: she’s forced to either fight back or die.”

Ah! See, there it is. If we don’t act as her helper, we’ll “help” her get raped.

Aaaaaand then killed.

As a storyteller, this is troubling on a number of levels — that we humanize a female character by making her weak, by forcing her into the role of the victim. I’m not saying there’s not a mode for a story where a woman fights off brutal male attackers and triumphs against them. There is. I’m also not sure that Tomb Raider is it. Especially since we had a character who was shallow, yes, but she was also a wealthy confident ass-kicker who brooked no bullshit. She wasn’t a potential sexual bullseye for a bunch of island thugs. Is this our current idea of a strong female character? A bloodied victim? An abused teen girl? Is there no middle-ground between “super-bazoomed comic book heiress” and “survivor of torture porn island adventure?” Can’t we scuff her up but keep the rape out of it? And can’t we come to her being a strong relatable character not because she’s a woman, not despite the fact she’s a woman, but regardless of it?

As a human fucking being, this is troubling on one particular level: that all women can hope for is to get out alive and, y’know, unraped. We already approach rape in this culture like it’s a pothole in the road you need to avoid — as if the power to not get raped is solely in the hands of the woman. As if the onus of responsibility is not at all on the scum-fuck rapists. It always seems to be a message of How Not To Get Raped as opposed to How Not To Be A Shitty Fucking Rapist. Nobody’s saying women shouldn’t learn to be strong and protect themselves — but it’s not a woman’s responsibility not to get raped.

And yet, that’s what this Tomb Raider appears to be saying.

This doesn’t make her bad-ass.

It doesn’t make her or the situation “more real.”

(As if that’s what games like this need — a hard high dose of rapey reality.)

It doesn’t improve her or make her stronger.

It goes too far. It pushes too hard. It weakens her deeply.

We cannot “relate.” We need to “help” and “protect” her.

We turn her human by “literally” making her a “cornered animal?”

All this says some very scary things about how we look at women, I think.

(A caveat: this is based on this one article and some game footage. For all I know, the game will come out and not be this at all — but by all indications, we’re in for some trouble with this one.)

(Also check out this post by Kat Howard.)