Chuck Wendig: Terribleminds

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August 13, 2012 / 4 Comments

The Return Of Painting With Shotguns

It’s Monday, and Monday cares little for order. Monday is a child of chaos.

Monday is a typhoon. Monday is birdshot. Monday is broken glass.

Here, then, is just a crazy slapdash pile of things shoved into a cannon and shot into your midsection.

CHOOM.

• Bait Dog: An Atlanta Burns Novel is available. Did I tell you that already? I did, I know. Shut up. No, you shut up. No, your blouse is ugly. Pssh. PFFT. Anyway. You can check out the buy links here, and the book will only be $2.99 until Wednesday, so, get it now. Or I’ll send Atlanta Burns to your door with her squirrel gun. Oh. Also. If you’re interested in a softcover copy of the book, lemme know in the comments, yeah?

• I made a “golden syrup” the other day. Two cups of sugar (good sugar, like demerera or turbinado) in one cup of water. Boil. Throw in the juice of one squozen lemon. Boil for five minutes. Then scrape into it the seedy figgy floral delight of one vanilla bean. Take the bean hull, shove it into a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar. Pour over own hand. Eat own hand and revel in the delight. Or, y’know, waffles and ice cream instead. WHATEVS. I don’t own you.

• This is a super-lovely review of the next Miriam Black book, Mockingbird. Graeme’s Fantasy Reviews gives the book 9.5/10 stars, and says of the book: “Wendig plumbs real depths of bleakness and horror to bring us the world that Miriam must negotiate. It’s a world that we all know is there and one we are secretly glad that we can put down when the book is done; no-one would want to live with what Miriam has to. The way Wendig presents it though makes for nothing short of compelling reading, a book that eclipses ‘Blackbirds’ in its determination to head to new depths for the sake of a good story. Wendig knows that his readers deserve nothing less. If you’re waiting for ‘Mockingbird’ then take it from me, you’re in for a bit of treat. If you’re not waiting for ‘Mockingbird’, well… you should be.”

• I’m closing in on the final third of Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits. I’ve since had one god lovingly describe the vagina of his goddess lover, and I’ve had another character describe the versatility of his penis. It’s now clear that something is wrong with me. Or oh-so-right. But probably really, really, wrong. Oh, the book’s up for pre-order and has a cover.

• The ever-lovely Dawn Nikithser of the Bookshelf Bombshells tackled the Double Dead sequel, Bad Blood, in this review, saying: “I am pretty sure that, if given the opportunity, Coburn would smack the shit out of Bill Compton with Eric Northman, puree them both into a nice slurpy snack, and then pick his teeth with the smoking shards of Edward Cullen.” Best description of Coburn ever.

• Updated Worldcon/Chicon schedule: Friday (31st), New Pulp panel at 10:30AM; Friday, a book signing at the Book Cellar with Gwenda Bond, Kim Curran, and Adam Christopher at 7pm; Sunday (2nd), a Mockingbird reading at 10AM, followed by a signing at 10:30 (lasts till noon). And for the rest of the time, I’ll be tottering around drunk and confused.

• I quite like this review of Blackbirds, in which Ivan Ewert says, “I found it to be a story of redemption, of the triumph of human effort; although that triumph is painful and hard-won.” And, “Wendig writes in car-crash prose, swift and sharp. The sentences hook you and pull you along at a breakneck clip.”

• Books I’ve read recently that you may want to read? Paul S. Kemp, The Hammer and the Blade (which made me want to run out and get wrapped up in a D&D game post-haste); Greg Rucka’s Alpha (uhh, hello, Die Hard at Disneyland?); am in the middle of the very delightful The Rook by Daniel O’Malley (supernatural spy happenings both very scary and quirkily funny). Oh, also, John Hornor’s This Dark Earth, a very literary zombie novel — though, still piled in heaps and bundles of delicious gore.

• Hey, Stephen Blackmoore’s Dead Things is up for pre-order. I read this book last year and it was one of my favorite reads. If you’re a fan of Jim Butcher — or, perhaps, of mine — then you want a copy of this book.

• New Mockingbird excerpts are releasing up at This Is How You Die, but I’ll pop the first week’s up here, below. Check ’em out, won’t you? (Features light Blackbirds spoilers.) Click to embiggenate!

• Aaaaand, finally, the Mockingbird fan-art contest has its first three entries. Remember: looking for anything at all. Fine art. Photography. Cooking. Music. Video. Craft. Graphic Design. The visuals:

 

 

Miriam Black, by Alan Smithee

 

by David Grigg

 

by Amber Love and Smash

August 10, 2012 / 57 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: “The Opening Lines, Revealed”

Ahem, ahem.

Hear ye, hear ye.

Here are the three opening lines I’ve chosen:

Brendan Gannon: “Everyone else remembers it as the day the saucers came, but I remember it as the day a man in a suit shot my father.”

Joe Parrino: “Three truths will I tell you and one lie.”

Delilah Dawson: “Thursday was out to get me.”

This was, as so many contests here are anymore, a tough one to pick. Nearly 200 entries (!) and many of them good. (Though, pro-tip: bad spelling and/or typos will never help you win here.)

Here’s roughly what I ended up looking for:

I wanted lines that told multiple potential stories. Meaning, a writer could read it and find a world of stories coming out of that one line — not just the one obvious one, say. Some lines were very specific to a genre or to an event and so I hesitated using them, despite their inherent awesomeness. The exception here might be the “saucer” one, but it was so cool I had to use it. Don’t judge me.

So, the three who won:

Contact me, I shall hook you up with a copy of Bait Dog.

(Bait Dog is now available, by the way. Just $2.99 until next Wednesday. Plug, plug, hint, hint.)

Everybody else:

You’ve got 1000 words.

Write a story using one of the above opening lines.

Due by Friday, Aug 17th, at noon EST. Post online, link in the comments.

You know the drill.

August 9, 2012 / 5 Comments

Andrew Shaffer: The Terribleminds Interview


He’s Andrew Shaffer. And he’s EvilWylie. And Emperor Franzen, and Fanny Merkin, and Keyser Soze, and also, a sentient cloud of hilarious nano-particles. Under the pen name “Fanny Merkin,” Shaffer’s the dude behind the smash 50 Shades of Grey parody, Fifty Shames of Earl Grey. Here he sits for an interview at Jolly Old Terribleminds. Find him at his website, evilreads.com, or at Twitter as @andrewtshaffer.

Why do you tell stories?

To entertain. I’ve always been more of a court jester than a troubadour.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

I wrote for about ten years solid before I found my own voice. If I could go back in time, I might tell myself to stop pretending to be something I clearly wasn’t (a serious literary novelist), and write the kind of books I enjoyed reading (genre and nonfiction).

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

“Write what you know.” I think this advice works on some levels—it’s difficult to write convincingly about a breakup or a family death if you’ve never gone through those situations—but I’ve too often heard it used to steer a writer into writing something “personal” to them. “If you’re a truck driver, write fiction about truck drivers! Look at what Grisham did with his experience as a lawyer!” I think that’s kind of shit advice, at least for me. I like to write about things I have no clue about, because I enjoy the research. Writing is a wonderful way to expand your own worldview and experience life through other sets of eyes.

What goes into writing a strong character?

For a long time, I was stuck on the idea that a “strong character” meant a “flawed character.” Thus, I wrote several novels (all unpublished) with protagonists who were fucking crippled by their vices, criminal behavior, self-loathing, etc. My writing was weak, because the “heroes” were weak. Now, I’m more inclined to say that a strong character is simply one who acts. I could care less about how three-dimensional a character is these days. God, I sound like a television producer…

Bonus round: give an example of a strong character.

Buck Schatz in Daniel Friedman’s “Don’t Ever Get Old.” Buck is a foul-mouthed, 87-year-old ex-detective. Would I want to spend time with him in real life? No. Do I want Dan to write another Buck Schatz book? Absolutely.

The Fifty Shames Of Earl Grey has a… rather curious (and quick) path into existence. Tell us about it, or I will break your legs.

While I was live-tweeting a review of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” I joked I would write a fanfic of the series. That turned into a parody that mashed up “Fifty Shades” and “Twilight.” At the time, “Fifty Shades” had only sold 100k copies–a nice number, but no one knew it would blow up to become the biggest book in the world. Still, after “Fifty Shades” sold to Random House, my agent asked if I could quickly finish the manuscript so she could shop it. I told her it was half finished, but I think I maybe only had 5k out of a proposed 40k words at that time. I told her I would have the entire thing in her inbox in a week. It was an ambitious schedule, but I was in the midst of a nonfiction book I’d been working on for over a year, so it was like a vacation of sorts. Fueled by Red Bull and angst, I wrote the book. My agent sold it. And then I spent two months editing it.

What’s the trick to writing satire/parody? (And, is there a difference between parody and satire as you see it?)

A parody (or spoof) usually lampoons a specific thing. The “Scary Movie” films mocking “Scream” and horror films are a great example. Satire, I think, uses humor to make constructive criticism of some aspect of society. Although “Fifty Shames of Earl Grey” is billed as a parody, it’s more like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Underneath the “Fifty Shades” and “Twilight” gags is a very serious critique of the culture that gave birth to a bestselling fanfic starring a rich CEO and a submissive virgin.

The “trick” to writing a parody is to have some level of respect or interest in the underlying material. Although I didn’t like “Fifty Shades of Grey,” I read a lot of romance and erotica, which is what drew me to “Fifty Shades” in the first place. There are some other “Fifty Shades” parodies out there that seem to come from a very negative place that indicts all “dirty books” in a very mean-spirited way, and (at least according to Amazon and Goodreads reviews), those other parodies miss the mark badly. Likewise, a satire is best written by someone who is optimistic that society can improve.

Any thoughts on the existence and success of Fifty Shades of Grey? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Eff that ess in the bee?

As a critic, I was not impressed with “Fifty Shades of Grey” — if only because there are some fantastic erotica writers out there that’s been ignored by the mainstream for years. Having said that, it’s been great for erotica so far. There are some filthy books trickling into places like Walmart and Target, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. People who haven’t read books in years have also been picking the “Fifty Shades” books up, so who am I to tell them they’re picking up the “wrong” ones? I was very cautious not to mock “Fifty Shades” fans or readers in my parody. In fact, one of the central questions in the book is, “Why be ashamed of what we like?”

Speaking of satire/parody, you are a many with a couple-few parody Twitter accounts. EvilWylie, Emperor Franzen. Any we’re missing? Where’d these come from? And why?

Eh, there’s a few more (@ZombieFreeMom), but I tend to stop using an account if it doesn’t take off. Parody Twitter accounts are just a way to flex my writing muscles. The @EvilWylie account as a parody of agent Andrew Wylie, but now it’s just a place for me to say all the terrible things I want and pass them off as jokes. I think of Evil Wylie as the Loki of the publishing world: an agent of mischief.

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

Tiffany Reisz’s Original Sinners books (“The Siren” is out now) are ridiculously great. And I’m not just saying that because we’re dating. I recently finished reading the second book in her series, “The Angel,” and the way that she manipulates the reader is simply sadistic.

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

I recently came across the word, “la foutromanie,” a French word coined in the 18th century that translates as, “fuckomania.” I don’t know if it’s my “favorite” word, but it’s one I made a mental note of and return to from time-to-time. As for curse words, “fuck” is probably still my favorite. I use it sparingly in my writing, though — in “Fifty Shames of Earl Grey,” for instance, I use it just twice. I like to treat it as a sacred word.

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

This would have been an easy question if you had asked me a couple of years ago! I would have told you about the latest beer I’d fallen in love with (always a microbrew; usually a stout). Sadly, I’ve had to scale back my alcoholic consumption immensely. I still enjoy a glass of fine absinthe now and then, mostly as an aesthetic pretension.

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

I don’t know if I would necessarily side with humanity. My choice would depend on a number of factors. What’s the likelihood of robots winning this war? Does supporting the robot faction help avoid greater losses of life in the longrun? And how advanced and good-looking are female robots?

Regarding the Robot War, let’s assume that all robots hate all meatbags, and you are, unfortunately, a meatbag. Now what?

In the previous question about choosing sides, I was, of course, planning to defect to the side of humanity the entire time. My answer was part of a long con, but if you’re making me choose sides right now, you’ve ruined my status as a double-agent. If I was fighting on the sides of the meatbags, I could provide some comic relief in the trenches. “Q: Why did the robot cross the road? A: Because that’s how it was programmed.” Give me some time, I’ll come up with something better though.

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

My next project is a nonfiction book called “Literary Rogues: A Scandalous History of Wayward Authors” (www.literaryrogues.com). It traces the drunken, drugged-out author myth from Lord Byron to Hemingway to Hunter S. Thompson. I started working on the book nearly two years ago, and it will be published in February 2013 by Harper Perennial. I have a few more projects in progress, both fiction and nonfiction. They’re all at the single-cell stage right now.

August 8, 2012 / 13 Comments

Bait Dog Is Scratching At The Door, Waiting To Be Let In

Bait Dog is here.

After a successful Kickstarter, the book is out and ready to be gobbled up by everyone else. Right now, the price is $2.99, but that’s just for one week — next Wednesday, price goes up by a buck, maybe two.

Let’s just get your procurement options out on the table.

Amazon (US).

Amazon (UK).

Barnes & Noble.

Or, buy direct using the link below. I’ll send you the files directly if you buy in this fashion, and you’ll get all three versions — PDF, MOBI, and EPUB. I try to send quickly, but PayPal can be slow to send out notifications, so give me  24 hours before you come knocking at my digital door. (But, if you don’t get the files by then, do come knocking. Contact form above will do you right.)

…


…

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…

The Book Itself

“If you like very human protagonists who kick ass, if you want to see true evil punished, if you love your pets, Bait Dog is for you. Know going in that it’s going to hurt. Remember that the hurt will be worth it. Take a deep breath, and dive in.” — from Josh Loomis’ review at his blog (click here to read the rest).

This book contains both the novella Shotgun Gravy as well as the follow-up novel, Bait Dog. Total size, if that’s a thing that matters to you, is around 90k — 25k for the novella, 65k for the novel.

The novel features the continuing adventures of our troubled teen protagonist — a little bit vigilante, a little bit detective — Atlanta Burns. It’s about how, by trying to avoid solving her friend’s murder, she runs head-first into it. It’s about how looking into the death of a sweet little dog she exposes a dog-fighting ring. It’s about companionship and sacrifice. It’s about the wrong way to a right thing.

It was a hard book to write.

Not hard in the day-to-day. In that, the words came fast and plentiful. But the subject matter is tough stuff. I don’t know much about the value of trigger warnings, but this book probably has ’em, so be warned.

It tackles rough stuff. Dog-fighting ain’t pretty. Bullying is awful. White supremacy is an epidemic. Gay rights and being a teen and being a girl and violence and abuse and —

Well. It’s a kettle set to boil over.

Though, I tried to find hope in here, too. And humor. Always humor. I think a book like this needs that lightness. Flinty humor and awkward situations. From Shane and his flea market katana to Atlanta’s mother trying to cook when she damn well shouldn’t to Whitey and his — well, I guess I’ll let you meet Whitey all on your own. But I love Whitey. I love Whitey with all my heart.

This is a book I love deeply, featuring characters I feel strongly about for good and for bad. I don’t know that it’s a good book but it’s the book I wrote and I’m damn glad I wrote it.

This is also my first attempt at putting novel-length fiction up in the self-publishing space. The book was, to my mind, a raging success on Kickstarter — it was 100% funded in under 10 hours, and ended up scoring over 200% in its funding by the end of its run. I hope it’ll do well out there. We’ll see, I guess.

Point is, I hope you’ll take a look.

If You’re Not Gonna Nab It

…then, no worries.

I’d still appreciate you boosting the signal a bit, letting people know.

Further, given that this is a book orbiting a lot of issues, maybe consider donating to an appropriate charity?

Maybe donate to your local animal shelter. Or a rescue group. Or the Humane Society or ASPCA. Or Dogs for the Deaf. Or Guide Dogs of America. Or HALO Animal Rescue. Or the Millan Foundation.

Or, if you prefer something a little more people-focused…

The It Gets Better Project, or the Trevor Project.

Bait Dog is a fictional tale, but it focuses on some very real issues. Charity helps.

At the very least, hug your pets and be good to your friends.

Thanks, everybody. Hope you check out the book and enjoy.

August 7, 2012 / 83 Comments

25 Ways To Survive As A Creative Person

1. Give Yourself The Gift Of Time

Creativity does not live in a cave inside your head. That shit’s gotta come out and play. It has to splash in rain puddles. It has to climb trees. It has to build a ground-to-air star-exploding laser out of Duplo blocks and a repurposed iPhone. You need to give yourself the time every day to do the thing that you want to do. Our days and nights get crowded as life bloats and swells to fill the spaces, so you have to — have to — push all that aside with a barbaric yawp and give yourself the time to be creative.This is both in the day-to-day and in the “scope of your entire life” sense — in the day to day, you need time with your creativity. And in the long term, your creativity needs that time to get bigger, get weirder, get more awesome. Plants need water. Alpacas need food. Creativity needs time. We’re all dying. Fuck stagnation. High-five creation.

2. Work Shit Jobs…

You will survive by working shit jobs. That’s the nature of the beast. You don’t start out a fruitful creative person sitting on a throne made of fat stacks of greenbacks earned from your artistic endeavors. Unlikely to happen. You’re going to push a broom, sling some coffee, type eye-blistering numbers into a mind-numbing, soul-melting spreadsheet. This is how you eat in the beginning. This is how you pay rent.

3. …But Always Keep Your Eye On The Prize

That shit job is also how you get the motivation to think, You know, I don’t want to be doing this when I’m 50, and so I’d better learn how my creativity starts earning out. It’s a necessary part of the equation. Always look forward. Always have that end game, that exit strategy. Know where you’ve hidden the seat ejector button. Work a shit job long enough, it’ll start to feel like second nature. It starts wearing the mask of a career instead of a temporary pit-stop where you do something shitty so as not to die hungry in your parents’ basement. You’ve gotta keep your eye of the tiger on… well, on the tiger, probably? Because the other tiger will eat you? So you have to be the bigger tiger? I don’t know. Shut up.

4. Make Your “Oh-Face” And Reach Project Climax

Creativity demands creation and creation is more than just a few blobs of clay smacked together into something resembling half-a-dick. (Or, for the ladies, a partial vagina.) You gotta go whole-dick. You gotta go full-vagina. Creation means completing that which you begin. Even if you don’t finish it as strongly as you hoped, completing a project has untold, unexpected rewards — both in terms of massaging the prostate of your soul and in terms of offering real concrete benefits (for instance, you will not make any money off an unfinished project). Start small. Easier in the beginning to bring smaller entities to fruition. But don’t stay small. Always go bigger. Always change the game. And always finish.

5. Pay Even One Bill With Creative Work

The true revelation of your creative career is paying even a single bill with the money earned from an artistic endeavor. Buy yourself a cup of coffee. A meal. A cell phone bill. Holy shit, a mortgage. That’s when it all starts to feel real. That’s when it feels like more than just a couple of ghosts fucking each other way up in the clouds, out of sight. Make it tangible, even in a tiny way. It’ll give you a bonafide Mind Boner.

6. A Little For You, A Little For Them

Not all creative work is a Fred Astaire dance routine with an umbrella. It isn’t all smiles and satisfaction. It can feel just as heart-destroying as that spreadsheet (and creative work can still involve spreadsheets). Here’s how you get through it: first, recognize that it’s better than cleaning up some kid’s puke at Wal-Mart, or waiting tables at Applebee’s, or harvesting centaur ovaries for your evil pharmaceutical masters. Second, for every one project you do for someone else, give yourself one. One just for you.

7. Understand The Nature Of Satisfaction

It’s critical to have a realistic picture of creative happiness, because an unrealistic one will skin you like an eel. Know this: every day is not a child-like romp through a twilit park with sparklers and giggles and a puppy running at your feet. Some days are you, punching yourself in the face. Some days are the equivalent of hot crotch-coffee. Some days are the opposite of an epiphany — they’re like giant creative nadirs, where everything runs downhill into the diseased mouth of a mangy raccoon. But the overall scope of one’s creative life should be one of satisfaction. If you can see yourself doing something other than the creative thing you’re doing: hey, fuck it, do that instead. Life ain’t getting longer, hoss.

8. Enjoy The Process And The Product

You hear once in awhile that some artists love the finished product but hate the process. Or love the process but hate the finished product. To which I say, fuck that right in its briny blowhole. To really survive — and, ideally, to thrive — it pays to enjoy both. Again, that doesn’t mean every day and every creation is an A++ jizzplosion of delight. It just means that both should overall be rewarding in some way.

9. Embrace Healthy Emotions

Learn to work through all the emotions. Some days you’ll be sad. Some days you’ll be so frustrated you want to headbutt a hole in the universe and let it all drain out. Some days are lazy, others are muddy. Headachey! Bemusement! Amusement! Giddiness! You can’t rely on feeling good to work. You have to learn to work under all the emotional conditions your body and mind and soul provide. (Note: this applies to healthy emotions. Sometimes creative people are beholden to unhealthy emotions. You need to deal with those on your own terms. Otherwise, your artistic faucet won’t offer anything but a quivering, syphilitic drip.)

10. The Many-Headed Hydra Of Creative Possibility

Explore multiple creative outlets. Your mind isn’t just one muscle — even the tongue appreciates many tastes upon its bumpy surface. Creativity doesn’t just want to make words, or paint canvases, or perform interpretive dances about the slash-fic love affair between Alf from Melmac and Worf from ST:TNG (oh, Alf-Worfers, your romantic due diligence never fails to impress). Creativity has many heads. Do other things. Cook. Write poetry. Take photos. Give yourself a paint enema and squat over a giant canvas.

11. But Pick A Goddamn Direction, Already

Exploring other creative outlets doesn’t mean you can do all of those at the same time. Organs and orifices tend to possess one primary purpose — we can’t eat with our assholes and ejaculate from our earholes (and thank the Dark Lord we don’t, because, ew). You can’t walk north, south, east, west all at the same. Pick a direction — a path — and walk. Words. Images. Songs. Whatever. That’s not to say you can’t change it up.  You can walk north for a while. Then east. You can train your asshole to chew bubblegum if you’re so inclined. (At least, I can. What, you can’t?) Creative people can become scatter-brained and distracted, like an upended box of crack-addicted cats. So choose a fucking direction, mmkay?

12. Behold Other Creative Meatbags

Creative people who spend no time at all with other creative people will start to feel profoundly alone. Connect with like-minded weirdos. Online. In-person. You are not a sad friendless little tugboat.

13. Ensure A Robust Support System

We can surround ourselves with people who support us, or people who vacuum out our hopes and dreams through our bungholes. Friends and family should not want to see you fail. Ah, but here’s a trick about a robust support system — it doesn’t mean you need endless, unqualified support. You need some realistic voices in there, too — people who don’t just encourage you to sit in your gestational creative omphalos without consequence or ramification but rather, people who want you to get off your ass, who want you to set realistic goals, who want to help you achieve something instead of spinning your tires in a delusional rut. We all need cheerleaders. But we also need coaches.

14. ABL

Always. Be. Learning. Our creativity is beholden to technical skills, talents, and crafts. There comes a point when you have to actually know what you’re doing. Writing isn’t just smashing words together. You have to understand how they work in the same way a plumber needs to know how pipes fit together. Painters have to know how to use their paints, their brushes. Photographers have to know what an F-Stop is, and how best to capture the golden sunset light off a naked, oil-slick buttock. You always have more to learn. Improve yourself in a training montage. Up your game. Cultivate new pseudopods of ultimate power.

15. Test Your Limits, Take Those Risks

Man, that sounds like part of the chorus of a bad 80s song from a bad 80s movie. (Probably featuring the aforementioned training montage.) Whatever. Point is, sometimes upping your game isn’t just about increasing technical aptitude. It’s about throwing caution into a woodchipper and taking some risks. It’s about writing something everyone says is unpublishable, about building something that defies logic, about pushing your talents into places you never thought they could go. Set challenges that are the artistic equivalent of climbing Kilimanjaro, or taming the Mighty Humbaba, or forcing Karl Rove and Lady Gaga to breed and then turning their resultant hell-child into a crisp and refreshing soft drink.

16. A Room Of One’s Own

You need a place to work. A desk. A studio. A place to dance. A porta-potty (aka “honey bucket”) where you quietly masturbate. Maybe it won’t be big, maybe it won’t be top-shelf space, but every artist needs a room of his own. Preferably a place with a door. A Fortress of Solitude doesn’t work if everybody can come shuffling in and out, traipsing mud on your icy crystal Kryptonian carpets.

17. Live A Creative Life. . .

God, that sounds cheesy. But fuck it, there it is. Life a creative life. The hell does that even mean? It means: be open. Exist in a way where there’s no shame over being creative. It means walk around seeing everything as a potential component of your artistic existence. Material for a story, or a song, or a poem. Or maybe it’s physical material to be incorporated into a work — pine-cones and monkey blood and a hair-weave stolen off the head of that lady at the bank. Your antennae must be set to receive, and then to transmit. Living a creative life means just being who you are, and not giving one curly little hamster pube what anybody else thinks about it. (I bet hamster pubes are like, really cute. There’s probably a whole Japanese cartoon about them. Animated hamster pubes having adventures in a forest made of kitchen appliances!)

18. Uh, But Know When To Shut It Off

I know, didn’t I just say how important it was to live a creative life and now I’m saying to turn it off like it’s a goddamn desk lamp? Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Suck it up, Squigglenuts. Sometimes you have to just… watch TV. Or pull weeds. Or sit on the beach staring at the ocean in a deep state of beer-drinking no-mind. Here’s the secret, though: our brains are slow-cookers. Sometimes you can set it and forget it. You turn off your creative brain, it’s still bubbling and broiling there in the background. The soup is still developing complex flavors while you watch squirrels fuck on your front lawn in a state of Zen-lacquered bliss.

19. Get Organized

We like to think that creativity is the product of chaos. And sometimes, it really is. Sometimes it’s about stepping on a butterfly or setting your hair on fire to see what will happen. But a lot of creativity comes out of the pragmatic. You can foster creativity and survive the rigors of a creative life by getting organized. Files. Bills. Desk drawers. Paint palette. Wine cellar. Whatever.

20. Learn To Love Failure

Failure. Never before has a thing gotten such a bad rap as failure. And why wouldn’t it? It’s failure. In a video game, failure means to fucking die, to drop into a pit of lava while the princess remains unsaved (oh, sexist video games, when will the lady plumber save the prince instead of the other way around?). You fail a class and it’s like — *poop noise* — you failed, you’re held back, time is wasted, money is lost, you suck, you stupid person. Hell with that. Failure is brilliant. Failure is how we learn. Every great success and every kick-ass creator is the product of a hundred failures, a thousand, some epic-big, some micro-tiny. We learn the right moves by taking the wrong turns. Failure should not drag you into the pits of personal despair but rather leave you empowered. Failure is an instructional manual written in scar tissue.

21. Murder Self-Doubt In Its Bed While It Sleeps

Self-doubt is unproductive. It’s heavy mud on your boots. Knock the soles against the curb, shake the mud free, and get running. Whenever you find self-doubt crawling up your pant leg and sinking its tick-like mandibles into the milky flesh of your inner thigh, don’t address it, don’t negotiate with it, don’t give it any more power than it’s worth. Just flick that little dickhead into the toilet, piss on it, then flush.

22. Know When To Hold ‘Em, Know When To Fold ‘Em

Just the same, you have to know when to quit. Not the whole enchilada — I don’t mean, stop being a creative human. I mean, you have to develop the intuition to know when a project just isn’t ready to be born. This isn’t about self-doubt; it’s about the merciless, icy resolve necessary to say, “I’ve taken a long look at this one thing I’m doing and, right now, the fucker ain’t ready to fly, yet.” This doesn’t come easy. This doesn’t come early. If you’ve only been doing this for a year, you probably don’t know your ass from a muddy hole — but as you work harder and longer, you start to know when to set some projects aside so that you can return to them when they make more sense.

23. Quit Fuckin’ Around

Obliterate distractions. Our creation is one thing in a sea of other options, and most of those other options are fucking bullshit. That’s not to say you can’t spend time reading a book or playing a game or sorting your wampum collection. But it means that when the rubber hits the road, you have to make a choice: fuck around some more, or dive head-first into the primal waters of creation. I know my choice. Do you?

24. Art Harder, Motherfucker

The work is itself purifying. And work gets you to a lot of the other things on this list. The work solves so many of work’s own ills — it’s like a self-repairing machine. So: work hard. Then work harder. Make your fingers bleed. Make your brain explode. Develop an exoskeleton calluses. ART HARDER.

25. Middle Finger To All The Bastards With Boots On Your Neck

Final note: don’t let the bastards get you down. The world is chockablock with bastards. They’re like jungle vines, these bastards. Go at ’em with a machete. A rusted one, at that, so maybe they can get tetanus. You’ll encounter bastards who say you can’t do this. Who want you to do something else. Who failed at it themselves and cannot abide the success of others. Who want to tear you apart, drag you down, make you feel like what you do isn’t yours, isn’t special, doesn’t matter. Mmmnope. Don’t let ’em in your house or your head. At the end of the day it’s you and your creations and the audience outside. Just hammer up a sign that says: NO NAYSAYING RUBBERNECKING FUCKSTICKS ALLOWED. Then get back to work.


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

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

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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

August 6, 2012 / 19 Comments

The Three-Headed Mockingbird: A Giveaway

You already know this, but Mockingbird drops at the end of the month. Available for preorder in at:

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK)

Barnes & Noble

Indiebound

In the time before release (nnngh), I want to deliver unto you a contest.

Except, I’m far too scatter-brained for one contest.

So, buckity-fuck it. Let’s do three.

Contest Numero Uno: Art For Art

Runs until: Wednesday, September 5th, 2012, noon EST.

I want to give you a full-size poster of either the Blackbirds or the Mockingbird cover.

Art by the ass-kicking Joey Hi-Fi.

(Full-size will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20″ x 30″ — probably semi-glossy)

How? I want to see some fan art.

Could be anything at all: fine art, graphic design, photography, music, video, crafts, food, whatever.

One exception: no written word. You can use words that are already written in Blackbirds or Mockingbird (for those who have rec’d an early copy), but I’m not looking for new writing.

It’s all about the art. Art for art, that’s the deal.

[EDIT: To be clear and to reiterate, I am looking for fan art. Meaning, not art from fans but art related to Miriam Black, Blackbirds, Mockingbird, something, anything tied to the story/character.]

Multiple entries okay, though you risk diluting your Original Awesomeness.

Send to me either at terribleminds at gmail, or post a link in the comments below.

If you need a mailing address, email me.

Note: I don’t own anything you do, but by submitting it to this contest you’re letting me have my way with it. I won’t sell it or anything, but I have permission to show it here and on social media.

Open to international, but if you’re not in the United States, you’ll have to pay shipping.

Contest Nummer Zwei: Books For Books

Runs until: [EDIT] Monday, August 27th, 2012, noon EST.

I want to give you a bundle of Wendigian books. All physical copies.

What physical copies, you ask?

Double Dead (trade pb). Blackbirds (mmpb). Dinocalypse Now (hardcover). Human Tales anthology (featuring my story,”The Toll”). Fireside Magazine #1 (featuring “Emerald Lakes” an Atlanta Burns story). And, finally, Bait Dog (softcover).

All devalued with my autograph, if you so choose.

How to win this?

You pre-order Mockingbird, is how.

Then you email me proof of said pre-order (a receipt of some ilk will do nicely) to terribleminds at gmail.

At noon on 8/29, I’ll pick a random winner from those who have emailed me pre-order proof.

Again: open to international participants. Those outside these 50 states will need to pay postage, however.

Contest Numbah Tree: Meat For Tweets

Runs until: Tomorrow (August 7th, 2012), noon EST.

This one is easy.

Tweet a tweet with a link to this blog post.

The Three-Headed Mockingbird: A Giveaway

Or shortened:

http://bit.ly/OKQhGJ

And make sure it has the hashtag:

#wickedpolly

The tweet can contain whatever else you want, long as it has those two things, link and hashtag.

One entry per person, if you please. Multiple tweets won’t help you.

I’ll pick three random winners tomorrow at noon to receive a free e-copy of the new Miriam Black book.

That’s it. Three things to win, three ways to win ’em.

Spread the word!

And, as always, thanks, folks. Without you guys, these books wouldn’t even exist.

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