{"id":23358,"date":"2014-05-14T06:51:56","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T10:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=23358"},"modified":"2014-05-14T06:51:56","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T10:51:56","slug":"c-robert-cargill-the-36th-chamber-of-wri-tin-or-welcome-to-the-wizards-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2014\/05\/14\/c-robert-cargill-the-36th-chamber-of-wri-tin-or-welcome-to-the-wizards-tower\/","title":{"rendered":"C. Robert Cargill: The 36th Chamber of Wri-Tin (Or: “Welcome to the Wizard\u2019s Tower”)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cargill’s one of those writerly bad-asses you hear about. Disgustingly talented, show-offingly able to jump from talking about film (Ain’t It Cool News) to actually writing films (Sinister) to writing books (Dreams & Shadows). We should probably throw things at his head or, failing that, actually listen to what he has to say. Let’s try the last one first, see how that goes. Here he is to talk about the writer’s career and how it leads to his newest, Queen of the Dark Things.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I was 11 years old, my parents signed me up for self-defense classes. I was your typical nerd\/geek\/dork hybrid with a loud mouth, few social skills, and had sprouted up half a foot taller than my classmates a few years too early, making me the perfect target for any bully worth his salt trying to make a name for himself. \u201cHey! You with the book! Get over here!\u201d My parents were tired of me losing so often, so they dragged me to the nearest gym and signed me up. What they didn\u2019t know was that they weren\u2019t signing me up for any mere \u201cself-defense\u201d course. They were signing me up for Shotokan Karate, taught by a traditionalist master who had come back from \u2018nam with a knee shredded by a bullet which he\u2019d had rebuilt after being told he\u2019d never walk without a cane again before recovering and becoming one of the highest ranking Shotokan black belts in the United States.<\/p>\n

Yeah. He was a bad ass. And I got a lot of life lessons out of that guy. A LOT of life lessons.<\/p>\n

The first thing he taught me came on the very first day of class. \u201cEvery week there\u2019s some knucklehead who walks in here thinking he\u2019s going to be Bruce Lee after a couple of lessons,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd every week that guy leaves after a few classes pissed off because I wasn\u2019t good enough of a sensei to do that. So if you\u2019re the guy who thinks he\u2019s going to wake up fighting like Bruce Lee tomorrow morning, the door is over there. Leave now and don\u2019t waste my fucking time. If you stick with this for a few weeks, I\u2019ll teach you how to throw a decent punch. Stick around for a few months and you\u2019ll be able to hold your own in a bar fight. Stick around for a few years and I\u2019ll teach you things to make sure you never have to lose a fight again\u2026or even have to fight one to begin with. But Bruce Lee? Almost no one ever gets that good, and when they do, it takes a lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was right. I never became Bruce Lee. But I stopped losing fights and eventually had won enough \u2013 and learned enough \u2013 that I never had to fight again. And 25 years later, I still haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I mention all this because every few weeks or so I run across an impatient young writer asking for advice about publishing. When pressed about their desperation, their response is almost universally the same. \u201cI need my career to start now, not a year from now,\u201d they say. \u201cI\u2019ve got bills to pay and I don\u2019t want to wait for success. A year is a long time! And it could take even longer than that! That\u2019s just the average!\u201d When you ask them who they want to be, they rarely answer small. Sure, you\u2019ll occasionally run across someone who says, \u201cOh, just a mid-lister with a respectable following that has to work part time to pay the bills.\u201d But most of the time you hear \u201cI want to be the next George R.R. Martin! Or J.K. Rowling! Or Neil Gaiman! Or Kurt Vonnegut! Or Charlaine Harris! Or Stephanie Meyer! Stephen King! Isaac Asimov! Kim Harrison! Ray Bradbury! Brandon Sanderson!\u201d<\/p>\n

You know. The bestsellers. The kung fu masters. The grand wizards. Bruce. Fucking. Lee.<\/p>\n

Almost none of those names hit the jackpot with their first book. And none of them did it overnight. Few writers that get early, big success actually maintain that notoriety and position for long periods of time. And there\u2019s a reason for that. The career of a writer isn\u2019t analogous to that of any other entertainer; it is its own beast entirely.<\/p>\n

In other entertainment careers, one great season, hit single, album or movie can make your career. But athletes only get from their teen years to their early thirties to make their mark. Same goes for pop stars and actresses. Actors and Rock Stars tend to start a little later \u2013 in their late 20\u2019s \u2013 and get until their early 40\u2019s to try and make it. And you can count on one hand the number of people who ever make it past those limits. But writers? Writers are different.<\/p>\n

Writers are more like Kung Fu masters or fantasy wizards. We\u2019re all genre fans here. Think about every great martial arts or fantasy epic you\u2019ve ever seen or read. How does it start? Someone kicks in the gates of the martial arts monastery\/wizard school\/MFA program at age 19, fresh faced, full of piss and vinegar, ready to show the masters what for, and they declare at the top of their lungs \u201cI am going to be the greatest kung fu master\/wizard\/writer who has ever lived!\u201d And the students around them all laugh. The teachers roll their eyes. But the long bearded master in back, the one everyone fears, who passes down nuggets of wisdom wrapped in enigmas, who has battled countless foes, slain numerous dragons, published bestselling epic tomes of repurposed bronie slash-fic in iambic pentameter \u2013 he just strokes his beard, smiles and mutters \u201cWe shall see, young one. We. Shall. See.\u201d<\/p>\n

You see, the master knows that every Kung Fu master\/wizard\/writer has kicked those doors in saying the exact same thing. Sure, most that try fail, give up, get a day job while dreaming of what might have been \u2013 the styles they might have bested, the dungeons they might have purged, the awards they might have won, movies and TV series they might have spawned. But the ones who stick around learn that no master becomes so overnight. First they have to learn how to throw a decent punch or magic missile. Then they learn how to hold their own in a bar fight\/tavern brawl. Soon, after years of practice, they learn how to win most of the fights they get into. And it is only then that their legend begins to grow.<\/p>\n

The career of a writer isn\u2019t about one fight or one dragon; it is about a career full of fights and dragons. Of victories and defeats. Of good books and bad. Of acceptance and rejections. Bestsellers and flops. Cancelled television shows and movies put into turnaround. It is about getting into anthologies only to find your name on the cover listed as \u201cand many more!\u201d It is about doing that for a few more years until your name actually makes the cover of the anthology\u2026as filler between more recognizable names. Soon, if you keep writing, keep publishing, your name *is* one of the recognizable ones on the cover. And after a decade or two of work, your name might even make top billing. But not right after your first fight, or zorching your first skeleton, or writing your first novel.<\/p>\n

Unlike almost every other entertainment career, age is not your enemy, but your ally. There\u2019s a reason the New Yorker publishes its \u201c20 under 40\u201d and not \u201c20 under 20.\u201d The fresh faced martial artist or wizard isn\u2019t the one to be feared or admired \u2013 it\u2019s the wizened old bearded one in back, chuckling to himself. It\u2019s not the 16 year old George Raymond Richard Martin who bought the first ticket to the first comic con in 1964 and frequently wrote letters to the editor at Marvel and articles for fanzines; it\u2019s the George R.R. Martin who fifty years later, despite losing out on many of the major awards he\u2019s been nominated for, who despite writing for short-lived TV show after short-lived TV show, whose novel A GAME OF THRONES didn\u2019t become a #1 NYT bestseller until 15 years after publication, who has a backlist so long that virtually no one reading this has read it all, who can\u2019t even attend comic con anymore without a security detail just to get from one side of a room to the other. It\u2019s the Stephen King who was bagged on by critics for thirty years until he had written so many good bestsellers that they couldn\u2019t argue with the mound of success he was standing on and had to declare him one of the greatest – not only of his generation, but of all time. It\u2019s the Isaac Asimov with his name on over 500 books. Full stop.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s<\/em> the guy you watch out for.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s<\/em> Bruce Lee. Wong Fei-Hung. Fong Sai-Yuk. Gandalf. Merlin. Morden-fucking-kainen. Being a writer isn\u2019t about writing one great book. It\u2019s about writing 20 good ones\u2026and maybe three or four great ones\u2026if you\u2019re lucky. That\u2019s the job. That\u2019s the career. It requires patience. It requires devotion. It requires decades of sleepless nights curled into a ball asking yourself what the everloving fuck you are doing with your life. There\u2019s nothing wrong with wanting to be that kung fu master, to be that wizard. You just have to think about it that way.<\/p>\n

Blazing a career as a writer isn\u2019t about where you\u2019ll be next year; it\u2019s about where you\u2019ll be in five, ten and twenty. Are you a talented 16 year old with your own ideas for becoming the next George R.R. Martin? What are you doing for the next fifty years? Because *that\u2019s* what you need to be thinking about. No career requires nearly as much devotion and time to develop, but none pays out such dividends for so long either, or affords so many chances to get it right. Maybe, if you\u2019re lucky and play your cards right, some day you too might have fans walk up to you on the street and ask you not to die until you finish your latest opus. But you\u2019ve got time; you\u2019ve got a lot of living to do between now and then. A lot of fights to win, dragons to slay, knees to get shredded in \u2018nam. That\u2019s the career you\u2019re embarking on.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the monastery. We all want to be Bruce Lee here. And that\u2019s okay. But if you\u2019re not ready to put in the time, if you think it is going to happen overnight, the door is over there.<\/p>\n

C. Robert Cargill: Website<\/span><\/a> | Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Queen of the Dark Things: Amazon<\/span><\/a> | B&N<\/span><\/a> | iTunes<\/span><\/a> | Indiebound<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cargill’s one of those writerly bad-asses you hear about. Disgustingly talented, show-offingly able to jump from talking about film (Ain’t It Cool News) to actually writing films (Sinister) to writing books (Dreams & Shadows). We should probably throw things at his head or, failing that, actually listen to what he has to say. Let’s try […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-64K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23358"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23361,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23358\/revisions\/23361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}