Self-Publishing: the Red-Headed Step Child of the Writerly World

I have recently encountered a wall.  This barrier is a mass of bodies, clinging together with decaying limbs.  From their mouths, a constant stream of invectives and nay-saying streams out in a dark unguent.  On their hind-quarters, a great seal is branded.  Some bear unicorns, some a triad of stars, one a penguin, and another has a man sowing seeds.  Society has taught me to honor this wall; to kneel before it and revere its festering beauty.  They block the path to success and tell me I must join them in order to cross into the land on the other side.  It is the Promised Land they guard; its rivers flow with ebon ink and the trees are wrapped in ruffled parchment.  Each rock holds within it a dream and simply waits for a lonely wanderer to pick it up and turn it over in pursuit of discovery.

               On my side of the wall, I sit in an uncomfortable chair, scraping my dry pen against a board of slate.  It is ungainly and awkward and lacks the gleam and glitter I can see shining through the hedge of flesh.  It is, however, completely mine; mine to etch and shape and whittle down into something of my own machinations. 

               Okay… this metaphor is getting tired.  I’ve been running into a lot of people lately who are insistent that the only way to publish is via an established publisher.  I’ve been told time and time again that they can offer me so much more and do so much more for me than I could ever do myself.  However, no one ever seems to be able to tell me exactly what that “more” is.  I fully understand that by self-publishing I will be incapable of anything but a soft-release and that there will be very little buzz surrounding it.  My expectations are realistic, though, and I am looking forward to learning about marketing by doing it.  The other big offer they seem to tout more than any other is that of editing.  Now, I know that I alone cannot edit my own works.  My eyes are sympathetic to my own mistakes and nuances, after all.  But I have a great network of readily available editors… and most of them are willing to ply their trade for free. 

               Still there is a voice inside me that blathers on about how self-publishing isn’t real publishing.  After all, anyone with internet access can self-publish an e-book these days.  There’s nothing to it, really.  No one would even make you use an editor or even spell-check, for that matter.  Does this, then, strip it of its glory?  Maybe a little… but only because we are so conditioned to believe that real authors only publish through big publishing companies.  For me, it’s about complete creative control and ownership of my creations.  To a lesser extent, it’s about getting exactly what I deserve, be it good or bad.  If the book sells well, I’ll make a greater percentage than I would with a firm.  If it doesn’t sell well, I might miss out on a signing bonus (which would likely be minuscule for a no-namer like myself), but the percentage would be the same.  Therefore, I am responsible for my own success and I only have myself to blame.  In truth, it’s quite the motivator.  

GEEKHAVEN #1

As promised, here's today's web comic.  I'm not an artist... not even an aspiring artist, but I still enjoy toying about with this sort of thing. 

Literary Theory or the Lack Thereof

So, I had a pretty rough last week as an aspiring writer.  My re-write got bogged down and a few chapters seemed garbled and unmanageable.  A large contributing factor to this was a minor fight scene.  I hate writing fights so much it makes me want to punch somebody.  Most of my Creative Writing training was in Screenwriting.  You can’t really get away with saying “they fight” too often in a novel.  This particular scene was tricky in that it was two allies fighting in completely different styles, at the same time, across an open square from each other.  Timing was important for the scene’s resolution, but it just felt jumpy watching both of them strike and parry in alternating (nearly) paragraphs.  It put me in a writing funk for a few days.  I began to question my overall value as a writer. 

               I’ve been chided in the past for reading and writing primarily fantasy.  I even had a program director at my university tell me that I needed to spend some time with “real” literature and that once I did, I would realize that fantasy was trash.  This was AFTER I completed my Master’s Degree in English and was looking to focus my craft further with an MFA.  I complained a bit about this in various places (Twitter, the Panels on Pages forums, to my wife and anyone else who would listen).  Most offered intelligent discussion on the importance of overall knowledge, and the necessity to cave one’s own immediate desires in order to grow into a more desirable future self.  Just as many people supported my righteous indignation.  I only had one friend simply say, “Well, most fantasy is trash.”  I’m sorry, but unless you’ve read at least 51% of all fantasy novels and hated every one of them, you cannot make that statement.  I’ve read a lot of fantasy over the past decade.  Sure, I’ve stopped reading a few books about halfway through because they were flat or lacked originality or didn’t make me care about the characters (or the world, for that matter).  But for everyone I abandoned midstream, there were ten others I enjoyed.  Maybe they weren’t the greatest “literary” works of the modern era, but they were intelligently written with new ideas or fresh spins on old ones.  Some of them had strong, relatable characters or emotionally enveloping situations.  What’s more… I enjoyed them. 

               Now, I’ve never really cared much for literary theory and criticism.  In my graduate program, I did a study of Roland Barthes’ literary theories (mostly focusing on Mythologies and S/Z).  I won’t go into details about all his contributions to the field regarding structuralism, readerly and writerly literature, or his study of semiotics… mostly because it’s pretty boring.  Before the man had the misfortune of being hit by a truck, he had a brilliant revelation (now… this is my interpretation of his later writings, so don’t think I’m quoting him on this).  Essentially, good literature is that with the reader enjoys.  WOW!  Talk about mind-blowing.  Sadly, this would never get you through a series of courses (or even one for that matter) on literary criticism, so don’t try.  It’s just amazing to me that it took him that long to realize it.  What’s worse, too many academic types would throw this notion out as lazy. 

               I enjoy writing and I enjoy reading my writing.  I like my characters and I like putting them through the grinder.  I don’t ever expect to be included in someone’s idea of a literary canon or to be discussed in even the most fundamental 5^th grade book report, but I know people who like what I write.  And most of them aren’t even related to me.  I’ve seen a lot of buzz lately about the giant shift to self-epublishing and how it’s not a good thing because it means anyone with a story to tell now has a platform to do so.  So what?  We don’t all expect to be the next Lewis Carroll or J.R.R. Tolkien.  Heck, most of us don’t even think we’re the next Stephenie Meyer.  And so what if a lot of people put out “trash” that is a poorly written copy of Eragon*.  That just means writers will have to work even harder to make sure their work stands out from the pack.  Since when is competition a bad thing?  Sure, it’s easy to get wide-eyed and dream of selling 100,000 copies and being able to write full-time, but I’d be just as happy to see 1 person buy my book and really enjoy it (provided they then paid me the difference in sales**).

I realize these last two posts have dragged on a bit, so thanks for sticking with me.  My new computer finally arrived and I hope to have a web-comic posted this Friday.  Until then, thanks for reading. 

*Don’t copy Eragon.  It would be like making clones from clones.

** Denotes sarcasm… as opposed to the more internet-friendly :P

*** Please don’t count the number of parenthetical comments in this entry… it will just make you cry.

Dear Hipster, popularity doesn't like you either.

A disturbingly large number of my college friends were hipsters.  I won’t bother mentioning their names in this blog because they’re pretty obscure people and you probably haven’t heard of them anyway.  They would stare at me from behind their hipster glasses while wearing their hipster sweaters and drinking their hipster beverages (Code Red Mountain Dew?  I don’t know) and laugh when I talked about still liking Hootie and the Blowfish or Blues Traveler.  I remember a time when I mentioned preferring the remake of “Such Great Heights” by Iron and Wine to the original.  This was met with a response of “No.”  Not a discussion of what they preferred and why, or even a questioning of why I liked the cover… just a flat out “No, the original is better.”  Sadly, I spent a lot of time being an anti-hipster.  I avoided bands like Postal Decemberists for Cutie just because I didn’t want to be one of those douche bags that harped on and on about them.  I would listen to them if the opportunity arose, but I definitely didn’t buy their albums. 

I’ve found that readers (myself included) are much the same.  There’s a fine line between genre-preference and elitism.  I love fantasy.  It is far and above my favorite genre.  Ever since reading Elvenbane by Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton, I have had little taste for less thrilling-fare.  Does this mean I’ve avoided literature or turned my nose up at people I caught reading classics like Dickens or modern greats like Stephen King?  Not at all.  I would not have survived my Master’s program if I couldn’t make my way through a bevy of American and British literature courses.  But that doesn’t mean that I enjoyed them nearly as much as a good Eberron novel or the latest Aaron Allston Star Wars book.   

Sadly, I was lying to myself.  My literary hipsterism knew no bounds.  I spent the better part of the past ten years avoiding the Harry Potter books like the plague.  I had a college degree, after all – two of them! – why did I need to read children’s books?  Well, it turns out I needed to read them because they’re fun.  My wife had read the first of the books ages ago, but hadn’t continued the series.  She was, however, a fan of the movies.  We recently started our own little book club and decided that the 7-work set should be our first selection.  So far I’m three books in a loving it.  It’s fun reading, and sometimes I forget that reading is supposed to be fun.  It might lack Tolkien’s rich descriptions (read: wordy and lengthy), but it has fun with its characters and appeals to a much broader base than just its target audience.  The worth of a novel is something for a future entry… this one’s getting too long already.

But you know what else?  J.K. Rowling wrote a book… heck she wrote seven of them!  Not only did she finish them all; she also got them published.  It’s really easy to sit back as a reader and scoff at other’s creations.  It’s worse as an aspiring writer.  We like to lay around reading books that make us feel better about ourselves or blasting them with our Amazon.com reviews, meanwhile producing no great work of fiction of our own.  I greatly look forward to the day I can drop “aspiring” from what I call myself.  Too often, we would-be authors just dream of what it would be like to be a writer.  We have dreams and ideas, but do nothing with them.  Sure, not every one of us should be writing professionally, but either crap or get off the pot, right?  I’ve wasted away years wanting to be a writer.  Only recently have I started a daily writing schedule… something, I’m told, is a pre-requisite.  My friend Jefferson (who has a wonderful blogspot blog called the Writings of woRm) told me just last week that he’s looking forward to graduating so that he has more time for writing.  I’ve found that if you wait until you have time for something, you will never make time for it. 

So in closing:  1) Hipsters suck.  2) Read anything and everything… especially popular things to find out WHY they’re popular, they must be doing something right.  You are not yet such a great author that other works are beneath you.  3) Turn off the TV when you get home from work and write… unless it’s a Tuesday.  It’s worth skipping a night of writing to watch Biggest Loser and Parenthood.

Will Write for Food

Today’s scheduled topic has been canceled.  I realized half-way through writing a brilliant and insightful entry, that my basis was wrong.  You see, the entire thing was built on a single joke.  Unfortunately, the joke was based on misinformation and therefore not as hilarious as I envisioned.  So now I am left to wing a newer, more brilliant, and more insightful entry.

               My home town was recently blessed with a deluge of snowfall (as, I’m sure, many of your towns were).  Thanks to this, I received three days off of work and I took an extra personal day to finish up the week.  I think it goes without saying that I loved being away from the office for the better part of a week.   

               My week off allowed me to take some extra time for writing.  Actually, re-writing as I am trying to finish up my novel for an early summer release.  I’ve been creating stories for a little over ten years now, all under the same banner.  Now that I have a release deadline and publishing goal, I have become a bit more reflective on my work.  Unlike my “real world” job, the idea that my writings may never make it into a reader’s hands doesn’t really bother me.  The thought that the hours I spend in front of my computer may never amount to anything anyone in the world cares about doesn’t give me pause.  I am compelled to create.  More specifically, I am compelled to create something I want to read… something that has value to me. 

               I have scribbled down countless* notes for screenplays, graphic novels, or “real” novels that would likely be much more successful concepts than that which I choose to write.  My head is constantly spewing out ideas for shorts, parodies, and sketches, but they mean nothing.  Sure, they might be entertaining, but they lack anything beyond a clever idea or few chuckles (yeah… chuckles).  I don’t believe that I have ever finished a screenplay started simply because I thought it would be a great movie.  Even when my writers’ group enjoyed the concepts and encouraged me to continue, I never did.  My heart just wasn’t in it.

The stories I choose to write must be poured from me lest they bubble over.  I have never made a dime for my writing, and I will continue to write even if I never do.