Battle of the Nitwits

As I read far too many author blogs, one of the things that continues to bug me is how many spend time arguing with nitwits. To be clear, I’m defining nitwit as a particular kind of Internet troll who spends their time endlessly sniping at a target or otherwise running their yap in a state of self-importance/attention whoring. True, true, this defines most message board interactions, but the nitwits tend to focus on a primary target and fixate.

I’ve had my share of nitwits (fairly insulting blogs, e-mails, letters, phone calls, and message board threads dedicated to me included in the prize package) and answering their charges is simply not worth my time. I don’t care (as long as they link to me). Seriously, the first thing I ask is “who are they?” because while I don’t mind constructive criticism, not every critic is equally worth hearing from.

It’s fairly common for the newbie writer to seek to establish themselves by going after a few easy targets, whoever the perceived bad boy is (in the horror community, Nick Mamatas and Brian Keene are popular targets). These would be iconoclasts may rationalize their behavior by declaring that they simply won’t put up with the behavior of an unprofessional martinet or what have you, but it’s so regular a practice that I’ve taken to calling this the Brian Keene effect. Since the theory is that you make a name for yourselves by going after someone bigger, not smaller, take heart in the fact that you’re a target.

They know you, they read you. That’s not a relationship you’re obligated to reciprocate. People have a right to free speech, buy you are under no obligation to be given a platform in your house. The Internet is a big place, so let them go start their own blog/message board and run things their way. You don’t need to expend energy validating their opinions or otherwise giving them a platform. If you feel that their comments rise to the level of slander or harassment or threat, that’s why God created police and lawyers. Not taking up your blog space.

Unfortunately, sometimes nitwits can take over a forum. It’s funny how it takes only 2-3 prominent voices to seemingly poison a whole community. That will happen if they are allowed to dominate discussion. They can change character of board by simply posting so often they become the face of the message board. So, sometimes folks have to be asked to leave for the health of a board. It can seem unfair or even arbitrary but “you talk too much and spew little of value” can be just as abusive to folks’ sensibilities.

(To prevent this, whoever has the “vision” for said board needs to be a main voice on the board either through themselves or via their mods. In a lot of ways, the vision/voice is the main draw to the message board, which means that their mods need to not only grasp that vision, but also have the necessary people and communication skills to facilitate the discussions. Not let the nitwits run amuck.)

In the end, arguing with a nitwit only reduces you. Oh, I know it’s hard to not swing back and crush them. Lord knows, I know. Think of it this way: you swinging back at them is a no lose situation for them. Suddenly you are bringing your audience to them and when it’s the strong (read) versus the weak (not read), you are the bully. You don’t want to let the nitwits drive you to being unprofessional. And there is no reason I need to know who the members of the legion of nitwits are because you keep giving them air time. Notice none of mine were mentioned by name. Or linked to. And the Internet is a better place for it.


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Author Interview: Weston Ochse

I've been friends with Weston Ochse for a few years now and it's always great (in a "I hate you" sort of way) to watch your friends blow up. Luckily, he still remembers who I am. His novel, Scarecrow Gods, won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in First Novel, and is about to be re-released as a trade paperback by Delirium Books. All of this made for a great excuse for me to pester him with a few questions.

Continued on the FearZone.


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Who Cares What They Think

Do you know what a highlight is for me as a blogger, as a writer period? When something I write generates thought or good conversation. After my last Blogging in Black column, I received the following comment:

Hi Maurice, Dealing specifically with the comment "(and many of us live with the insecurity of fearing that we’ll one day be exposed as the frauds we secretly believe we are)". I haven't ever had this problem. Sometimes I think that I should; that the lack of this insecurity is proof of a) inflated sense of self and/or b) willful blindness to reality. But, one of the reasons I didn't study English literature in uni after having done it for A-levels/college and have no desire to do an MFA, is that I have a serious problem with the quality pronouncements of the 'They' of the literary world.

Continued on Blogging on Black.


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Fear of Success

It’s that time of year when the Broaddus compound goes through our winter/spring tradition of watching American Idol. Last year I compared the auditions week to the writing business, first from a writer’s perspective and then from an editor’s. This year I’ve decided that the current status of my career is the equivalent of A.I.’s “Hollywood Week.” My stories are good enough to make it to the next round, the judges keep me around until the last round of cuts, and maybe, just maybe, I may make it to the final 24.

Fellow author, Chesya Burke, and my wife are convinced that I suffer from what could be described as an acute case of “fear of success”-itis. The symptoms can take a variety of forms and I thought it my duty to alert my fellow writers of the various ways this condition can sneak up on them.

Continued on Blogging in Black


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Notepad Worship

At our Ash Wednesday service, He Who Would Be Head Pastor commented on the fact that I always have a notepad and how to him it personified my attempts to join in with the Holy Spirit by participating in the act of creation. I’ve been stuck on this idea ever since.

My notepad has been like my security blanket. Writers write and we never know when a great idea will hit us, so being caught without a pad and pen is like showing up naked to take a final. I have it with me all the time.

-Next to my bed in case I have an interesting dream. -It goes into the bathroom with me, cause, you know, never a wasted moment. -If I go out for the evening, I tear off a couple of sheets and tuck them into a pocket. My notepad—more specifically, what it represents—nurtures me, I nurture it.

My notepad is also my act of worship. It helps me pay attention, participating and interacting with conversation as I process my thoughts (as opposed to me turning off my brain and “looking” like I’m paying attention). He Who Would Be Head Pastor often sees his ideas mulled over in my blog. It’s the same with my other notepad friends.

Similar to the idea of the thinking bloggers meme, I have friends who I hate talking to without my notepad handy. The kind of friends who make you smarter, iron sharpening iron, just by being around them. Where even casual conversation becomes intellectual bloodsport as we challenge one another’s ideas and spark each other’s creativity. You know, those big brain friends who give you ideas for blogs even with just their throwaway lines. That’s one of the reasons I do Mo*Con. (I suspect that it must be at least mildy ego-stroking for someone to whip out a notepad and jot down a thought inspired by you).

Writing is what I do, it’s my gift. So I bring it before God anyway I can. I love working on stories at church, yes, even (especially!) the darker ones. Surrounding myself with reminders of who the ultimate Author is, whose work I join in. I’m working out my spiritual journey as much through my art as through my faith. I believe using your gifts to your fullest—and bringing yourself to Him in worship—is what pleases God.

So even when it doesn’t look like I’m paying attention, I probably am. After all, there’s a good chance this blog was jotted down during a sermon.


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We Hate Writers

November 5th, 12,000 film and TV writers walked off their jobs in order to fight for their share from profits from their work. Sure, you might not feel the impact of this strike for a while since studios tried to stockpile movies and TV episodes, but should it go on for even a few months, you surely will. The main issue is over a slice of the profits from when their words are downloaded from the Internet (especially after they got screwed after the advent of money from video). This is the context in which we’re having this conversation.

Writers are taken for granted.

We often talk about the community of writers. We pay forward the opportunities and mentoring that we’ve received along the way, and veterans often encourage newbies along. And while I celebrate any who seriously try to pursue their call to write, don’t expect me to celebrate every new non-paying market that comes along.

A recent discussion on a message board that I frequent started over a new market wanting writers to submit stories to them. Their pay rate: $7 and a copy for stories 8,000 – 12,000 words long; $10 for a novella/20,000 words.

Let me think about it this way: let’s say I take a week, a regular 40 hour work week to write a short story (I write fairly slow, so this probably isn’t far off for me to do a 5,000 word story). This includes the time it takes for me to do my research, outline the story, do an initial draft, re-write the beast at least two times, run it past my first readers, then polish it before sending it off to be cast off by editors. At my day job, my billable rate is something like $50 per hour, yet here I’m asking for 5 cents per word, basically the same rates H.P. Lovecraft was making back in his day. Now, 5 cents per word is considered professional rates by HWA and SFWA, basically the industry standard.

But a new market pops up and I’m supposed to laud their appearance because they “love” the genre. You want to love me? Pay me. I know, I know, who am I? I’m a nobody writer in the greater scheme of things. But if I’ve learned one thing in my struggle toward overnight success it’s that there comes a point when you have to think of yourself as a real writer: if you think of yourself as a professional and act as a professional, you will be thought of as a professional. And professionals wouldn’t submit to such a market (unless they were doing a friend a favor, which I’ve done, or it was for charity, which I’ve also done).

There is no ladder to climb. You don’t start off in small markets and work your way up to bigger ones. You start submitting to the largest, most prestigious, highest paying markets first (Baen’s Universe, Clarkesworld Magazine, Cemetery Dance, Dark Wisdom, Horror Literature Quarterly) and work your way down. When you/your story’s “ready” it will find its place. If I submit a story to a market paying less than 5 cents a word, then there is an obvious trade off of some sort, be it wide distribution (in the case of an Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest) or critical acclaim (Electric Velocipede, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, All Hallows). Or there are editors I simply want to work with (examples not included for fear of appearing to be sucking up).

Otherwise, good luck with your venture. Apparently whatever passed for your business model included paying printers, but why not the folks who actually produce your content? I believe in publishing well/building my resume and there are worse things in the world than not having a story published and putting it in a drawer rather than give it away. But there are still plenty of writer hobbyists who will submit to you.

So, as we settle in for late night shows in reruns, soap operas going dark (sorry Keene), and an overload of reality television shows, think about the folks who put them together. Or read a book.

(Thank God for DVR, because I have nearly 100 hours of stockpiled shows to keep me amused for a while. Otherwise, fight on my brother and sister writers!)


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Fans Scare me

Fan - an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer. Short for …
Fanatic - a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal.

Fans scare me.

Okay, scare is a strong word. I feel like Marlon Perkins on Wild Kingdom: if I stumble across fans in the wild, I don’t know how to react to them when I encounter them. They may say things like “I really enjoy your” stories, reviews, or blogs and once I get that stupid “what do I say now?” look off my face, I don’t know what to do.

It’s humbling every time. Someone took the time to invest themselves in my work. Someone’s life has been touch by something I’ve written. Not to mention that I enjoy knowing that someone has taken the time to read something that I have written, has invested themselves in my work. Do I invite them over for dinner? Develop some sort of relationship with them? Listen intently as they tell me their problems? (This might be me reacting in church facilitator mode rather than writer mode.)

This is an entirely different dilemma than dealing with critics, though both are reciprocal type relationships. On a practical level, fans are our consumers. I like to preserve some of the mystery of (for) fans. I don’t go to many messageboards (besides my own). Again, like Wild Kingdom, going to fan boards is like going to where they naturally congregate. I always fear that I’m going to go out like William Shatner in that famous Saturday Night Live skit. By the way, this has nothing to do with the fact that I’ll be at InConjunction this weekend.

Don’t get me wrong, my fans are by and large wonderful folks. Sure, I get the occasional stalker, but I don’t have to send out memos of what not to send me. No one sends me bodily fluids or notes made from newspaper clippings (which happens to friends of mine). When I make appearances, I don’t have to send out memos like “please don’t flash people” nor do I have folks wanting me to sign their boobs. No, folks typically send me tracts (the latest being from a Muslim wanting me to embrace Allah) or books and only flash me their low self-esteem (I typically end up reassuring folks that they are loved or listening to their confessions - despite the fact that I’m neither Catholic nor a priest. I guess I just have one of those faces).

Now, I was all prepared to wax eloquent about the strange, quasi-mystical relationship between artist and audience. About my theory of fanatical behavior pointing to us being wired to worship (God; a cause, be it political or otherwise; ourselves; or whatever). However, a horror writer, soon-to-be-former friend of mine (oddly enough, not Chesya) decided to breakdown my fan musings this way:

-“Keene’s fans want to be him.”
-“Wrath’s fans want to do him.”
-“Your fans … like who you hang around.”

*grumble, grumble, grumble*

By the way, Mo*Con II is just around the corner. The Microtel Inn (9140 N Michigan Rd, Indianapolis, 46268 - (317) 870-7765) still has rooms available at a reasonable rate.

*grumble, grumble, grumble*


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Friends Doings

Simon Wood continues to disgust me. Simon Janus is happy to announce that Bad Moon Books will be publishing his horror novella, THE SCRUBS. It will be available in limited edition paperback and a collector's edition hardback. THE SCRUBS takes place in a fictionalized version of the real life prison of Wormwood Scrubs in London. It's the story of Michael Keeler, a convicted killer, who volunteers to be part of the North Wing project in order to gain a pardon--except no one has ever returned from the project. THE SCRUBS will be out summer 2008.

What does this have to do with Simon Wood? His horror publications will be under the name Simon Janus, while his thrillers and mysteries will continue to come out under Simon Wood. He explains it all here. I await his latest chastising of me (“if you’d quit blogging so much, you’d get more books written. But keep blogging about me.”)

Gamasutra just ran a lengthy interview with Richard Dansky talking about writing for games.

And Alice Henderson is in a chat on the Buffy and Angel: The Authors site TONIGHT at 4pm PST/7 pm EST. Go to this site. Click on the CHAT tab, and then JOIN to chat.


And my brother was hanging out with comic, Louis C.K. He sent me a photo to rub it in my face.

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The Art of Selling Out

Today I recommend going and reading all of my fellow horror writer’s, Wrath James White, blog, Selling Watermelon: Ode to Marquis Styles. Don’t get me wrong, Marquis Styles has not seen print yet, but Marquis is submitting urban romance projects. Marquis may also gain a sister, to be named later, who will be writing paranormal romances.

Why?

(... Continued on Blogging in Black - The Art of Selling Out)


Also, my latest Intake column, No time to reflect


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WHC 2007: Day Four – Why We Almost Left Chesya at the Border Part II

Or, How the hell did you let her back into the country?

We interrupt this last scheduled WHC 2007 recap with this: Chesya blogged the conclusion to the story because she didn’t trust me to stick to the facts of the story. I guess she was afraid I’d describe in detail how she drove my van like a mad woman chased by Canadian demons, leaving us so traumatized that we just wanted to drive the speed limit without changing lanes all the way from Detroit to Indianapolis. Or, she didn’t want me relaying my fantasy of security detaining her at the border and, as we pulled away, me rolling down my window to yell “she’s muling drugs!”

I’m not even going to try to do shout outs to all the folks I met and who made the con so great for me. Just look for a few pics that I took on the photos page of my web site tomorrow morning.

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World Horror Convention 2007: Day Three – Work Day

Surprisingly enough, the longer the convention goes on, the later a start we all get. I’m sure this has nothing to do with recovering from the best Gross Out contest ever (which I was going to enter until I found out it was up against my panel. Wrath told me to either enter next year or he’s stealing my idea); or the fact that with four of us rooming together (myself, Simon Wood, Chesya Burke, and Lauren David), we weren’t falling asleep until around six in the morning. However, it’s usually Day Three that I buckle down and get down to the “business” of the con.

-panels (each year I go to fewer and fewer, usually only the ones that I’m on, should be on, or allow me to check out some folks I’m needing to network with). I was only on one panel where I basically rehashed my writing the other blog. Though I wanted to argue about things the horror market can learn from the Dark Dreams anthology series.

-pitches. Ah, the familiar mild anxiety that comes with preparing to do my novel pitches to agents and editors. Remembering the lessons of being a professional, the keys to pitches are treat it like a job interview (because it is) and rehearse your pitch before hand.

That night was the Stoker Award Banquet (read: stand around and look pretty):

And now for a quick game of non-sequitur Simon (Wood) says, because he knows how to talk to the ladies:

-“You smell like carrots.”

-“I can’t remember what you used to look like, but you look good now.”

-“If you check under your fingernails right now, you’d find little chunks of Simon.”

-“That’s a lovely fisherman’s shirt. It’s a Perfect Storm sort of shirt. I can see Marky Mark riding the waves in that. But, really, I like it.”

-“Maurice Broaddus? Who the f@&k is he?”

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World Horror Convention 2007: Day Two – Things That Did NOT Happen

-I did not ad lib an entry for the Gross Out contest in the preacher voice.

-Brian Keene didn’t ask me for forgiveness after his reading of The Resurrection and the Life.

-Wrath James White gave me no grief whatsoever about me having written a “baby momma drama” under a pen name. Nor did he follow me around the “World’s Largest Bookstore” laughing. A lot.

-I did not use the phrase “Tucking Dollars for Jesus” as an evangelism method.

-I did not flirt with Jen Orosel’s boyfriend.

-I was not sexually harassed by Drew Williams.

-Neither Rebecca Hay nor Eunice Magill decided to channel their inner Chesay and start ordering around the men in their lives. Nor was the phrase “throne of boys” used.

-Brian Keene did not autograph a copy of Lahaye and Jenkin’ The Rising for me. He then didn’t ask if he should sign under his baby momma drama pen name.

-the preacher’s voice did not rear its head again, followed by air tweaking, and the words “let me heal you.”

-I did not start yelling “Black Rage! Black Rage!” in the middle of my Diversity in Horror panel.

-I was not grinding with Jeremy Lassen.

-No one associated with me ended up at a strip club with Wrath James White.

-I did not get kissed by Gary Braunbeck and Christopher Golden

Sadly, only one of these things didn’t actually happen.

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World Horror Convention 2007: Day One – Why We Almost Left Chesya at the Border

We were lost.

Not just a little lost, but way lost. My fellow intrepid band of travelers-- Carrie Rapp, Lauren David, and Debbie Kuhn--were doing fine on our trek from Indianapolis to Toronto, but we had to stop in Detroit to pick up Chesya Burke. Unfortunately, we were once again reminded about why I really ought to invest in a GPS rather than depend on Mapquest so much.

“Carrie, why are we getting off at 8 Mile?” I asked, with only a mild tremor of panic in my voice, no matter what anyone else may tell you.

“You said ‘Let’s stop and ask for directions at the next exit.’”

“I’m sorry. Let me clarify: ‘Let’s stop and ask for directions at any other spot than 8 Mile.’ Did no one else see the movie?”

Here’s a tip you might not otherwise get, but it’s exactly the type of practical information you’ve come to expect from me: polluted Detroit air still smells better than crackhead breath. Seriously, how bad off were we when we’re taking directions from a crackhead with jazz hands? Don’t get me wrong, the man knew his city, had us back on the right track better than Mapquest or the AAA trip tik we had. Unfortunately, we then learned of our next problem.

“Chesya, do you have your passport?” I asked, ever so innocently as we neared the Canadian border.

“I don’t need a passport.”

“Do you have a birth certificate?”

“I’m here ain’t I? What’s a piece of paper gonna tell you that your eyes can’t already see.”

“How are you planning on getting into Canada?”
“I’m going to kill them with kindness. Then I’m gonna flash them my brilliant …”

“Oh, Lord. My eyes.” I screamed, fearing that she was going to bend over.

“… smile. Jackass.”

“Make no mistake, I will leave your behind at the border and go on without you.”

I knew how this was going to go. The border patrol was going to ask for our ID. She was going to go into her “do you know who I am?” routine and I was just going to assume the position and be toted off to detention, because somehow this was going to be my fault.

“Where are you from?” Indiana.

“What for?” Writer’s convention.

“Any alcohol?” No.

“Welcome to Canada.”

We didn’t even have to pull out any ID. Yes, I did lose a $50 bet about whether or not she’d get in.

On to WHC.

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Sexism and Genre Conventions?

Well, in a little over a month, the World Horror Convention convenes. This year, the Stokers Banquet is a part of the festivities, so it’s like two conventions in one. Yet some folks are dreading it, if not outright skipping it, namely a lot of female peers of mine. Actually, it reminds me of an on-going discussion Chesya Burke and I have about whether or not it’s easier to be female or black in the genre. When she asks whether I’d rather be a white female or a black male in the genre, I paraphrase Chris Rock: I’m going to ride this male thing out. So this might be an occasion of male privilege leading to male guilt.

Part of this goes back to what it means to be a professional. It’s a shame that we would even have to say “keep your hands to yourselves” as a part of professional conduct. I get that there’s a bit of the old con mentality that plays into some of this: that “what happens at a con stays at a con,” like the rest of their lives don’t matter, or at least exist outside of what is supposed to be a convention of professionals.

It’s bad enough that they still have to contend with schools of thought that believe women can’t write horror, or that vampire erotica is all they can write. Tired of the constant condescension, as if they aren’t expected to be able to speak in whole sentences. Of course strides have been made, but in a lot of ways, there is the lingering perception of the genre still being a boys club. Of that being how deals are often brokered and anthologies put together.

Their sex becomes a two-edged sword. On the one side, if they find publishing success, they become dogged by rumors of how they got their deal. On the other side, some may use their looks to sell their fiction. If you think you have to use your body, your sexiness to sell your work, maybe you can’t claim hurt when you aren’t thought of for your writing first; but all of us use what we have to our marketing advantage.

Convention fatigue sets in when women become tired of being constantly propositioned. I’ve heard disgusting tales of women being pinned in corners, elevator rides that have gone horribly wrong, and convention stalking. Is it so much a leap that women want to be seen as writers, not potential lays. The saddest part is how some of the worst behavior comes from the ones they had never guessed it would come from: their friends, their confidantes, their supposed peers.

Women, especially women horror writers, don’t need me defending them. Maybe I’m making a big deal out of a marginal problem. Though I’ve been told that were a woman to have written something like this, it would have fallen on deaf ears. We'll see what kind of discussion this generates.


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American Idol: the Editor’s Dilemma

If the American Idol auditions are like writers submitting their stories to a slush pile, then that would make the judges the equivalent of editors. I want the record to reflect that I want all of my editors to be as drunk as Paula Abdul when reading my stories (you hear that Sizemore?!? You too, Puglisi!). Let me tell you, if I had to read the equivalent of these auditions as slush, I’d be drinking, too. Heavily.

What kills me is how frivolously some people take their opportunities, though I try to take the American Idol auditions with a grain of salt since, after all, they are mostly teenagers. Here you have judges dressed like normal people and you have people showing up in costume in the name of standing out. If we want to talk about being professional, this is the same as sending in your manuscript on colored paper or sticking glitter in the envelope.

Here’s the thing, editors have a job to do. Just as the Simon Cowell et. al. are searching for the most marketable talent, editors are trying to find stories they want to publish. They have magazines, anthologies, and web space to fill and want to find the best stories to do so. They especially want to be the ones to break new talent. They aren’t the enemy and aren’t out to get you. Realize that you are not the exception: read the guidelines and submit your best work. Sure, you might get a rejection letter from them, but if you’re lucky, you will get feedback from them also. Feedback aimed at why your story didn’t work for them and how you can make your story better.

So then how do we as artists respond to our judges, critics, or editors having to reject us? Too many are quick to respond with “they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re a frustrated [insert vocation of choice]”. Worse, they put that response in print and hit the send button (much less those who do it on camera on American Idol), fearless as to how many bridges they may burn, due to their lack of professionalism, in the process. We have to remember, it is only that editor’s opinion that matters ... but only for that market. (And it’s funny how we respect/crave their opinion before the audition/submission, but their opinion holds no water should you flop). To quote Nick Mamatas from a Shocklines discussion:

I don't think musicians or fine artists or automotive manufacturers or chefs should respond to their critics either, except insofar as defamation may be at issue (e.g., a review claiming that a safe car is unsafe). The reasons are simple:

1. It doesn't matter. What can one say? "No, my book is scary! My flavor pairing were appropriate! My car does make your penis feel larger!" There will be no persuasion, so one may as well save one's energy.

2.The public has a right of response and responses will always be varied. There's no substance to negative complaints about the response because of this diversity of response.

Now, reviews can be poorly written, and God knows that in genre fiction they frequently are, and the public has a right of response there too. But when the only complaints one can make is about reviews of one's own work, it becomes transparently obvious that one is just whining and cares nothing about reviewing itself as an art or craft. A writer can respond to reviews as a reader of reviews, and talk about reviews generally, but shouldn't complain about his reviews.

If you have to respond, and I mean, if the voices in your head won’t leave you alone until you say something to your reviewer, at least keep it to e-mail (actually, it’d be best if you wrote that e-mail, printed it out, and put it in your trash can). What you really don’t want to do is go to message boards griping about your review. You will only look like a cry-baby (and you can probably consider that reviewer site dead to you).

American Idol" judges Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul say they're no crueler than usual this year, and that people who audition should know what they're going to get.

I imagine that editors reading a slush pile probably do sound a lot like Simon. Thank God I’m not actually at ground zero when they are reading my stories. All I have to put up with is the occasional self-addressed stamped envelope with a rejection letter in it. (And I know how to take rejections, even from friends.) At their first stop, the judges picked 17 people to move on to the next round out of 10,000 applicants. That’s a worse average than most slush piles (where, at the risk of antagonizing yet another editor before I submit to them), where it’s close to 1 story in 100 moving up the editorial ladder. Our job as writers is to be that 1 in 100.


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American Idol: the Writer’s Dilemma

So because we run Creative Space on Tuesday nights, it fell on our family to record the season premiere of American Idol so that some of the participants would be able to still feed their addiction. We can sacrifice many things in the name of ministry, but not American Idol. My wife and my sister, who love the show (and, frankly, far too much reality television) would never let me hear the end of it.

Welcome to my corner of hell.

Anyway, suffering through another season of A.I., I was once again struck by the similarities between the whole audition process and submitting a story for publication. In fact, I concluded that watching the auditions is the equivalent to reading a slush pile.

This season, like in seasons past, we were baffled by the amount of people who don’t recognize their own lack of talent. Granted, they might be tone deaf, but you would think that they would have friends or family who weren’t. How do people who claim to like you not inform you that you are the worse thing to happen to, well, sound? It could be chalked up to an inflated sense of self (the end result of going through life with people coddling each other’s self-esteem), it just seemed interesting that (plants aside), the worse the singer, the more adamant they are that they are good. Or it could be as simple as people hearing what they want to hear. I ran across an interesting study from Cornell.

... according to his research, most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent. On the contrary. People who do things badly, Dunning has found in studies conducted with a graduate student, Justin Kruger, are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well.

This deficiency in ``self-monitoring skills,'' the researchers said, helps explain the tendency of the humor-impaired to persist in telling jokes that are not funny, of day traders to repeatedly jump into the market -- and repeatedly lose out -- and of the politically clueless to continue holding forth at dinner parties on the fine points of campaign strategy.

Part of screwing together the easy courage to stand in an audition line (or write and submit a story for publication) stems from the idea, spoken or not, that anyone can do it. Anyone can sing. Anyone can write. Not everyone can do so well (contrary to the evidence proffered by the number of crap CDs and books churned out each year). I don’t know what the writer’s equivalent to tone deafness would be. Maybe believing that everything you write is gold. Maybe it’s the inability to take constructive criticism.

Whenever a contestant begins by naming their credentials, essentially the same as a writer’s submission cover letter, and they can only list things like “I’ve had ten years of training” or “I’ve been doing (singing in this case) all of their life”, all I hear is the writing career equivalent: “I’ve been giving away my stories on the Internet”, “I’ve paid a company to publish my story”. All the lies we’ve bought into in the name of garnering exposure.

Interestingly enough, the last stage in the process is the part that counts the most: the actual product music itself. All the gimics, persona, and costumes in the world aren’t going to help you if in the final analysis, you have little to no discernible talent. Artists of all stripes need to find their own, distinct voice. Not picking up an affectation or doing a pale imitation of another artist. It has to be more than karaoke (the writing equivalent might be fanfic).

If nothing else, respecting the audition process should teach all aspiring artists to make the most of opportunities when they come up, be they auditions, pitch sessions, or new markets. Take them seriously and professionally. Be yourself, be confident, but let your work speak for itself, because in the end, it does.


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All Critics Aren’t Created Evil*

There’s been a lot of chatter on the old blogosphere about what does a writer does and does not owe a reader, which has me thinking about the ownership of writing; this strange connection between writer and reader. Accepting what they say about what the writer owes the reader, I’m left wondering what does the reader owe the writer?

Let’s face it, for many writers, their relationship with their readers ends with the reader plunking down the money (or clicking on their blog) for the writer’s product. On the one hand, I wrote it, it is what it is, I don’t care what you think. (That’s my hang up: I tend to react the same to fans as well as critics when it comes to discussing my work. If I “buy” the praise, I have to “buy” the criticism. I’m working on it.) On the other hand, all critics don’t have to be heard.

"He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow." - George Eliot

I have a theory that there is a sort of “reader’s hubris” - that in this day an age, it’s a lot easier for readers to directly let the writer know what they think. Like sports fans who feel entitled to sometimes behave in an out of control manner because they have paid their money, readers sometimes think that their opinion is valid (which it is), that their opinions are thought provoking or worthy of consideration (which is questionable), and that the writer should hear them (which many writers love to hear from their readers, good or bad. I’m working on it. Brian Keene keeps telling me to respect my readers, especially as an up-and-coming writer, and not call them nobs, even when they’re nobs. I can however call him, and HE can call them nobs.)

You write, you expect (and want) to be reviewed. Complaining about reviewers is like actors complaining about the paparazzi: they all need them to get noticed (and to validate them being worthy of being photographed). Hopefully you can tell which critics have opinions worth paying attention to by the quality and thoughtfulness of their criticisms and weight them appropriately. The rest you learn to dismiss. It’s easy for people to type “you’re an idiot” in an e-mail and hit enter with all of the bravery that the Internet and a keyboard affords them.

"Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact." - George Eliot

[NOTE: this quote is used with a certain amount of irony, considering my blogs]

Though, you have to keep in mind that being criticized is part of the game when you put yourself out there. Here’s my fear, if you haven’t learned when to not listen to your critics: that you start writing for your critics. Or worse, not write at all. It’s why so many writers finish things, then leave them in their desk drawers. The story belongs to the reader. It’s like parenting: you birth the child, raise it (through re-writes), prepare it to make it on its own (accepted for publication), and then send it out into the world (to be read). The simple fact of the matter is that some people just have to tell you what they think. Why do I have to hear it? Because, it completes the cycle, fulfills the relationship between writer and reader. Though, I’ve been told that the reason to listen to the praise is to help carry you through the barrage of criticism that will come your way.

Take this for what it’s worth. I don’t care either way. But I’m working on it.


*Um, actual, that was a bit of a Freudian slip of a typo that I let stand. I meant to type that all critics aren’t created equal.


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Writing Goals 2007

Looking at the results, I think I got about half of my goals and resolutions for 2006 accomplished. This year, I’m keeping it simple. I want to finish two short stories, a novella, and a novel this year. I have the ideas for all of them already, I just need to find the time to work on them. I have a bunch of projects lined up for 2007, far too few of them involve me actually writing beyond my regular blogs and columns. Although, to be honest, I am trying to leave myself some flexibility for stories and articles that I’ll be asked to write. I’m just saying.

In the meantime, I need to finish my novella collaboration with Wrath James White. One reason I dreamt of doing this was to stretch me, to experiment with each other’s wheelhouse, and it’s pretty much going as I expected. Mental note: don’t bait Wrath (in one of our e-mail exchanges, he said that we “were ready for a teleological argument for God”. I said that I wanted to cut a woman in half first. He then wrote back, rather ominously, “really, is that how we’re playing now?”). Wrath will always rise to that occasion. A friend of mine is reading the rough draft so far in the other room. I keep hearing shouts of “Oh my God”. I’m just going to pretend that he’s having an impromptu praise service.

I also need to finish my novel collaboration with Steve Shrewsbury. Steve is what I’m now calling a “testosterone plotter”. I’m doing my level best to hang on and provide the atmosphere and grounding for the mayhem.

Simple goals. At least it sounds simple right now.


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I’m Not Really A Writer...

... I just play one on the Internet. At least that's the feeling I had up until this year. So this has been the year of Maurice, my coming out party of sorts. At long last, stories of mine have finally started coming out, giving tangible evidence of me being a “real” writer (as opposed to someone who writes a lot about being a writer and only has an Internet/convention presence). So I am doing a year in review before making any resolutions.

“In the Shadows of Meido” came out through IDW Publishing Comics. I was profiled in a local paper, INtake Weekly, and then asked to blog for them on a regular basis. My story “Family Business” came out in Weird Tales followed by “Black Frontiers” in the anthology, Voices from the Other Side: Dark Dreams II.

I got sucked into becoming the comic books review editor at Hollywood Jesus, thus having yet another excuse to have to keep buying comics. My oddest writing assignment of the year came with me writing for the American Tract Society. Blogging for INtake led to a regular column with them. However, since I can’t blog often enough, or in enough places, I also began blogging for Blogging in Black.

I ended the year with my story, “Since We Can Die But Once,” coming out in the DeathGrip: Exit Laughing anthology. Then seven of my reviews were picked up for the Hollywood Jesus Reviews 2005-2006. I was interviewed for two podcasts: one for Snark Infested Waters about my horror writing and the other for The Studio Upstairs about my work for Hollywood Jesus.

Not to mention, I’ve written the equivalent of two novels for this blog during 2006.

2006 was a good year. I have already had critical essay accepted for Cutting Edge (“The Passion of the Christ”) as well as a short story accepted for the Eldritch Steel: Swords and Mythos Sorcery anthology (“The Iron Hut”) due out in 2007. I’m officially up to the level of a nobody in the writing community.


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Writers Finish Things

Some people just like the idea of being a writer.

They may go to conventions, they may hang out in writer’s groups, they may hang out on message boards that writers frequent, and they may even count several writers among their friends. To go that extra step, they may even have a writing project that they’ve been working on (for a long time that never seems to get done).

Put simply, some folks may simply indulge the trappings of being a writer. However, that doesn’t make them writers.

I’m reminded of how my high school English teacher defined writers: writers finish things.

Don’t get me wrong, we may have drawers full of unfinished projects (and projects that need to stay buried in those drawers); but if you’re serious about being a writer, you’ve finished some stories. You’re finishing that novel or screenplay. Even if no one sees it except the bottom of your trunk.

You don’t just have a blog talking about your writing, or rather, what you want to do. You don’t just regale your friends with tales of the ideas that you have.

Writers finish things.

Writers who want to be professional writers submit things.

Um, writers also occasionally blow their deadlines, but dammit, I’m gonna finish this essay I was supposed to have done by now before I bury it in my drawer.


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If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.