How Are Short Stories Supposed To Work?

I’m writing a short story, but what exactly does that mean?

I won’t dwell on Red’s “—I know what you think it means, sonny,” reference from The Shawshank Redemption, but it does have a bearing on the current world of short stories. Red doesn’t believe that the chairman of the parole board has the slightest idea of what “rehabilitation” means to him. And he’s right. 

In the world of short stories, I think we as readers, and even writers, tend to play more the chairman of the parole board role. But begin to live a short story, and its reality does not meet your preconceived notion. Take a 30,000 foot view of how short stories are written these days, I think you’d be surprised. 

Authors, both great and small—of which I’m admittedly in the latter group, while aspiring to be part of the former—are addressing the eBook short story market because it makes a lot of financial sense. It’s also a great option for the casual reader. $2 to $5 for hours of entertainment, and I don’t even have to leave my damn sofa to buy it. 

But I’ve been reading some of the popular short eBooks out there, and while they’re still entertaining, are they a story capable of any level of complexity? In my experience, not so much. As a reader, I have liked the stories: they still have a beginning, a middle, and an end; but more often than not, they feel like a somewhat more satisfying first third of a book.

Is that a bad thing? I have no idea … I really don’t. I don’t even feel qualified to answer the question, but I am interested in what you think. Read an eBook or two that’s 100 to 200 pages, and let me know what you think, I’m sincerely interested.

In part, my personal perspective on this is reflective of my previous blog, “You Want People to Love Your Book …” in which I asked the question, “What do I want from this book?” It’s a question that could, potentially, bite you in the ass earlier in THE PROCESS when you switch genres. I realize that I enjoy writing about the interaction of characters and how that interaction affects characters. I like writing about people fucking with each other, both figuratively and sometimes literally, and the emotional and psychological fallout of man’s great and not-so-great intentions. I enjoy a good misdirection, because in the real world, sometimes even geniuses do stupid shit. (I’ll go into this in greater detail in the next blog, I promise). 

For better or worse, I guess my stories tend to be about the people in the situation, as opposed to the situation itself. I don’t tend to immerse my characters in sensory details of the grain of a well worn hardwood floor that have worn through the varnish, providing an extra micrometer of traction that somebody used to their advantage over somebody else. I tend to be more of a macro scale writer than that. I find the subtle sarcasm and oneupmanship between friends, admirers, coworkers, and lovers to be worth more attention. But that does not make me right, by any means; it just makes me, me.

My approach to this short has been to get the story out there, that’s why I’m writing this book, which in retrospect is very similar to my approach for my first novel. I made the conscious decision to go for plot, thought and emotion first and foremost; I’ll broaden my color choices from the palette only where it helps the story.

Will every reader agree with my approach or find it satisfying? I doubt it. But every reader is different, we all want different things from the stories we read. To some, a story is at its best when it is pure, sensory immersion. To others, it’s a diversion of reality, an escape from our world into somebody else’s world. Others find solace in the gifts of the language itself, and wrap themselves up in a otherworldly articulation of prose. They are all right in seeking what moves them.

I aspire to embrace the best of these traits where my story allows it. For me, though, for where I’m at in my little corner of the literary world, the stories are still writing themselves—and for that I’m grateful. My PROCESS tends to write stories that I’m trying to guide onto the page. For me that works. I hope that you like it, too. If you don’t, I hope you find someone who’s writing does mean something to you.

So my short story is going to be a story. A complete story, not the first third of a novel. I’ll see if that works. I’ll see how long or short it wants to be when it writes itself. Maybe that, the story’s ability to write itself, is its strength. Perhaps my strength as a writer, is being able to stay out of its way.

eBooks are Good. That's why I'm writing my first short story

Electronic Literature … or eBooks, as we’ve come to know the burgeoning business, is the future of literature. Like it, love it, don’t give a shit, or hate it—we all know this to be a fact. The numbers remove any trace of doubt, as does the demise of the brick and mortar book store.

Is this a good thing?

I’ll be honest, I don’t know. What I do know is that the entertainment industry as a whole is not run terribly well, and literature, just like any other form of art, is ultimately entertainment. 

“But does entertainment nurture the soul?” you may ask. Of course it does. And while those of us that participate in literature as consumers or producers may not understand all entertainment as being capable of nurturing, it is. I’m not saying I agree with it, nor do I condemn it, but I guarantee you that somewhere a man in his 50s is sitting in a strip club tonight with tears streaming down his face, in awe of the beauty that unfolds before him. My brother can watch a 20-year-old videotape of a basketball game that brings him to tears, the emotion of that moment overwhelming him still. Personally, I can listen to Freddie Mercury breathlessly deliver a vocal performance that can still “reduce me to tears, with a single sigh,”—bonus points for you if you know that line—or the interaction of Flea and/or John Fruciante and/or Josh Kilnghoffer can just … move me.

The perfect structure of Jhumpa Lahiri’s prose, the magic of an old Elton John song, the abstract creativity of Jackson Pollock, the palpable fluid genius of Jimi Hendrix on guitar, the mathematical precision of Thelonious Monk: they are art—they are entertainment. Entertainment can lift, it can build, it can destroy. It can fill your soul or rob you of your humanity.

Its form, however, is not its function.

Yes, paper is comforting to some of us who have grown to draw pleasure from its tactile nature. Yes, a hardcover book leaves some of us with a feeling of accomplishment at having lived through that writers world, in the universe they provided for our entertainment. We finish their novel and we feel—fulfilled. We put the novel on our bookshelf and it is our trophy. Perhaps we even view it as a testament to our conviction to expand our world, or enhance our knowledge.

Books have been all of these things, and they will continue to be so, even when they’re stored on an electronic device that we can take anywhere.

Fellow writers, fear not; the world is not abandoning you. The fact is, you’ve just become infinitely more convenient.

Convenience is a good thing.

I recently bought a book by Penn Jillette on an eReader that I would not have bought otherwise. And no, I didn’t buy it because he’s the only other French guy out there writing books in English. I bought it on a whim. 

“Ewwwwww, whim purchases,” you say. 

No, “Mmmmm, tasty,” I say.

For a new writer, whim purchases are good. They present us with hope that someone will buy our book on a whim, just for the hell of it. Then they can tell their friends that they freakin’ have to read this book, too.

I haven’t experienced this yet, but I think this is how you become popular, in the literary sense.

Now did I like the book? Yes. Did I love it? Not so much. It’s not that Penn isn’t a fine writer in the same manner that he is a fine conversationalist, he is both. But in my personal view, his stories tend to abandon their intended point, rather than support it. But they’re still great stories, so I got’s me some entertainment value from them after all.

And for all of the readers out there, that is something to be appreciated. A good story, or stories, that you can take wherever you go, all of the time.

That’s why people are buying bucket loads of Kindles, Nooks and iPads. Good stories when you want them.

For all of you writers out there, this is the dream.

You have access to people regardless of the denial letters you’ve received from over 80 agents looking to land the next vampire-oriented teen novel author to add to their prestigious stable of talent.

So am I entering the eBook fray? Damn skippy I am.

I’m an author and I intend to make a living selling stories. I’ve finished my first novel, and started my second. But while I’m shopping for that elusive agent to represent my pride and joy, I’m writing a short story (100 to 140 pages, I’m guestimating), and I’m going to sell that story via the good people at amazon.com, and Apple, and Barnes & Noble.

Why not just land an agent, since they are the gate keepers out of literary obscurity and into the promised land? As I stated in a previous blog, I’m not sure traditional publishing is in my best interest (or any other authors) financially. Then there’s the question of whether they’re going to sign onto a five novel series? If they think it’s well written, one would think so, but one wouldn’t necessarily be correct in that assumption. You and I may see 5 products that said agent would believe in if they believed in the first novel. But agents of all kinds will tell you that they, like publishers, don’t really know why one book sells and another does not. As a member of John Q. Public I will admit that that seems crazy. To us, if something is good, it sells; if it sucks, it doesn’t. But we can all think of a few wildly popular books in the last 15 years that just sucked balls and have sold tens of millions of copies. 

Agents are also steered into signing the hot genre of the day. This year, it’s hormonally challenged teenagers and the vampires they love. I’m sure they believe they’re pissing on their parents virtue with each Robert Pattinson fantasy. Hell, maybe the are, but considering agents see a ton of offerings and sign only a handful of authors, that can be problematic for those of us that don’t troll dark alleys for teenagers at night.

That the majority of agencies an author comes across have no interest in representing commercial literature—i.e. things that you or I would find compelling—is the subject of another blog yet to come.

“So,” you may be asking yourself, “if you’re going to release an eBook, why not release the novel that you’ve spent the last year and half of your life on, first?” 

Glad you asked. Or at least I hope you asked, anyway. Because, and you can call me crazy, or calloused, or whatever, but I want to build a market for my novel series. I know that sounds awfully “business-y” in a literary world we pretend is focused on art alone— and don’t get me wrong, this is my art—it is also my business. I take that seriously. So do those that depend on me for income.

I’m starting a small business, with an inexpensive, quality product that I hope will gain mass appeal. This will require marketing, (another future blog), a healthy dose of business strategy … and luck. Add in a reliance on the interests of strangers to be successful, and it’s a small business opportunity that one has to make all the right moves at to succeed.

There are no formulas anymore, (if there ever where), and there is no “one way” to make the eBook business world work for you.

But it can work. 100 to 140 pages for $1.99, or $2.99, or whatever. That’s hours of entertainment for the price of a plain bagel. I know of authors who are selling 3700 eBooks per week at those prices, though admittedly most have had traditional publishing deals first. But that’s changing, too.

The bottom line is that, as a new author, eBooks are not only the future, but they present a real opportunity for us to make a living at writing without the reliance on landing an agent up to their ears in Roscoe the sullen teen Vampire YA novellas.

So eBooks are no worse that that lovely hardcover book that’s going the way of the dinosaur.

Would I still publish traditionally given the opportunity? Yeah, probably … but only with a marketing guarantee.

For now, I have a rare writing window that’s opened up for me once more, and a great story unfolding on the page, so I’m dipping my toe in the big kids pool—I’m going to try my hand at selling the written word. I’m just going to try to do it in as businesslike a fashion as I can, starting with building a market for my product.

This is my next step in The Process. Time will tell if it’s the right step.

I'm Done!!!!!! Now What?

I FINISHED!!!!!! My first novel is complete!!!! I could have this puppy printed if anyone is interested in selling it. If … anyone … is … interested …

Hmmmmmmmmm.

OK, someone is interested. I’m interested. My wife is definitely interested. Quite a few of my friends are interested, at least in a passing sense. I’m sure my editor would like to get paid. My kids would certainly like to eat.

Holy shit! This is a job! This isn’t just a job, though, it’s my job!

Breath … just breath. Ok. Whew. That was close. Thank God—or the deity of your personal choice—that I realized this while I was writing the book. I have been prepared for this moment, I have been anxiously, eagerly awaiting this moment, AND I have been dreading this moment. Why? I’d be happy to explain.

Can a brother get a breakdown?

Let’s start where we should start, being prepared. I have been prepared, (I was a Boy Scout, after all). I went about “The Process” in a manner that I would consider to be professional from Day 1. From page 1, for that matter. I treated this as a business, because if I want to make a living from writing, this is my business. I’ve been a business man, I’ve been an executive, I’ve been a writer, and I’ve been a publisher. I did not come into this blindfolded. I know that printing costs money. I know that shelf space costs money. But, these are not necessarily factors in the modern literary business landscape. For those of us that are writing in this new, electronic literary landscape, Kindles, Nooks, iPads, and iPhones are the business, moving forward. This is an absolute truism. I should be able to take my electronic content, format it for each device, and sell it to a wide variety of the 26 people on my Facebook author page. And while that number is growing, and I am proud of it, selling 26 copies of my novel won’t pay for more than a stop or two at Chucky Cheese’s, and frankly, I don’t believe that’s why my editor added all of his hard work to mine. This is my business. Whether I’m selling hot dogs, or bowling shoes, or software, I need a marketing plan to expose my product to the marketplace that would be interested in purchasing it. Traditionally, that’s why publishers exist, or so we have been led to believe.

For those of you who are new to “The Process” of selling a novel, I’m going to let you in on some research and some experiences from early in this process. Publishers do not, I repeat, DO NOT, search for new writers. Publishers print books and pay to market said books. Only, they kind of don’t. If this is your first novel, the publisher will advance you some scratch to live on, theoretically anyway, will market your book, and pay to have it printed. 10,000 copies is generally considered the minimum break even point in this business for the publisher. After that, they may begrudgingly admit to making some money, depending on how much they ponied up to you in advance. For all of their help, on a $22 hard cover novel, you the writer will receive $2.20 on your first 10,000 sales, and $3.30 on all of your sales thereafter. 

“Well that hardly seems fair,” you think to yourself, “but hey, on 10,000 sales, that’s like $22,000 that I didn’t have when the novel was just hanging out on my computer.”

Ah-ah-aaaah, (finger wave gesture is implied at this point). Not so fast, mi amigo, or amiga, as the case may be. You received a cash advance of—let’s be generous here—say $15,000. So you’re $22,000 is going to be used to pay the publisher back for advance money, leaving you with $7,000. Right?

Ah-ah-aaaah, (2nd finger wave implied). The publisher has paid something for marketing, or you wouldn’t have sold that first 10,000. Let’s say they paid $20,000. So your measly $7000 is gone, a Dios, muchachos. You’ve sold 10,000 books, and you’re still $13,000 in the hole. OK, OK. So I have to sell, um, carry the 0, uh, another 3,939 books to cover that at the whopping increase to 15% of the take on my book. 

“On book number 13,940, I get some scratch, finally. Whew. I thought that’d never happen,” you say to yourself, cautiously.

Ah-ah-aaaah—(different finger used at his point entirely, and no, you can’t wave that one). The publisher, your publisher, the company that believes in you more than the others, has paid for printing, too. You guessed it, if you sell books, they don’t pay for that either. And then, there’s returns. If the publisher ships 20,000 of your books to Barnes and Noble nationwide, and the good folks at B & N decide that they need more shelf space for the 3012th Edition of the Joy of Cooking—so they’re sending 2,000 copies back to the publisher—you guessed it, you are paying for those, too. Even if B & N keeps 2,000 on their shelves nationwide because you’re still selling fairly well.

You’re probably asking yourself, “What the fuck?” right about now. Or, even if your a more positive person, you may be going, “Hey, I sold 20,000 books at $22, and if the retailer gets, say half, that leaves my friendly publisher with $11, minus the $3.30 he’s supposed to be paying me, that’s $7.70 times 20,000, that’s $154,000. No, it’s more, because they got $8.80 for the first 10,000. So that’s more like, uh, $165,000 … and if I’m successful, I’m paying for everything?”

Yes you are. And what’s worse, you are usually paid only semi-annually when they do pay you. And there’s a six-month “accounting period” where they bogart your money. So you will see your first income from sales about a year after you have sold you 20,000th book. 

How encouraging is that?

Not trying to beat this to death, but, there’s another hitch in your get along that has to be dealt with. First. Publishers DO NOT read material that hasn’t been solicited by a literary agent. No, you can’t say your cousin from Alabama is a literary agent, either. Unless that’s true, in which case you’re more than one up on me at this point.

So I need an agent to represent me to publishers. I knew all of this coming in, too. And an agent gets 10% of what I take in. 

“So, how hard can that be? They are working for me, right? So I sign one up that I trust and have a good vibe with.”

Ah-ah—alright, I know that this is annoying by now, but this is the literary business. To get an agent, you must submit a pro-forma query letter, often with a synopsis, and some chapters. 

“Then, for the love of whoever, am I in?”

No, then you submit a manuscript.

The “hunting for an agent process” is where I am now, and it is not pleasant. Everyone is turned down. The successful writers are turned down dozens upon dozens of times. I saw a biography on Stephen King that said he was turned down 134 times on Carrie, and that book went on to sell a bazillion copies. So 133 business experts said he had no chance of selling a book that sold like crazy.

Happens every day.

I’ll do a whole blog on agents as I get into this more.

So that was just part of being prepared for the “business” end of things.

But being prepared also covers the moment I have dreaded. I dread this part of the process. All of what I’ve stated above is more than enough reason for you to understand why, and there’s more where that came from.

But I am approaching this as a business. I have started databases to track my agent contacts and have my query package pretty tight. I’m confident in the quality and content of my novel and the series. And that, leads me to the eagerness of this moment.

Writing something with so many levels, and emotions, and characters, and twists, and thinking up to five novels ahead on this series has been more gratifying than I can put into words. I’m proud of my novel, not so much as something I created, per se, but of its quality, independent of my involvement.

As I put the final touches on the final edit of THE LAST INTERROGATION, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t kidding myself before I finished the final chapter.

I read the final two or three chapters of six different novels a few nights ago. They were from vastly different writers, all of which have sold well, many of which are considered classics. I saw patterns in all … all but one.

Still the best book I ever read.

Does THE LAST INTERROGATION stand up to a comparison with a book of that magnitude? I’m going to be open here, and at the risk of sounding arrogant, personally, I felt it was on par with my favorite book. If it hadn’t been, it would have been another rewrite. I owed myself and those who believe in me that much.

What were the other books I compared? I’m not going to go into those, but I felt it was more compelling than they were. It is my sincere hope that you will feel the same, though if you don’t, I still believe you will find it a great read.

I’m enthused and filled with trepidation at the same time.

I have my product, now my job is to sell it.

It’s all part of the process.

You Want People To Love Your Book … Edit It—But Don't Destroy It

As I bury myself in the final edit of my first novel, I find that I haven’t really dealt with a pertinent question: what do I want from this book? 

You’re probably reading this thinking, “Duh … you want people to love your book,” and you’d be partially right. I didn’t write this book as an exercise in self-gratification, but you could. My point here is that if you’re a person of broad interests and tastes, you could write the same book in an infinite amount of ways. Don’t believe me? Work with an editor you respect and view his or her input as an extension of yours. Are their edits an improvement to yours? Personally, I find it important to focus on when my editor’s changes aren’t better than what I had written, when they may—in fact—be detrimental. If you’re being honest with yourself, you have to admit that this doesn’t happen a lot as a good editor is looking to bring out the best in what you have written. But occasionally, an editor takes the voice out of our work. Discovery lies within that edit. When you know what you’ve written has to remain unchanged, this is the clearest, cleanest evidence of your voice as a writer. That’s when you know it’s right. 

Study these morsels, they’re evidence of what makes you, you. Relish them. Print these sentences/paragraphs/whatever out on paper, cut them up into little pieces, throw these pieces of paper into your bath tub, and get in and roll around naked in them. That’s what you and you alone bring to the table. Nothing is more important than who you are—except the story you’re trying to tell. Hah! Fucked with your head on that one, didn’t I?

This is what smacked me upside my head in writing my novel. When did what I was writing serve the novel and when did it serve my ego? Was I writing this to prove to myself that I could write it, or was I trying to write the best book I could possibly write. After the first edit, I decided I wanted the best book I could write, and that wasn’t the first draft of this book. 

I began with admitting that my editor knew some things that I didn’t, and I could either learn from his experience, or blissfully ignore the “why” behind his damn rules. I think this may be one of the more important decisions a writer will make; it truly helps to define whether this is your career or a just hobby. I knew the answer to that one: this was my career. To be honest, it had to be, (but that’s another blog entirely). I opened my eyes. I studied the details of “why” my editor made the decisions he made. I studied why he did what he did. I needed to understand his rules, his framework, his perspective on structure, including, his literary background. When I understood that, it made my book better. 

I took his edits to heart, so much so that I was editing far more than what he had suggested. My first draft was 330 pages. I edited it down to 220 pages. The naked truth, I had written 110 pages that added nothing to my story. 

So I took my 220 page story and began a complete rewrite. Now I had the essence of the story, its purpose. My characters changed. The feel became clarified. Everything added to the story, and the filler was gone—well, almost gone.

So I’m back to style. Am I’m going to write a funny book, a serious book, an exciting book, a clever book, an intelligent book, a thrilling book, an emotional book, a sympathetic book, a realistic book, a commercially viable book, or a book that makes you think after you’ve closed the book. I went with: yes. All of the above. The question was how to do that legitimately.

What do I mean? In the first versions of the book, it had made people: laugh, cry, be sick to their stomach’s, and think. I was not willing to lose any of those elements. But to maintain a realistic perspective, you could not have too much of any of these elements. So a year 6 months after I had started, and another partial rewrite, I began a serious rewrite using the tools garnered from my editor, along with a healthy dose of personal experience and artistic clarity.

The new version of the book was over 520 pages. That’s 300 additional pages. Then came the BIG question. Again. Were all of these pages adding to the story? Were they necessary.

Surprisingly, the answer to that question for the most part was … yes. I felt weird about that, but it was true.

In retrospect, I still had some things that I wanted to say, and you know what—those were the things that absolutely had to go. There was one chapter in particular that my wife and editor both could not see being included. I wanted to develop an additional character for some very politically correct reasons. Now doesn’t that sound like the absolute wrong reason for including something in your book? I wasn’t telling the character’s stories, I was making a point. Perfectly valid if that’s what your book is about; totally invalid for THE LAST INTERROGATION.

In the end, I lost more than 20 pages. OK, I didn’t lose them, I trashed them. I had to, they weren’t part of this book.

I lost most of the smart-assed passages—people talk like that sometimes, but not all of the time. I wanted realism. My editor would have had me disposed of more humor, but even when the world has a one-way ticket to hell as it does in this novel, I think people do and say funny shit to relieve the tension.

There’s a shitload of swearing, too, but again, a big chunk of the world may be ending, hardly a time to mince words. In times of infinite stress, the lowest common denominators of vulgarity and violence will always get their two cents worth in. Don’t believe me? Take a hammer and smash your thumb, (don’t really do this, by the way). Did you swear? Did you think about swearing, anyway? If you say no, you are lying. Now think of a billion people being hit over their heads—with sledge hammers. They are going to die, for reals. Now, tell me that the people that know this is going to happen don’t swear through that pain. You know I’m right now, don’t you?

So the bottom line of my “Process” here, is: when I realized what the book I wanted to write was, it became an infinitely better book. The details became about the characters, not the author or the author’s opinions.

In many ways, I’m as proud of the editing as I am the writing, and I’m very proud to have had the opportunity to learn from, and participate in, the editing process.

Steve Jobs and the Zen of being who you were meant to be

Most people that have known me for any length of time would consider me to be a “fan” of Steve Jobs; that perception would not be entirely accurate. Like many, I felt a kinship with the good Mr. Jobs that is difficult to articulate, but objectively, what do I have in common with a man that lived his life to the fullest and was able to succeed at exactly what he wanted to do. So far, the answer is: not much.

I’ve lived for more decades than I care to admit and my success at various career(s) are not relatable to Steve’s success. I’ve been a musician, got some radio airplay forever ago, a graphic artist for various companies, an IT Director where I helped a company grow from 79 employees to 416 in less than 3 years, CEO of a couple of tech startups, and a filmmaker. While my work for others has seen their fortunes grow, I have, as yet, to see my fortunes offer the kind of stability that would contribute to any feeling of security. Like most of you reading this, I often find myself “sweating it.”

How does any of this have anything to do with Steve? I’m a writer and musician, yet I have spent the majority of my life working “real jobs” at the behest of others, on some sort of societal level at the very least. I never gave up being a writer or musician in my mind, but I have spent only a few years out of decades of work experience doing what I was meant to do. In my opinion, Steve never did that, and that’s what made him the best at what he did. He did what he was meant to do, and he consistently made himself better at it. I made myself a better writer and musician and consistently did something else. Was I wrong in doing what I needed to do to get by? Looking back, I would have to say that yes, I was absolutely wrong.

The universe gives us all a certain predisposition to something. For some, it’s breaking down an engine and putting it back together blindfolded. For some, it’s the ability to slice the perfect piece of fish and add a little rice vinegar, rice, and wasabi to make nigiri. For others it could be welding the perfect joint—every time. For me, it was writing; yet I did not write. What kind of person ignores what they are supposed to do you may ask? I have the answer to that … I know … I know—an unsuccessful person. I could be the best damn IT Director in the world, and I was very good at what I did, but why should the universe, or karma, or whatever, reward me for doing something I wasn’t meant to do. The answer is, of course, it shouldn’t. The fact that I worked hard at it and had certain gifts in the field shouldn’t matter, since if I sat back and took an honest gander at right and wrong, what I was doing wasn’t right. I was shitting on my abilities by not pursuing them.

Steve pursued his abilities and for the limited time he was here, he gave a lot to this world. 

It’s probably our job to give what we can to the world, too. I mean, why should the world reward us otherwise. 

Sometimes it’s easier to observe these things from a distance. I have a friend, he’s a painter. In my humble opinion, he’s the best modern painter I have seen. His paintings move me … seriously, in my heart they mean something to me I can’t even put into words. He’s an artist. Only he’s not; he manages the ad design personnel at a newspaper. I can see how he needs to be who he is—an artist. It’s so fucking obvious.

It’s obvious because it’s not me.

I shouldn’t have been successful at what I was doing because it wasn’t what I was made to do, I wasn’t being who I was supposed to be.

But I am a writer now.

I am in the process of living my life as I was meant to; universe, now it’s your turn to make this right. Come on karma, give me a chance, I’m doing my part.

Steve, if you would, put in the good word to whoever has some pull in your Nirvana, tell them, “Hey, this guy finally got it through his thick head.”

I’d really appreciate it.

Oh, and Steve … chill. You’ve earned it.

Why Writing Is NOT Story Analysis

My daughter has been in advanced placement English courses for most of her years in high school, but just as she sees the opportunity to read classics like 1984 as part of her assigned reading, she’s about to drop the class.

Why? Her workload involves not only juggling reading 3 stories simultaneously, but doing a breakdown of each chapter of each story. I understand the scholastic inclination toward analysis, the goal being opening a students understanding of the structure of storytelling; but the reality misses the mark.

You see analysis is in the eye of the beholder. Writing is a right brain activity, while deconstructive analysis is left brain all the way. No one has ever created a book, or a poem, or a song, or software, or a great pizza by analytical breakdown. First, you savor the pizza, you are moved by the poem, you relate to the novel’s characters. Perhaps the song means something to you that words can’t express, or you use the software without having to study its intricacies, it is intuitive to your very nature.

This is creativity. This is where our aspirations should lie. What’s compelling is the  merging of elements, it is in this that we find satisfaction. Formulaic writing is something that is generally abhorred by all, yet forcing literature into a formulaic analysis is what we are taught. Is this what gets you off when reading? Is this really what makes you drive through that last 100 pages. I say it is not! That last 100 pages is the culmination of the elements of a novel, it’s where your comprehension of what the novel is really about begins to take hold of you. It is not a breakdown of how many granules of sugar   it took to sweeten the apple, or how the molecules of butter merge with flour and air to for the crust of the pie; it is a sumptuous bite: sweet, salty, savory, flakey, gelatinous, mushy and more. It is the experience we seek. Why don’t we teach the experience? We should revel in the moments, in our senses. How does this make me feel? Can that experience be shared? Should it be? Is it uniquely mine? 

These are the questions that matter when you’re eating a pie, reading a book, listening to a poem. Did the writer offer me something that meant something to me? Did it make me think? Did it make me laugh? The goal of almost anything should be to add something to a person’s life. Giving you the analysis you want to hear does nothing for either of us. Experiencing great art, literature, science, sport, food, these are the tastes of life we need to convey.

What we learn best, we learn through experience and cumulative analysis. I love Jhumpa Lahiri’s writing style. It is beauty in a way that I am unable to articulate. Analysis of The Namesake would provide me with nothing, for it is more than even a story. It transcends. The third person self narrative of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club changes the way I think about reading. Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon challenges how we see perception within our own minds. Louis Armstrong’s It’s A Wonderful World makes us appreciative of all we have and regretful that we’re too fucking stupid to enjoy what we’re given. These works are historic, but they are historic because they are not analytical breakdowns of what we should listen to, or watch, or read. They are historic because they deliver the combined knowledge and experience of these individuals in a new and palatable way. The importance of palatability should not be underestimated in any of these instances. If they were not enjoyable, and relatable, no one would care.

There was a young man who did not perform exceptionally well in school. He dropped out of university and did not find math relatable enough to succeed at it. He instead worked at a patent office, seeing an overview of the thoughts of others. He discovered simplicity in the interrelation of ideas, the common threads that bound all things together. He did this not through left brain analysis, but right brain exposure to a collection of knowledge.  Of course we know the young man was Albert Einstein, and we know of the results of his genius. But his genius was not a matter of learning each individual element to make a whole, his genius was in seeing what the whole could be from a summary of many wholes. Then he learned how the parts made sense within the context of his process.

I wish my daughter would have had the same opportunity in her class.

I hope that those of you who are here because you can write see that what you have to offer is making the elements of writing fit your vision, not trying of formulate what others did or did not do and then trying to repeat their process.

Peace out.

My very first Blog

I am not normally the kind of person one would consider a blogger, but then again, I’m not the kind of person one would think of as a writer either. I didn’t spend my life dreaming of writing the great American novel; nor did I didn’t think to myself, “I have such a wonderful voice that I need to be immortalized in print.” Nope, that was not me. But since the first time I wrote lyrics to a song I wrote at nine, or ten, or eleven—I don’t quite remember when—I could write. It took me decades to understand what I being able to write meant and what I was capable of.

The first song I wrote wasn’t even my idea, I was forced into it by the incessant prodding of a drummer I played guitar with in a band when I was young. So I wrote a song. Writing music came easy to me. I remember the first song I wrote, the chords on the verse were C-G-D-F, one measure each with a funk based rhythm, then I did something unusual, the reasons why still allude me, but I added a 5th measure to the phrase … as a hook. Looking back, I have no idea how I knew what the hell a hook was, but it pulled you in, it built tension, it made you anticipate a release to the next phrase. So we had a chorus, we needed a verse. I knew that the major chords sounded “upbeat” to me, and the music I liked, the stuff that really compelled me, it always had an edge. I’m a sucker for the edge. So I needed a minor chord, maybe some 7ths. Am-E-G7-D … and then back to that hooky F for two bars. The structure was pretty traditional, intro-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-solo-verse-chorus-outro. It wasn’t until years later that I came to appreciate that as a nine- or ten-year-old, I understood structure on an instinctive level.

The next song I co-wrote, the lyrics were written by the drummer, and I remember them to this day. The song was a story about a drug addict that was leaving his girlfriend rather than change his life—yes the kid that wrote this was only ten or eleven too. Different chords, different structure, different groove, but what really hit me were my friend’s lyrics, he was ten and he had written a legitimate grown up story. A few days later, he wanted me to write a song, and I remember saying “I can’t write,” but I took out a notebook and a pen—yes, I’m that old—and I wrote a song. It just came to me. The song was depressing enough that I’ve still never played it for anybody other than the drummer.

As I grew older, I played with more talented musicians. Their skill level began to challenge me, it began to open my eyes to what could be. I also learned something that surprised me: that great musicians can’t necessarily write. Writing is a talent onto itself, and while I am a musician, what I really was, who I was, was a writer. That’s my gift. Lyrics and music of any kind, it all came easy to me. I could write jazz, rock, classical, and I could combine them into something new, in a way that was catchy and palatable, but I still had no idea I could write a book. It seems odd to me now, but the notion had never even occurred to me.

My process took me from writing music, to writing screenplays, to writing novels. There are an infinite amount steps that led from C-G-D-F-F to THE LAST INTERROGATION the short film, THE LAST INTERROGATION the feature length script, to THE LAST INTERROGATION the novel. This blog, THE PROCESS is going to cover my journey. No two journeys are the same, and no two writers are the same. What I have done is unique to my set of experiences. Though I know your experiences will differ, I hope you will find empathy in the stories of my struggle to get to this point. 

Whatever your process is, whatever makes you a writer, realize that you do have something to say … and someone wants to read it.

Know in your heart, that you are not alone.