Literary Serendipity

By Lisabet Sarai

The last time I checked, my “Want to Read” shelf on Goodreads contained more than eighty titles. One reason I like Goodreads (as a reader, at least) is that it provides an easy way to keep track of books that I might want to acquire in the future.

Actually, though, it’s rare that I deliberately purchase a book I’ve flagged. Instead (not necessarily by design), I tend to rely on serendipity. Most of my print books come from second hand bookstores (not counting anthologies I’m in myself, for which I’ve received an author’s copy). I’ll set myself a upper spending limit for each visit, then browse the shelves for books that catch my fancy. Even if I’m looking for something specific, there’s no guarantee I’ll find it. Meanwhile, I might happen on some unexpected gem instead.

My e-reading tends to be books my friends or colleagues have sent me for review or critique or once again, books to which I’ve contributed.

Unfortunately the result of this process is that my want-to-read list gets longer and longer! (These “what are you reading” fortnights also contribute to that problem, since my fellow Grippers almost always talk about something of interest!)

So what books have I stumbled upon recently?

I spent several weeks reading Orhan Pamuk’s Silent House. Pamuk’s books are dense and difficult, but well worth the effort, if one measures this by those “aha” moments occasionally triggered by great literature.

Silent House is Pamuk’s second novel, first published in 1983. On the surface, it’s the story of a single family. In her second floor room, in the old house in a seaside village where she has spent her adult life, a frail ninety year old widow awaits the annual visit of her three grandchildren: overweight, alcoholic Faruk, a professor obsessed with history; his stylish, left-leaning younger sister Nilgün; and materialistic, self-absorbed college student Metin, who is saving his money to go to America and become a captain of industry. The dwarf Recep, now a faithful servant to the grandmother, is in fact her husband’s illegitimate son, crippled due to her treatment of him as a child. Teen-aged Hasan is the son of Recep’s bastard brother and a member of a thuggish nationalist gang. The overall mood is one of dissatisfaction, bitterness and decay.

Each chapter is an intimate, in many cases disturbing, peek into the mind of one of the characters—grandmother Fatma, Faruk, Recep, Metin and Hasan (but not, interestingly, Nilgün). These first person narratives come close to stream of consciousness. They portray the ebb and flow of emotion, the irrationality of thought, the occasionally overwhelming physical sensation. The effect in each case is one of intense isolation, which becomes more oppressive as the book proceeds towards its shocking and violent conclusion.

I particularly appreciated the depiction of Fatma’s inner life. She is not suffering from dementia, but she experiences the objects in her environment and especially the passage of time in an almost hallucinatory manner. I found her mental wanderings totally convincing. It’s plausible to me that when one reaches such an advanced age, so-called reality might begin to waver.

However, these distinctive, vivid characters are not the author’s deepest concern. Fundamentally, I believe, Silent House is a book about perception, memory and history. The book was published on the eve of a nationalist coup. I don’t know enough about Turkish history to appreciate the specific references, but the messages are more universal. Pamuk’s characters share a loss of connection to the past, a distrust of the present, and a sense of inferiority that leads them to actions they know are wrong, but which they cannot resist.

I was surprised that this author’s early work shows none of the typical optimism of youth. Silent House turned out to be far darker than I expected. More than once I considered putting the book down without finishing it. I’m glad I didn’t yield to my discomfort. That’s part of the point of this novel.

Another second hand find I’ve recently enjoyed is Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. The central character in this dark fantasy is a perceptive, bookish seven year old boy, but this is definitely a book for adults. It captures both the wonder and the terror of childhood, and reminded me that no matter how old I become, the child that I was still lurks inside me.

A middle aged man escapes a funeral and finds his way to an ancient farm near the house where he grew up. Sitting by the edge of a duck pond, he recovers a long lost childhood memory, of the time when he stepped over the edge of the familiar world into a place of heart-devouring monsters and magical illumination. The old farm houses generations of women who claim to be equally ancient, women who provide food and comfort but who ultimately cannot save him from his destiny.

Vividly imagined and gorgeously written, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a delight from start to finish. Plus it is full of truths that you’ll recognize immediately--even if you've never considered them before.

As Lettie Hempstock, who lives on the farm at the end of the lane and looks like an eleven year old girl, says:

‘I’m going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside, either. Outside they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they are doing. Inside they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.’

I’m so glad I stumbled on this book. I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes one of my all time favorites.

Preserve or Rebuild?

by Jean Roberta

Like Sacchi and Lisabet (and possibly others here), I’ve been writing erotica for long enough to notice that some of my earlier work could benefit from some revision.

Actually, some of my earlier work now looks like historical fiction, and when/if I give it a makeover, I’ll have to decide whether to bring it up to date or to preserve its period flavour.

Here is the opening scene from my out-of-print novel, Prairie Gothic, completed in 1998 and e-published in 2002:

The ugly concrete building in the warehouse district looked deserted, and it wore no sign of any kind. If Kelly hadn't seen glimmers of light from between the shutters at the windows and heard the bass thump of recorded music, she would have thought the address in the newspaper was a misprint.

In her second year of university, the fresh-faced young woman was developing a taste for research. She was learning that you could find out whatever you wanted to know if you looked in the right places. On this breezy spring night, the place she wanted to check out was the Den, more often called the club or the bar by the regulars. It was the only gay bar in town.

As Kelly pulled open the heavy front door, a blast of music hit her in the face, carrying the smell of beer and cigarettes. A spasm of anxiety made her breathe faster, and she wondered again how smart it was for her to come here alone. Bars didn't attract her as a rule. Booze and guys usually lost their appeal for her by the end of an evening, and hanging out with a horde of increasingly drunk and loud fellow students seemed like a waste of time to her.

However, the girl craved adventure. She hoped that this bar would be more like a decadent jazz club in Berlin in the 1930s than any of the hangouts she knew. She believed that she could best explore this exotic milieu without the burden of anyone else's fears or desires.

Kelly noticed the huge area in the wall of the entranceway where the plaster had been kicked in during a famous fight. Two months later, it had been badly fixed by a hung-over dyke who claimed to be a drywaller by trade. Since she had donated her time and was currently dating a woman on the board that ran the bar, no one complained openly about the look of the wall.

A very tall, very thin young man asked Kelly for ID, but he looked friendly. Besides, she told herself, she could never be intimidated by a man wearing lipstick and mascara, even if he did apply them better than she could.

The interior of the bar was so dark and smoky that it took a minute for the young woman to notice the eyes watching her. A young man in tight leather pants turned from the cigarette machine to look over the newcomer. Once his cool gaze had skimmed over her breasts, his narrow hips swivelled back toward the faded jeans of a much older, heavy-set man who stood beside him like a guard dog protecting his turf. Both men radiated a sensuality that Kelly had rarely noticed in males, and she felt strangely miffed by their indifference to her. She remembered wishing that guys would leave her alone. In this place, she thought, they just might.

A squarely-built woman with sand-coloured hair turning to grey watched Kelly without turning her head. She took in the young woman's short, shiny brown hair, her dark-framed glasses, the big shirt that couldn't hide her small, perky breasts, and the girlish hips under loose black pants. Pat, the older dyke, took another drag on her cigarette. Her blue eyes sparkled.

Kelly felt conspicuously tall, as she usually did in a new place. As she strode toward the bar, she noticed an adjoining room where two women of about her own age were playing pool. One was a graceful, fine-boned native woman with waist-length hair that twitched behind her like a tail. The other was a plump, joking blonde whose laughter sounded like gunfire. A slim girl with red hair watched the game and gave advice to the players. Feeling very alone, Kelly thought of approaching this group and asking to join their game, even though her pool-playing was far from impressive.

"Kelly!" squealed the tenor voice of a short boy with a lively face and mouse-coloured hair that fell in his eyes. "It's Neil." Kelly didn't need to be told who he was. The sight of her classmate looked to her like a sign from the Goddess.

Following Neil to his table, Kelly felt both disappointed and hopeful. She had come here to meet women, not men, but she hoped that little Neil, the class clown, could serve as her guide to this culture, like Beatrice guiding Dante through the underworld.

This scene was loosely based on my first venture into the local gay bar in 1982. So much has changed since then! Now, LGBT watering-holes are clearly marked with signs, and the regulars don’t feel like outlaws – unless they are smokers, in which case they have to practise their perverse habit outdoors, regardless of the weather.

I’m unreasonably fond of this novel, especially because it captures a moment in time that will never come again. If I don’t bring it up to date, though, I’ll have to play up its retro qualities. I don’t want to leave it mouldering in my "Documents."

So when my year-long break from teaching starts on July 1, I’ll have a look at all my orphan pieces, including this one, and decide what to do with them.
------------------------

Literally, What Is the Next Sentence?

By Annabeth Leong

I want to get very specific with this prompt. When I am staring at a blank page, or at a blinking cursor, the question on my mind is quite literally, “What should I write next?”

That can feel so paralyzing, so I want to share some of my tricks for dealing with that.

The Sensual Solution

What does the viewpoint character see? Hear? Taste? Smell? Feel? I used to regularly do a combination writing exercise/meditation in which I took a walk and focused on describing what I was experiencing through each of my five senses. Then when I returned, I would take out a notebook, set a timer, and write out those impressions with the most accurate descriptions I could.

I later found that the practice calms me, and whenever I’m distressed or anxious, it can help me to take this sort of sensory inventory.

If I’m in the middle of a story, facing a blinking cursor, it never hurts me to consider and write down details of the character’s physical surroundings. Once I get going with description, that can sometimes get my writing moving more generally. I can go back later and cut the description, or move it to a more sensible place, or leave it in if it’s appropriate where it is.

If I’m starting a new story, it’s a good idea to set the scene anyway.

The Time Travel Solution

Maybe I don’t know what the character is going to do next, but I might know what they’re going to do at some time in the future. There’s no law that says I have to write each sentence consecutively, in the exact order the reader will encounter them.

When I worked as a reporter, I often felt a lot of fear when I sat down to write a story. I particularly froze up trying to come up with a lede (the “punchy” intro that’s supposed to grab a reader’s attention—I have punchy in quotes because I have never heard that word outside the context of journalism and it’s always seemed odd to me).

What I eventually discovered was that I tended to be much less nervous about writing paragraphs toward the end of the story, when I summarized the conclusions reached by what I had written about and quoted final commentary from my sources. I learned to start there, and then write toward the lede. So, most of my articles were written conclusion first, followed by quotes from secondary sources, followed by the technical description that made up the bulk of the body, followed by the lede. If, while I was writing the stuff that would come later, I thought of anything that might work as a lede, I tossed a quick note about that possibility up toward the top of my file.

That’s a description of a process of nonfiction writing, but similar principles can apply when writing fiction. I really don’t like for my endings to feel rushed. If I’m under deadline, I often write what I expect to be the last passage earlier in the process, and then work on the middle until time runs out.

And when I’m stuck and uncertain of what comes next, sometimes I jump to a later point in the story. Am I dying to get to the sex scene? Maybe I should just write it now and then work up to it.

An added benefit of this approach in fiction is that it can give me a clue about where my writing might be flagging. Is it possible to cut some of the material that bogged me down? Start the story later?

Alternatively, sometimes when I’m writing a scene that’s supposed to take place later in the story’s timeline, a character will say or do something that makes it clear what needs to have happened at the point where I got stuck.

What’s important is to write something next, rather than giving up and closing the file, or surfing away into the deep waters of the internet.

The Contemplative Solution

What is the viewpoint character thinking right now? A story might be a drag to read if it’s written with too much internal monologue, but writing about what’s going on inside the main character’s head can get the cursor moving and suggest what action might be taken next. Some internal monologue might be good to leave in, and sometimes, depending on the situation, writing about what the character is thinking can lead to an idea of what the character might say to whoever is in the scene with them.

Sometimes, I’ll freewrite on a notebook or in a separate file. Sometimes I’ll type in my main file with the idea that I can cut the passage of internal monologue if it becomes repetitive or superfluous.

The Slow Solution

Really, all any writer is doing at any given moment is trying to type a sentence. That can get lost, though, amid various word count goals or larger viewpoints. Sometimes, it helps me to slow way down and remember the sentence right in front of me.

Lana Fox taught me an exercise where you set a timer and just spend five minutes on one sentence. It’s a lovely feeling to take slow breaths and really sink into this one small picture you’re painting with words.

Sometimes, I do one round of that and it unlocks me. Sometimes I’ll write whole passages that way. What’s funny is, even if you’re spending five minutes on each sentence, they add up. And you still end up writing a lot more than if you let yourself give up or get distracted.

The Superlative Solution

I once wrote a trilogy of short stories by asking myself at each turn, “What would be the stupidest possible thing for the character to do next?” I’m not sure how successful those stories were, but the question was interesting and it got me moving. I would suggest trying out various questions and looking for the ones that grab your attention.

What would be the kindest possible thing for the character to do next? The bravest? The meanest? The most surprising? The most obvious?

What this technique does is get me out of worrying and back into telling a story, which I think is about being interested in getting to know these people you’re writing about and, yes, wondering what they’re going to do next.

***

I hope some of these tricks are helpful to someone. I’ve used them all at one time or another, but if there’s anything I know about writing, it’s that you have to stay on your toes all the time. I am always having to come up with new tricks to keep things moving, but that’s part of what I like about this thing we do.

Exotic Locales and Flash Daddy

Exotic Locales and Flash Daddy

After a time of not being able to write a story with any legs, in June I came up with an idea for a Bangkok scenario. I only wish I had Lisabet’s chops for exotic settings. I guess it’s well beyond a third done, and already up over 4k, clearly much higher than my recent average, which is probably hovering under 1k. Fun to get into a story with more than one scene. :>)

Now I’m realizing I have a whole sheistload of unpublished stories running under 1500 words—mostly under 200. Whatever to do with all that flash fiction? I can remember some involved discussions over at ERWA on the value of flash fiction. In these discussions, I always maintained that lessons we learn in economy of words would serve any form of literature, from short stories to poetry to novels. But what to do with all those flashers?

If anyone saw my “Fates, Furies, Farrell and a Fridge” post for April’s “What I’m Reading” topic, I mentioned a short-short story writer, Etgar Keret, and his marvelous collection, “The Girl on the Fridge”. Well, I went out and bought his other book of shorts, “The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God”.

Now here’s a guy who has mastered flash fiction to a level I’ve not seen before, even through three stints as ERWA’s flasher editor. Sure, some few pieces could compare, but Keret is consistently imaginative and lively in an inimitable surreal style. He can use three words where a less competent writer would need a dozen.

Moreover, Keret has figured out how to market such a unique gift. I wholeheartedly hope this further encourages you guys to investigate his work. You won’t be disappointed.

Now, here’s the rub: I need an editor for a project called “Flash Daddy”, (name bestowed by Adrienne Benedicks when I took over as Flasher editor at ERWA). I don’t need an editor who actually edits the work; Lisabet will be doing that. What I need is the equivalent of an ‘acquisitions’ editor to read and evaluate perhaps over 200 very short stories, and pull a coherent collection from a big, disassociated pile of stuff that I have a hard time being objective about. Of course, an additional editor would be credited in the book. Any takers? I’m paying!  

OMG, I have to write a cowboy story, so kill me NOW by Suz deMello

I'm part of an online group that helps out with a romance readers site--it gives me free exposure on a busy site without much work on my part. This group also puts out a boxed set here and there.

This year, the organizer (rather dictatorially) decided that the theme is...cowboys.

Several people immediately said, "No, thank you, I don't write cowboys."

I said, "Well, I'll try," while feeling dubious.

I am mystified by the attraction some people (and many romance readers) have toward cowboys. They strike me as smelly and stupid, good ol' boys obsessed with either horses or trucks or both.

But I tried and still am trying. Here are my abortive efforts:

This first one was going to be about an underqualified secretary and her new boss:

Her Cowboy “Daddy”

Chapter One

Laura Hendrix smoothed her denim skirt with sweaty, nervous fingers, wishing she’d worn something fancier to meet her new boss. She didn’t know much about him except that the Randalls had hired him to whip the ranch finances into shape.

“Is he permanent?” she asked Dave Randall, the owner of the Double R, as the Randall spread was called.

“Maybe. Probably. I don’t know,” he said, lowering his bulk into a rocking chair tucked into a corner of the whitewashed porch.

“He’s permanent.” Janet Randall’s voice was firm. The other owner and Dave’s wife, Janet had a will like tempered steel and a laser focus on her husband’s welfare. Everyone knew that since 62-year-old Dave’s heart attack, Janet wasn’t taking any chances on his well-being. She’d hired Logan Maxwell sight unseen from the internet while Dave was still in the hospital, presenting the new CFO of the Double R as a fait accompli.

“I hope we get along.” Laura hoped she sounded calm, but her insides were roiling. She had enough hassles avoiding the ranch hands’ unwanted attentions. She liked cowboys well enough, as long as they showered after their work shifts. Often, they didn’t.

And she was worried that she’d fallen short. She had only an AA from the local community college, and knew she didn’t have the accounting skills that the Double R needed.

She needed this job. She had to get along with this guy.

In the distance, a black SUV that had seen better days stopped at the little gatehouse at the ranch’s entrance. The gate opened, and the SUV neared, its tires crunching on the gravel lane leading to the main house.

Dave sighed, and Janet scurried to his side. “What’s up, honeybear?”

“I’m a little tired and thirsty.” He sounded embarrassed, and Laura, knowing he was ashamed of his weakness, slipped discreetly to the other side of the porch as Janet helped him out of his chair.

She turned to Laura as they walked slowly to the screen door. “Please greet Mr. Maxwell and show him around.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Laura’s palms itched, and she again rubbed them on her skirt, then straightened her plaid blouse.

That was as far as I got, having opened Facebook out of sheer boredom.

2d effort: about a waitress who cuts herself and the cowboy who healed her heart:

Luanne’s Cowboy

Chapter One

Triple Forks, Montana

late May

Luanne tugged the bright white cuffs of her plaid uniform shirt down over her wrists, adjusted her denim skirt and grabbed a trayful of breakfasts. Glancing at the order stub tucked beneath a plate of ham and grits, she headed for a booth near the diner’s front door. Balancing the tray on one upturned hand was a skill that continued to elude her, so she held the tray with both hands and set its edge on the table as she served three men at a four-top.

“Hey there, Luanne.”

“Good morning, Mr. Robinson.” She served ham and grits to Dave Robinson, the owner of the Double R, who emphatically shouldn’t be eating that dish. The lean ham was fine, but the grits, laden with heavy cream, butter and salt, should have been off Dave’s diet since his heart attack and surgery. She mentally shrugged, telling herself that criticizing a customer’s order would lead to nothing but disaster.

She needed this job, she thought as she served a Denver omelette to his foreman, who nodded to her with a slight smile. Best to shut up, look pretty, and collect tips.

She didn’t recognize the third man, who she thought of as “Slab of Moo with Flop Two on a Raft”—steak with two eggs over easy on toast. He was sure easy on the eyes, though—an older Sam Waterston type in a plaid western-style shirt, sleeves rolled up to expose brawny, suntanned forearms. Blue eyes twinkled from a nest of crow’s feet.

Something that was knotted up inside her relaxed, but she didn’t know why. She slid his breakfast in front of him, eyed his half-full mug, and said, “I’ll bring more coffee.”

His hand shot forward, grasping her wrist. Startled, she stopped. The something inside of her that had calmed now twisted anew, and she stiffened.

Trapped. She didn’t like that.

She disengaged herself while he asked, “Are you married? You’re not wearing a ring.”

Her mind blanked. “What? I’m only nineteen.” She shot him a look that probably showed how befuddled she was by the question. She barked out a laugh. “Married? No.”

Hell no was more like it. Not after suffering through her parents’ marriage, which had been more like a battlefield, with their kids—Luanne and her fifteen-year-old brother Jack—stuck in the crossfire. She’d left, taking Jack, the day she turned eighteen. She’d gotten a job at the diner and rented a studio apartment for them both. Okay, their little home might be crummy and crowded, but it was safe and peaceful.

She’d never marry, and didn’t plan even to let anyone get too close.

“So will you go out with me Saturday night?”

She huffed out a breath. “No.” Then, remembering her manners, she said, “Thank you, but no.”

And that’s the end of that, she thought, while pouring his coffee without meeting his keen blue gaze.

*****

There's more--this was actually going well until I got to the dinner date. Then it just...went dead.

Then I decided that maybe writing a historical would keep my interest.

Dulcie’s Place  

Chapter One

She’d been a showgirl with bleached hair, a big laugh and bigger tits. When the girls had started to fall, she headed out west to make her fortune in the brawling mining camps that had sprung up after gold had been discovered in California.

Without knowing quite where to go, she’d landed in Sacramento, the gateway to the gold country. She hoped that the miners coming through the town from San Francisco would want a last poke from one of the soiled doves she’d hired.

She liked her life. She’d saved, so her bordello was the finest in Sacramento. The big bar had been carved from a single, massive __________ trunk and stretched fully ____ feet long. The piano had been imported from France—the player she’d hired liked Mozart, and those lively, tinkling refrains added to the relaxed atmosphere.

Stained glass trimmed lamps and windows, also hung with thick, green velvet drapes, which matched rugs scattered over the polished ___floor. The stamped tin ceiling was painted green and gold. The girls, dressed in green, pink, cream and gold, looked and smelled like flowers.  Mirrors reflected all.

Dulcie set her hands on the bar and breathed. Just breathed. Breathed in the good aromas of stewed chicken, perfume, whiskey and men. Lots of men. 

Cowboys, miners and local businessmen crowded the front room of Dulcie’s Place, which hummed and buzzed with conversation and music. The clatter of silverware against fine china came from the dining room behind her, while a discreet bump or two on the ceiling above told her that her girls were doing their jobs in the rooms upstairs.

All was well.

All was perfect.

All was perfect until a roughly dressed cowboy burst in through the elaborately carved front doors with a gun drawn, shouting, “Where’s the no-good asshole who ruined my sister?”

*****

Aaaaand then...you guessed it. I just couldn't think of what would happen next.

But that's understandable, right? I've never written anything Wild West-ish. But I've written stuff set in Britain--a lot of it. I love that sort of thing.

This one just might work:

The Cowboy and His Countess

Chapter One

London, 1870

Nate Fortune rolled the dusty brim of his hat with long, tanned fingers and shuffled his feet, shod in battered boots, on the thick, carved rug. He regarded the somberly dressed man of business across the wide desk, feeling as out of place as Cinderella at a round-up. “You mean to tell me I...I...I...”

When words failed him, the man of business took over. “That is correct, my lord. You have inherited, through your father’s lineage, a manor house in Kent and a hunting box in the Cotswolds, along with the title.”

“I’m, I’m an earl.”

“Yes, you are. Lord Darlingside.”

“Well, there’s a sissy name.”

The man shrugged. “However, you will inherit the funds only if you marry a peeress.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Your holdings have been sorely neglected. When your father became estranged from his family and moved to America, his father, the late earl and your grandfather, lost interest in maintaining his—your—estates. The properties do not generate enough income at present to effect repairs. You need the capital to bring your legacy up to snuff and to do that, you must marry.”

“And marry well.”

“‘Well’ is a comparative term, my lord. Your bride’s dowry need not be considerable. She must, however, be well- born and –bred.”

“A member of the English aristocracy.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Nate rubbed his jaw. “And where shall I find such a lady?”

The man of affairs smiled. “I know just the place.”

*****

Nate glanced at a mirror just inside the entrance to the Almack’s Assembly Rooms and thought he looked like a pansy. The ruffled shirt was beyond ridiculous even without its silk-trimmed collar, which was so high he could scarcely turn his head.

Yes, it's  a familiar formula, but it just might work.

Wish me luck.

COWBOYS?!?!? GAH.

  

Should Write, Will Write, Want To Write

Sacchi Green

Like most writers of short stories, I measure out my life in calls for submission. That means deadlines, which are an incentive to write, but no guarantee. Many are the stories that don’t get finished in time, or wander off in a direction that doesn’t fit the theme I was originally aiming for.  I used to rationalize that an unfinished or somewhat unfocused piece was good to have around as inventory, almost ready when another, possibly better, market came along. This was occasionally true. Now, though, I finally have to admit that I’m falling behind, doing hardly any new writing. I have four stories coming out this year or early next year, but every one of them is a reprint. Nothing new.

So what should I be writing? In my last post, where the theme was Power, I already discussed the Superhero novella I’ve actually contracted to do, so I won’t bring that up now except to say that I’m working on the concept. There’s an anthology with a much closer deadline that I’ve been planning to write for, and may yet manage, but somehow the theme of The Girl Next Door just hasn’t grabbed me hard enough yet. We’ll see.

What I will be writing, in the next couple of weeks, is more in the nature of marketing, the kind that doesn’t really accomplish anything but may make one’s publisher think that one is trying. I’m wrangling a Blog Tour for my newest anthology, Me and My Boi, with just over half of the contributors posting on their own sites, several writing pieces to send me for posting on my site, and several not up to writing anything, for one reason or another, so I’ll be handling those for my site with bios of the writers and excerpts from their stories and anything else I can think of. Not really writing, I admit, but busy work that keeps the typing fingers limbered up. So many of these Tour things are going on these days that attracting readers to them is likely to be about as difficult as getting the anthology itself noticed in the boundless ocean of other books,

 I’ll also be working on proposals and blurbs for anthology readings, three already confirmed for Womens’ Week in October in Provincetown, MA, and one probably in September at a bookstore in NYC where I’ve read many times before, including once this year already, but they always require a form filled out that includes not only the bios of the readers but complete information on all their backlists, just in case they want to stock those books for the occasion (but probably won’t.) My writers are usually a well-published lot, so putting these lists together can be time-consuming. I’ll just have to buckle down and cope.

Now can I talk about what I want to write? Not that I can promise that I will. There’s another anthology, with a deadline farther off, that really does grab me. It would be just my second time ever writing a gay male story, which is neither here nor there. The theme is speculative fiction incorporating the times and milieu and methods of Sherlock Holmes, something I know quite a bit about, and I’ve been reading even more for research. My title would be “On a Grecian Urn,” and naked male figures on a piece of ancient Greek pottery in a very private collection in Victorian London would have a great deal to do with the mysterious disappearance of a young poet. I might make him a protégée of a certain infamous playwright/poet/wit, but maybe not; probably someone else will be incorporating Oscar into a better story than I could write.

There are other stories I want to write, a few that I feel so strongly about that I don’t want to write them for anybody else’s anthology, even though I’m unlikely to have one of my own that they would fit into. With the decline in anthology sales, it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll have any more anthologies to edit at all, although there’s one more in the pipeline, so to speak, that I completed and turned in to the former publisher almost two years ago. (The anthology that’s coming out right now was turned in almost three years ago. The sale of the publisher to a small conglomerate resulted in understandable delays,)

When I’ve actually been writing new things in the last year or so, they’ve tended to be sequels or prequels to previous stories, or even extrapolations on episodes only briefly mentioned in previous stories. There are two sets of characters I’ve used in three stories, and two more couples have been in two pieces—so far. There are other characters nudging at me to be revisited. Does this mean I’ve run out of any claim to originality? Or that I’m a closeted would-be novelist who will never make the leap outward? Well, time will tell. But I don’t think that time, or tide, or the dwindling marketplace, are on my side.

Still, last year I was inspired by calls for submissions to write two brand new stories, and one of them even had brand new characters (who are now urging me to write more about them.) I’m not sure I can consider myself a true writer when I write so sporadically, but I’m still thinking about writing much of the time. It’s a good thing I don’t depend on writing income for living expenses, but without editing gigs I’m going to have to hustle more to have “discretionary” funds for traveling for readings and conventions, supporting causes (and politicians I favor) in a small way, and various other fripperies. An even more insistent incentive is my self-image as a writer. I’m not going to give that up as long as I still have words in my head.

             

Is that really the question?

I’m taking a slightly lateral view of this week’s topic. Not so much “what should I write next?” as examining the breakdown and fallout within publishing which can come from that very question.

Willsin Rowe, the cover artist, is a moderately successful entity. Willsin Rowe, the author, is not. I’ve been writing published works since early 2006. In that time I really haven’t sold many solo titles at all. Some co-written ones, and some stories in anthologies, have done moderately well, but my Willsin books just don’t sell. I say all that, not as a “woe is me” intro, but just as reference for a later point.

So, as I say, I write things, and not many folks buy them. Since I’m striving to make writing a profession, there is a balance there which I feel needs redressing. That imbalance in turn means my motivation gets impacted. So the question of “what should I write next?” gains a few extra bricks. It becomes heavier with every flop. Should I keep writing the stories my brain sends me? Or should I read the top ten bestsellers in my genre and strive to mimic those? (Or something else entirely?)

This question usually causes me stress, in the same way that any dualistic dilemma does. In this case, it becomes the battle between hoping your art can be discovered and also found palatable, and potentially subjugating it in the hope your skills will be strong enough to write something people buy (but which might not actually be something you write well).

Sitting at my computer every day, the temptation is strong to let that bitch we call “inspiration” take the lead. At any time I, and most other authors I know, tend to have several stories on the go. In my case, I think I have over two dozen in various states of undress. Deciding which one to work on can be a major decision.

But I shouldn’t fool myself… it’s just another form of procrastination. What I should be writing next is the story which will take the least time to finish. It might not be the one with the most words in it (or the one with the fewest words left to write), but heck… choose one and write that sucker!

Here in my dungeon, down with the other writers who toil but don’t sell, it can be extremely tempting to dream of how wonderful it would be to score a top-100 book. Life will be so much easier if I just get that hit. Everyone will know what my writing is like, and they’ll clamor for it. My backlist! My beautiful backlist! Everyone will snap those babies up! And with all that cash rolling in, I’ll be free to just write whatever I want… right?

Well, now. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

My sob story at the beginning about how few books I sell was, as I said, a reference point of sorts. See, the thing is, I know many authors who sell really well. I hasten to add I don’t know their figures, but I know the rough guides for how many books equals what position a book reaches on Amazon. I’m friends with people who sell more books in a week than I’ve sold in my entire ten years.

Why do I bring this up? Well, for street-cred, for one thing! Look at my shiny shoulders, where I’ve rubbed them on winners!

*cough*

But seriously, I bring it up because you know that beastly, crippling doubt I mentioned that comes from being (let’s face it) unsuccessful? From what I’m told, it’s there for those who have “made it”, too. In my case, the doubt is out there ahead of me. It’s a dark shape lurking around the next corner, or the one after that. It has the patience of a chess grand master, until I’m about to release a book, whereupon it screeches like a banshee while sinking its teeth into my pert posterior. 

My friends have passed those corners, and that particular doubt is behind them. Trouble is, it’s fast and it still has those mighty big teeth… and it’s chasing them with every step they take.

“What should I write next?” is just as important for someone who can’t find a hit as it is for someone who’s sold a hundred-thousand books. I might sit and moan, worrying that people don’t buy my books because I suck. Johnny Successpants might sit and moan, worrying that people will suddenly stop buying his books because they’ll realize he’s a fraud. He isn’t—he’s a great writer with a voice people want to read—but that black doubt is riding him so hard he can’t see the truth.

My answer for how to deal with this all came about by accident. And it’s one I’m still working around (after all, I only had the revelation yesterday).

When that big-toothed doubt-creature noms on my bits, I get churlish. In my case, I did a couple of sulky things on Facebook (nothing rude to anybody, just lashing out at myself and my so-called “author” status). When I get that way, I know it means I’m overdoing it, but my continued lack of success means I don’t feel I can stop.

Yesterday, my wife took the day off work. It was something planned for a week or so, but it just happened to coincide with my black depths. And though she knew I had work to do, and she did too, she suggested we take a short break. And I figured, “why not?”

We walked to a coffee shop not far from our house. It’s winter here in Brisbane, but by golly you wouldn’t know it. High 70sF temps, with bright sunshine and a cloudless sky. We walked through areas we know well, but which we usually drive. The difference between walking and driving is almost immeasurable. You can hear your own suburb, and smell it. You can see the details of the houses and the trees, which you don’t see when you’re driving because your main focus is on not killing yourself or anyone else with the ton of metal and flammable liquids you’re controlling.

Anyway, we had coffee and delicious cake-type things, and we reveled in being two adults without kids for a short time.

Walking home, we made sure to take roads we don’t normally drive on. Just for fun. We had every intention of starting work when we arrived home.

Instead, we took a trip in to the city. The event we planned to attend, we couldn’t. There was no parking available. So instead we drove down to our favorite park in all of Brisbane, New Farm Park. It’s right on the river, and it’s gorgeous. But before we got there, we stopped at a delicatessen and grabbed some meats, cheese and salad, and we had a picnic. We sat on a rug, nommed our stuff, let the sun warm us and again, reveled in being two individuals, and a couple. We’ve been married for 22 years, and together for 28, but I swear folks were looking at us as if we were each married to someone else and having a dirty fling with each other. We were touchy-feely, and celebrating how much we’re into each other.

We mixed it up. My wife was away from her job, which was what she needed. And I had my face in all kinds of places which were not my computer screen. (We’re two adults who had the house to ourselves, so you can make of that previous comment whatever you will!)

My point, though, is that we spent the day not working. Pointedly not working.

What I learned (and embarrassingly, not for the first time!) is that sometimes “what should I write next?” needs to be slightly truncated.

And we need to ask ourselves “should I write next?”