On the Money We Make (or Fail to Make) Through Writing

Getting paid more than zero for your work is the first step toward learning what it’s really worth to you, the best way to learn to stop obsessing about what it’s worth to everybody else.

This brilliant piece I just found on Slate.com touches on some of the key elements of making a living through writing. Many authors I know say it should never be about the money. Many others believe it shouldn't be about anything else. Some feel that making money off their 'art' is akin to 'selling out'; some consider payment the ultimate validation.

Either way, though, and as the article says, 

"Few connections are more mysterious than the one between writing books and making money."

Oh, and this:

In their candid moments, most publishers will admit going into business with writers whose work they regard as subliterary because they believe that they can profit from their books. This is still considered shocking in some unsophisticated quarters, but publishing isn’t literature: Literature is literature.

Read the full article at Slate.com.

Elevate Your Pitch!

Now that November is over, it's time to start editing the hell out of that NaNo manuscript. Getting rid of all the plot bunnies, the useless (yes, even if fun) tangents, the darlings and the indulgently purple prose.

And nothing helps focus on—even discover—the core of your novel like a cut-'em-to-the-bone pitch. Which is why Samantha Redstreake Geary, spectacular author and freelance writer for the music industry, has opened the Elevate Your Pitch competition.

Got a novel? Whether it's this year's NaNo project or something you've been working for longer than 30 days (and nights), you probably know that it's going to get nowhere without a brilliant elevator pitch.

What is an elevator pitch?

The way writers convey the promise of what reading their book will deliver on.
(paraphrased from Chuck Sambuchino @ WD)

He follows that with a tidbit of magic to illustrate:

"An unforgettable novel about finding a piece of yourself in someone else."
~ And The Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini

Think of the pitch as the teaser trailer to your book. You have 20 seconds to hook a potential reader; how will you do it?

The best part: for this contest, you get to do it with music (like the pros!). Sam's providing all tracks of the Elevation album on the contest page—and if these awesome pieces don't inspire you to take your pitch to the next level, nothing will.

So go for it. Take a listen to the Elevation tracks, choose one that feels right for your manuscript, polish that pitch (max 3 sentences!), and submit via the comments form. Remember to mention which of the tracks you chose, so the judges can listen to it while reading.

Speaking of judges, I'm one of them—and I'm in excellent company, with author Amy Willoughby-Burle and Really Slow Motion director Agus González-Lancharro. Contest is open from now until January 8th, and prizes include:

— For the top three favorite pitches, digital copies of the Elevation album and of The Miracle of Small Things
— One lucky overall winner will receive a gratis license to one of the Elevation tracks for use in a book trailer, and a signed paperback of The Miracle of Small Things

Sound cool? Sign up here! (And check the contest site for guidelines.)

If, for whatever reason, you're not ready to participate, you might still want to follow along; several guests and judges will be providing pitch-rocking tips while the competition runs. (And Sam's blog is totally worth following anyway, for content and visuals. And music.)

The Weekend #MiracleTour Stop: That Annoying Animal Advocate

I'm over at Michele Truhlik's awesome blog this weekend, on the next-to-last post for the MIRACLE tour, talking about the pitfalls of animal advocacy in fiction... And the work-around I found — at least I think I found. Readers will tell :) I'd love it if you came by to say hi, and to help me shower Michele with love and gratitude for being such a wonderful hostess.

Happy Saturday!

#BooktagsBlogHop: The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel

About the Author
About the Book

I just finished reading this one yesterday. At 4:00 am. Yes, it was that good. I've been hooked onto short stories since I happened, completely by accident, upon a collection of Roald Dahl's adult (and oh-so-twisted) short stories. I was thirteen. And I'd never be the same again.

The Listing Hop!

Happy Monday, and bon siman! 

(That's 'happy week' in Papiamentu, the language of Curaçao—and if you ever do come to Curaçao, make a note: all your greetings on Monday need to be accompanied by that... Under penalty of being classified as another rude foreigner ;) )

Today's the day for Bish Denham's

Listing Hop!

Rules:

Make a list. Any list. Sign up at Bish's page and join the fun. Here's mine:

Top ten twenty-two fifteen pieces of writing advice

(in no particular order)

Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

No. 6 in Neil Gaiman's 8 Rules of Writing

Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

No. 7 on Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Tips to Write a Great Story

Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.

No. 4 in Zadie Smith's 10 Rules of Writing

Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand — but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.

No. 10 in Zadie Smith's 10 Rules of Writing

Writing is a little door. Some fantasies, like big pieces of furniture, won’t come through.

From Susan Sontag's thoughts on writing

A writer, like an athlete, must ‘train’ every day. What did I do today to keep in ‘form’?

From Susan Sontag's thoughts on writing

Have moral intelligence — which creates true authority in a writer.

From Susan Sontag's thoughts on writing

You cannot write the pages you love without writing the pages you hate.

Robin Black, 21 Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Started Writing

Exaggeration is not a way of altering reality but of seeing it. 

Mario Vargas Llosa, History of a Deicide, speaking about Gabriel García Márquez 

(my translation from the Spanish)

Ordinary language is an accretion of lies. The language of literature must be, therefore, the language of transgression, a rupture of individual systems, a shattering of psychic oppression. The only function of literature lies in the uncovering of the self in history.

From Susan Sontag's thoughts on writing

If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

No. 6 of John Steinbeck's 6 Tips on Writing

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

No. 2 of John Steinbeck's 6 Tips on Writing

You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there’s no free lunch. Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you’re on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.

No. 7 of Margaret Atwood's 10 Rules of Writing

The more abstract a truth which one wishes to teach, the more one must first entice the senses.

No. 8 of Nietzsche's 10 Rules for Writers

The richness of life reveals itself through a richness of gestures. One must learn to feel everything — the length and retarding of sentences, interpunctuations, the choice of words, the pausing, the sequence of arguments — like gestures.

No. 5 of Nietzsche's 10 Rules for Writers

***

Hooked? Here's a fabulous compilation of writerly advice, via Brainpickings.

Speaking of writer wisdom, tomorrow I'll be over at Sam Redstreake's awesome blog sharing a pearl of my own on how music helps with writing... 
(With some outrageously wonderful music, of course.)
AAANNNDD — drum roll, please — also to celebrate the e-book release of
THE MIRACLE OF SMALL THINGS!
Come on over tomorrow and help me thank Sam for hosting me.

Want more lists? You'll find the complete list of Listing Hop List-makers at Bish's page... Hop on over and pay them a visit.

What's your favorite piece of writing advice? Inquiring (list-making) minds would love to know. And I looooove comments :)

Spectacular Settings! (#WEP)

Hosted by wonder-women Denise Covey and Yolanda Renee, the WEP (Write - Edit - Publish) Spectacular Settings hop is all about the power of place -- and the part it plays (can/should play) in writing.

Got a spectacular setting from a favorite book? Join the hop (it runs from the 19th to the 26th) and share! (More info here.)

The setting I'm sharing here is not from fiction but from poetry. And not just any poet, either. If you've followed this blog for a while, you might know I'm a huge fan of T.S. Eliot. A couple of months ago a long-time friend -- one of those people from the past that sometimes pop up into the present, usually bearing extraordinary gifts -- got together a small group of poetry enthusiasts for a reading circle on Skype (we're scattered all over, geographically), and the first piece we read was Eliot's Four Quartets. 

It's a piece I know well, maybe more than well -- it was none other than this old friend who introduced me to Eliot some 20 years ago, and the Eliot collection I own is one he gave to me back then... twenty years almost to the day we began reading. Several bits from Four Quartets have, in these two decades, gained special significance. For instance,

Best 20 minutes you'll spend today

The End: 2014 A Year In Stories

After twenty-one months, the 2014 A Year In Stories project has finally wrapped up. The last three volumes (October, November, and December) are available for purchase and/or download. All twelve volumes--a volume per month, a story a day, 31 novellas--are now out.

Yay!

A whole month off...

Where did May go?
(Image credit)

May flew by and--not a single post. Oops.

Yes, the A-to-Z took a lot out of me this year. Never again with more than one blog, never again in the middle of another project...

'S a matter of fact, maybe never again. Or maybe just not next year. It would be nice to just spectate for once. Get to visit blogs instead of stressing over my own posts or about not keeping up with the lovely comments y'all leave here. Which I love, and which I'll miss...

Well. We'll see. I love being a part of the A-to-Z, but I feel I miss out a lot. Yes, pre-writing is the key. (Why the hell is it so hard to follow one's own advice?) If I'm able to get at least half the post prewritten by January, when the sign-up list opens, maybe--maybe--I'll consider having another go. Right now I'm simply too exhausted to consider it.

What's been happening here over the last 30 days? Well, my laptop broke down mid-March. (The fact I did the A-to-Z on a borrowed computer might've contributed to the aforementioned exhaustion.) No, it's not fixed yet. It's a 2007 MacBook, and one of the fans is shot--but Apple doesn't manufacture it anymore, which means the pseudo Apple store here can't order it. They told me it's available on eBay or similars, but they've failed to give me (in spite of numerous calls to remind them) the specifications on what, exactly, I need to order.

Perhaps a new laptop is the solution. Sadly, seeing as I'm a starving artist (ahem) with a copious family of dogs who cannot starve, that solution isn't much of a solution at all.

Then the washing machine broke down. And then my car broke down.

This sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.

I'm done whining, though. I have this awesome borrowed laptop (borrowed from an even awesomer person--thank you, Cor!) to keep me connected to the world and--most importantly--to keep writing. The washing machine couldn't be fixed, so said Awesomer Person bought a new, supersonic and super quiet, one (thank you, Cor!)--and, as an added brushstroke of the Universe's goodwill, the delivery guys even took the old one away. And my car has been fixed. It was expensive, and it's not perfect (yet), but it drives. (Thank you again, Cor!)

It's possible the dogs might've missed the car more than I did. Which is saying a lot.

Awkword Paper Cut

Another marvelous thing that happened in May: I was featured all month on Awkword Paper Cut, in the Writers on Writing section, along with two other (pretty fantastic) writers to talk about Mexico and why we writers must (sometimes) leave our countries to find our writing. Awkword Paper Cut is a beautiful literary journal, and the Writers on Writing pieces provide powerful inspiration--as well as much-needed diversification--every month. Bookmark them, visit often, and enjoy.

2014 A Year In Stories
A 12-vol anthology
published by Pure Slush Books

And then there's the Pure Slush 2014 A Year In Stories project. Yesterday was the deadline to deliver all 12 stories in our cycles. I've delivered 9, have #10 in an almost-workable draft.

(Today, by the way, my June story is happening. Want to read it? You can, for free. It's part of the Amazon preview for the book. Just click on the Look Inside link and... enjoy. If you do like it, please remember I'm the ugly duckling among these swans of writers. Their stories are so worth your time. And money.)

As of last count, there's 315 stories (out of 365) delivered and approved for print. The July volume is now out, too, and volumes January through May have a 20% discount on Lulu.com.

Aaaaaaand... The fantastic Susan Tepper, another of the magnificent 2014 authors, has snagged a reading date for the project at the KGB Bar in New York's East Village. Talk about illustrious venues! We'll be there on Wednesday November 5th--so if you're in the NYC area, it would be a super treat if you stopped by.


All right. You're all caught up. Now it's my turn to catch up with you.

#atozchallenge: Xipe Totec, (my) God of Literature

You probably know the pre-hispanic cultures of America weren't shy about extensive pantheons: it must take an army, after all, to keep the universe going in all its complexity, all its diversity. These multiple gods--sometimes even, because it wasn't already complicated enough, multi-faceted gods--have one universal quality in common:

Goriness.

To make the sun rise? And you'll be wanting this every day? Right, then. A few bloody, still-beating hearts should do it, old chap. 

The Mexica (Meh-SHEE-kah, though you probably know them as the Aztec) are most famous for goriness. But like the Romans, they absorbed the religious practices of the peoples they conquered; most of the grisly rituals they shocked the Spanish with were in use long before the Mexica ever rose into the horizon of Mesoamerican power. Xipe Totec, for instance, has his origins in the Olmec civilization, the oldest one in México; so old, in fact, that by the time of Christ it had been gone for centuries.

Xipe Totec (SHEEP-eh TOH-tek). The god of Spring. Renewal. Seeding. The elemental force of rebirth. The shedding of the husk that frees life.

Xipe Totec himself. (Image credit)
Note the "extra" skin on his face and arms.
The "extra" hands.
Yep, they actually did this.

Also called "Our Lord the Flayed One." And always depicted as a man wearing the skin of another man. During the celebrations dedicated to him, prisoners--men, women, and children--were flayed, and others would wear their skins. Their "husks."

(Trust the Mesoamericans to goryfy the Easter bunny.)

I like to think that, among the diversity of blood in me, a bit of pre-hispanic DNA might have survived. (My great-grandmother was a Purépecha indian--I have hope.)

Perhaps this is why I find so fascinating this idea of Shedding The Husk. 

Transformation. 

Becoming.

Emerging.

The 2014: A Year In Stories project embodies this in a very literal sense: a year in the lives of. Think of your own year: on January 1st, where were you? Who were you? It's the end of April; where are you now? Who are you now? Where will you be by December? What marvelous things might have happened in your life? What wonderful people will you have met? How much will you have changed, what will you have learned?

Who will you be?

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

Good literature is about this Shedding of The Husk. 

So is a good life.

~ * ~

Thank you for the visit, and for your patience with the delay in posting. 

Y and Z coming soon.

Happy last day of A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: Voice

"Voice is the je ne sais quoi of spirited writing. It separates brochures and brilliance, memo and memoir, a ship's log and The Old Man and the Sea."
~ Constance Hale, Sin and Syntax

Voice. The je ne sais quoi of spirited writing. I love that. (This book, by the way, is the core of a writer's joie de vivre. If you haven't read it, get it now. Nothing will ever be the same.)

But what is voice? What is that je ne sais quoi? Is it just language and syntax, how a writer chooses to put sentences together? Does it have to do with subject matter? With characters? With the writer's vision of the world?

All of it? None of it?

Undefinable as it is, voice is the most visible quality in writing. And nowhere is that more apparent than in an anthology of short fiction.

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

He thinks it's time now to find a cab or a hotel but the crush of bodies around him becomes greater, another throng of people swept up in religious fervor. This is what he wants: ecstasy and spectacle, animal sacrifice and widow-burning and fire-walking. This is why he has come to India, after all. Isn't it? 

~ Azure, by John Wentworth Chapin (2014 March Vol. 3)

BTW I was thinking, maybe you might want some assistance, just to speed the editing up a little, because it's taking a little longer than it would normally, probably because summer has hit you early and that red pen can get a little slippy and slidey all over the page.

~ Schöne Grüße aus Tirol, Sally-Anne Macomber (2014 March Vol. 3)

Jump out of bed. Shower. Blow-dry hair. Apply makeup. Put on mom costume. Walk down hall to kids' rooms. Wake them for school. Same thing, Monday through Friday, August through May. Rinse and repeat. This is your life on motherhood.  

~ Rinse and Repeat, by h. l. nelson (2014 March Vol. 3)

As Stevie reaches into his backpack he weighs what he dislikes about Rick, starting with the fact that he knows it was Rick--Rickie back then--who stole his Star Wars lunchbox in the seventh grade. It was not from the new series either; it was vintage, from the original ancient series from his parents' wonder years.

~ No. 2 Pencil, by Michelle Elvy (2014 April Vol. 4)

It isn't baseball weather. Grey and forbidding, with a misting rain falling out of low, angry clouds, it's soup and blanket weather for most, but just another early season day in another city for us. Nobody wants to play--not the sparse group of diehard fans huddled under cover; not the umpires, huddled inside until the last possible moment; not the ground crew warming their hands over the hot dog steam; and certainly not the players, conscious of the fragile bodies they are compensated so well for using. 

~ Fourth Inning, by Michael Webb (2014 April Vol. 4)

Do you have a favorite author? Could you recognize their work among others'? What do you think makes a writer's voice unique? Is it only writers who have it? What constitutes style? Is it something we're born with, like blue eyes or brown? Or is it something we can cultivate?

~ * ~ 

Yes, I realize V day was yesterday for the rest of the A-to-Z world. Seeing as I haven't behaved this week, I'm giving up my day off tomorrow and posting W then. Sorry :(

Thanks for the visit!

#atozchallenge: Setting by @GayDegani

Awarded the 11th Annual Glass Woman Prize for her flash piece, “Something about L.A,” Gay Degani has had other stories nominated for Pushcart consideration. Pomegranate Stories, eight short pieces about mothers and daughters, is available at Amazon, her novel What Came Before is currently serialized online, and her linked stories are being published monthly in Pure Slush's print anthology, 2014-A Year in Stories.

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

Image by Gay Degani

I have always loved reading stories with a strong sense of place, so when I started writing myself, it didn’t surprise me that place came first to mind.

Where is this going to happen? What does it look like? What time of day? What month? For me, it feels like a natural beginning because place is visual and writing takes place in the mind before it takes place on the computer screen. I need that grounding before I can move forward with the action of the story.

With the "linked stories" project I'm working on for the Pure Slush 2014: A Year in Stories project, the time frame immediately focused me on setting. The stories needed to be told in present tense on a specific day of every month during the year 2014. Weather had to conform to the time of year and the events of each story had to be separated by roughly thirty days. With these parameters in play, the place evolved almost unconsciously as I began considering what I wanted to do.

Things in my own surroundings began suggesting themselves to me. Place came out of my late afternoon walks in my neighborhood. I noticed how several houses along one street didn't seem to belong in the same neighborhood, yet stood side by side.

I live in a community that began developing in the 1890s. The architecture is dictated by past purposes of the streets I walk by: small wooden bungalows that must once have been vacation cabins, mansions hidden behind condominiums, Victorians, Mediterraneans, Craftmans, all lining the same street.

Seeing these homes in the growing gloom of my walks began to stir up scenarios I could incorporate in this series of stories. I followed that impulse and my characters began to take shape.

Like with everything in writing, tapping into that deep, inner part of ourselves and then trusting it will take us where we want to go, pays off.


Has a place ever inspired a story for you? What role does setting play in your writing?

~ * ~

Thank you, Gay, for this fantastic insight into the importance of giving setting its place in storytelling. Thank you, readers, for the visit, and happy A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: Quandary

Nothing like a difficult situation to reveal character in fiction (and in real life). A really really difficult situation.

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

Q: Your character is trapped in a dark alley late at night with three men that don't seem to have honorable intentions. What does s/he do? Fight? Flight? Panic and go into hysterics? Sprout a pair of wings and fly away? 

(No, don't laugh--there's a 2014 character that flies. Sans wings, even.)

STEPHEN V. RAMEY: "As my story cycle opens, Stephen would be nonchalant about such an encounter. He has no money, nothing much of worth, and yet he's not going to let these men intimidate him into giving up what little he does have. He might try to reason. Failing that he would defend himself if necessary, even if it meant a beat down. Once the cancer diagnosis is in, he might actually confront these men, and egg them on. On some level he's looking for a way to prove (to whom?) that he deserves to survive. He's trying to turn his life into a story, with purpose and a resolution."

(More on Stephen's 2014 stories.)

SUSAN TEPPER: "What would Pedersen do? He would probably piss his pants. He is mistrustful of grown men. His father beat the crap out of him. In Bellevue, he came out of shock therapy to an orderly fondling his genitals. He likes the small boys so he can always be in control."

(More on Susan's 2014 stories.)

MANDY NICOL: "As long as Nadia has her sensible shoes on, she’ll make a run for it."

(More on Mandy's 2014 stories.)

GUILIE: Luis Villalobos would probably try to talk his way out of it. (He's a lawyer.) He'd be too busy evaluating possible escape routes, gauging the attackers' level of distraction, keeping his facial expressions in check, to feel fear. But once it was over, assuming he got away safe and sound, he'd probably curl up somewhere where no one could see or hear him and bawl his eyes out.

(More on my 2014 stories? An interview and an audio version of the first story.)

~ * ~

What would your character do? What about favorite characters--say, Atticus Finch, or Odysseus? Walter White? Florentino Ariza (from Love In The Time of Cholera)? Oh, and his beloved Fermina Daza? Of the two, I'm pretty sure she'd be the kick-ass. 

And you? What would you do? What does that say about you?

~ * ~

Thank you for visiting on this beautiful April Saturday, and happy A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: Morgana Malone and The Mysteries of Matt Potter's Masterpiece(s)

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

Today you're in for a special treat. Susan Tepper, who's not just one of the 31 2014ers but has also published five books of poetry and fiction, including The Merrill Diaries (Pure Slush Books, 2013) and the Pulitzer-nominated What May Have Been (Cervena Barva Press, 2010), is interviewing Matt Potter--editor extraordinaire, brilliant author, mastermind of ground-breaking projects, the reason all of us 2014ers are here to begin with--about his story cycle in 2014: A Year In Stories.

Susan Tepper

Susan Tepper: Your January 2014 story, Morgana Malone and the Case of the Mysterious Flood (has a Nancy Drew ring to it, doesn't it?) introduces the theme of water. In general, do you enjoy partaking in the rituals of water: the bath, oceans, lakes, the 8 oz bottle?

Matt Potter: I deliberately chose a title like that... I would never read stories like that (never did as a kid either: I thought they were silly, even then!) but I did want a Trixie Belden / Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew-sounding title for Morgana Malone...

ST: Sort of every girl’s dream. I wanted to be Nancy Drew, and I sort of still do.

[GUILIE: Me too!]

MP: Actually, there was a series of books published from 1941 to 1947 by the Whitman Publishing Company, and this is a quote from Wikipedia so I don’t know what the original source is, so I assume the publisher itself, but the books feature plots where “the heroine has the same name and appearance as the famous actress but has no connection ... it is as though the famous actress has stepped into an alternate reality in which she is an ordinary person.”

I always thought this was hilarious and all their titles were similar: Ann Rutherford and the Key to Nightmare Hall (1942), Betty Grable and the House with the Iron Shutters (1943), Judy Garland and the Hoodoo Costume (1945), etc etc. 

All my stories in 2014 have (or will have) titles like that: Morgana Malone and the Miracle of St. Francis Xavier, Morgana Malone and the Mystery of the Manna from Heaven, Morgana Malone and the Mystery of the Family Trust. All are humorous references to the action in their stories.

ST: My, but you can digress.. the water???

MP: Ah, yes. Well, I always have a shower and never a bath, and it has to be quite hot (not just warm) for me to go swimming. But it’s the ocean or sea for me (I loathe swimming in lakes and rivers) and there must be sand at the bottom: no mud or stones or moss or squelch. Yuk! We are spoiled with beaches in Australia. Sand sand sand and nothing else! My favourite drinks are sauvignon blanc, beer on a really hot day, and most often water, plain water.

Matt Potter
Author, Editor, All-Around Great Human

ST: Your answer, "We are spoiled with beaches in Australia..." was the defining moment in your psyche, I believe, for what opens the Morgan stories saga: water... ever present... and water is biblical. You have created Morgana as a TRIPLE THREAT: brains, beauty and inquisitive nature. BUT!!!— you added vulnerability. I'm quite interested to see more of why her ex-husband has 'his hold' over her still. He was her psychiatrist, which adds an extra layer of psychological intrigue to the saga of Morgana Malone.

MP: I would say rather than biblical, water is natal. In a geographic context, Australia is a country and a continent and an island, we are surrounded by water and if we have to go anywhere outside Australia we have to go over the water. For Australians international is overseas. (As it is with most of the 7 countries where English is the main European language. But here more so.) 

The beach was part of my childhood – summer holidays at the beach, one or two weeks just before the school year started, and for us kids it was quite idyllic, though I am unsure if I thought quite the same at the time – and we had older relatives (now dead) who lived one street from the beach and we would visit them often – but it’s not really part of my life now … though we do holiday on the coast towards the end of summer, beginning of autumn, for one week every year. (And there’s some incredible statistic about 90% of Australians living within 100km of the beach or something like that. See, all that Outback nonsense is just that, mostly a myth.)

ST: OK, natal. It is your story.

MP: Actually, what opens the first story and thus the saga is art. But both water and art are emotional, no? Art features much more in my life on a conscious level. (The look of things is very important to me. BUT, something looking good is not enough, there MUST be meaning beyond the surface, otherwise there is no point, then it’s just marketing and Life according to Barbie™.) 

Bad psychiatrists and bad therapists feature quite often in my stories. I had a counsellor once who was wonderful and helped me a lot – the only time I ever sought such help – but I’ve always been a talker and a thinker and an analyser and people who are blind to their own faults and issues are (1) very funny for me but also, in real life (2) damned annoying. Perhaps it is no coincidence in my day job I am surrounded by counsellors, their offices are all around mine. (I actually quite like that environment, though the political correctness can be frustrating.) But counselling is about getting to the emotional truth and learning and discovering ways to cope with life and relationships and feelings. Most of the characters I write about are heavily flawed so of course, some kind of help is needed!

ST: So why does Morgana put up with her ex?

MP: Grigor? Well, clearly she doesn’t want to, but he is very persistent and plays on her weak spot, her passivity. She lets things happen. But Grigor is, basically, a shit, and very unethical. Morgana meets other people through the course of 2014 who are not great for her either. The trick for her is: how can I recognize these patterns and change them?

ST: Never easy.

MP: I think she recognizes the patterns but she hasn’t moved to the next step to changing her behavior. 

I don’t see Morgana as beautiful – she would not think of herself that way at all – or even brainy, but what she does is survive. She has street smarts in a lower middle class way. I am about to write a story with Morgana and her mother and it could be interesting, how her mother sees her. Grigor was Morgana’s psychiatrist because he used her as a guinea pig PLUS he needed the money. He was probably still her psychiatrist after their divorce too. See, he really is a shit. 

OK, you can stop me now …

Susan Tepper

sfloris@att.net

www.susantepper.com

~ * ~

Thank you, Susan and Matt, for the insight--and the chuckles. You make me laugh without even trying. And Matt, Morgana is a centerpiece creation.

Thank you all for visiting, and happy A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: Hero--or Antihero?

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books.

What is a hero? 

The person that does the right thing because it comes naturally to them? Or the person to whom that right thing does not come naturally--but does it anyway? 

Traditional definitions:

(Clarification: definition #2 is not in dispute. Not in this post, anyway.)

But tradition doesn't seem to be big with the 2014 project writers. Welcome to another conversation with the authors.

Stephen V. Ramey

STEPHEN V. RAMEY: For me, heroism is strongly related to self-sacrifice. A hero is someone who is willing (and does) risk life, limb, or worldview in order to rescue or nurture another. 

GUILIE: And an antihero, then, is--

STEPHEN: Is one who selfishly takes from another to feed his or her own wants. My main character, Stephen, is--

GUILIE: Is your 2014 story autobiographical? 

STEPHEN: [pleads the fifth, clears throat] Stephen is both heroic and anti-heroic. By his thinking he--well, he does what he eventually does (no, no further comment at this time) in order to protect his wife from the consequences of his disease. But the objective truth is that their marriage has been unsatisfying to him for years, and the disease becomes an excuse for him to selfishly pull away and engage in a quixotic adventure that allows him to persist in denial while aggrandizing his sense of self. Is he a flawed hero? An antihero? I think it depends on your perspective.

GAY DEGANI:  My favorite heroes are always flawed. I cannot get behind anyone who does everything right because that's just not human nature. I'd say the iconic hero for me is Bill Murray in Stripes, in Ghostbusters, in Groundhog Day. That guy!

Gay Degani

GUILIE: Are you saying a hero must be flawed in order to be a hero for you? Or does that constitute an anti-hero?

GAY: This is a human being with flaws. Perhaps that is an anti-hero. Or perhaps it has to do with the level of flaws. Maybe I need to go look up definitions. [leaves, returns] Okay. Stooping to be quick, here's what I found at Wikipedia: 

"The antihero or antiheroine [...] lacks the traditional heroic qualities such as idealism, courage, nobility, fortitude, moral goodness, and altruism. Whereas the classical hero is larger than life, antiheroes are typically inferior to the reader in intelligence, dynamism or social purpose."

By this definition, Bill Murray would be an antihero and Atticus Finch (one of my absolute favorite characters) would be a hero.

GUILIE: I love Atticus Finch! And characters with flaws win me over, too, more than perfect people. What's there to admire in perfection? It's the struggle, the striving, that forges character, no?

Susan Tepper

SUSAN TEPPER: My character is a psychopath. What he does cannot be defined as a hero in any sense.

GUILIE: Not even if he recognized the twistedness of his psyche, if he were trying to overcome it? I'm thinking of that movie with Kevin Bacon, can't remember the name, but he's also a pedophile.

SUSAN: No. In real life pedophiles never reform. It's accepted in the psychology literature. It's an addiction of sorts in their character.

MICHAEL WEBB: Mark Hamilton is a flawed hero. He's not famous, but he's at a level where diehard baseball fans, and certainly fans in whatever city he plays for, know his name. He's lauded as an athletic hero, but he behaves less than perfectly when--well, when certain things happen.

GUILIE: What things? Is he going to--?

MICHAEL: No spoilers!

GUILIE: He is, isn't he? But why? I just--okay, sorry. I said sorry. Go on. I'll shut up.

MICHAEL: So Mark's trying, but he seems to be susceptible to taking the easy way out. (I'm not at all thrilled with what that says about me as an author.)

MATT POTTER: Grigor the therapist (and Morgana's ex-husband) thinks he's a hero, helping people and diving into the deepest part of their psyches. But, really, he's just a self-serving shit.

GUILIE: No redeeming qualities? None at all?

MATT: [thinks for a moment, shakes head]

GUILIE: What about Morgana? Does she have the makings of a heroine or antiheroine?

SUSAN: Matt, don't answer that. You're all going to have to read Matt's interview to find out.

GUILIE: But that's not until M day. That's, like, next week.

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Want to know more about these authors? Read the interviews with Gay, Stephen, Matt, Susan, and Michael about their 2014 stories.

The first six volumes of the 2014 project are available in both e-formats and print. Get free shipping with code FM303 (until April 10th).

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What's your definition of a hero? What about an antihero? Which do you prefer to read about? Which do you find it easier to relate to? Which is harder for you to write?

Thanks for joining the 2014: A Year In Stories conversation, and happy A-to-Z-ing!

#atozchallenge: Gender

2014: A Year In Stories
A twelve-volume anthology published by Pure Slush Books

How much does gender matter in a story? Does it have a role in the larger arena of storytelling? How does it impact your perception of a story?

Stephen V. Ramey, one of the thirty-one 2014 writers, has been reviewing the project's story of the day since January 1st. Yes, every day. He's earned our gratitude not just for the discipline and effort involved, but--perhaps especially--for the insight he provides to each story arc, to the characters, even to the writers ourselves.

On January 12th we read, and Stephen reviewed, Shane Simmons' first story, You Can't Choose Your Friends. That review sparked a paradigm-shifting conversation. I'd like to share it--and maybe even continue it--with you.

Stephen says about You Can't Choose Your Friends:

From Stephen's January 12th review of Shane Simmons' You Can't Choose Your Friends

Turns out most of us a) hadn't noticed the lack of gender clarification until the end, b) had either assumed the narrator was male because the author is male, or female because the other character in the story is female, and--most relevantly--c) whatever gender we chose didn't make a whit of difference for our enjoyment of the story. 

Some stories come with built-in gender for their characters. Take Michael Webb's, for instance (whose baseball-player protag, Mark Hamilton, you've read about here). In Michael's words,

Mark Hamilton's story is a baseball story, but it is also fundamentally a manhood story. His value is uniquely tied to his body. If he can't throw a baseball where he wants when he wants with regularity and velocity, he is utterly useless as a professional. He is unusually thoughtful for an athlete, but the strain is beginning to wear at him. He's doubting his parenting and his marriage. When the checks stop coming, will he have any value to them at all? He feels that if he has to retire because of age or injury, his work will disappear, his value will disappear, and in a way, he will disappear.

Mark is unequivocally male. His story--the characters, the plot, the conflicts, the dialogue--reflect that, also unequivocally. But what about stories--and protagonists--that aren't immediately identifiable as male or female?

Stephen raises another, more craft-related, point:

Stephen, caught in a Dundee moment.

It's generally a good idea to encourage the reader to engage in the story. This is why minimalist (but sharp) description is usually best. The reader gets to participate in the creation. So long as the author is careful to identify details that really do matter to the narrative, allowing the reader to create non-necessary details (is that dress blue or green? does the house have siding?) can be an effective way of connecting said reader to the action and characters of a story.  

Gender matters a great deal to many readers, but it can be difficult for an author to indicate that aspect of character naturally, particularly in first-person viewpoint. Attempts can come off as clumsy (I stroked my beard and sat next to Rhiannon), or forced (As a woman I dislike Old Spice). 

The larger question is whether gender actually matters in many stories. Does it matter whether a reader identifies a protagonist as male or female in a story that does not play to gender types? If Joe envisions a burly man chopping that wood, does it matter that Alice pictures a strong woman? 

Maybe, but what if the resolution has nothing to do with that accident of birth, but rather the content of his/her character? Granted, the takeaway of such a story will vary between readers, but so long as there is a meaningful takeaway, does it matter? 

I will argue that in some (perhaps many) stories, e.g. Shane Simmons' opening story in 2014, gender is not a detail that truly matters and can be left to the reader to imagine without harming the story experience.  

In fact, it may enhance the experience.

Thank you, Stephen and Michael, for sharing your thoughts for this post. 

What do you think? Do you enjoy stories with built-in protag gender? Is gender ambiguity a problem or an enhancement for you as a reader--and a writer? Have you ever written a piece that made it difficult to clarify the protagonist's gender? (I have. Curious?)

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Thanks for the visit, and my apologies for the late posting. I'll do better tomorrow :) 

Happy A-to-Z-ing!