My upcoming release, THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY, might have put me in a strange state of mind. I keep wondering what the dead would think of the living at a funeral.
Funeral attendance is required more and more often as a person ages. Here's what I notice about them:
First: The ministers in charge seem to miss the fact that the people are there not for a sermon, but out of respect for the person who died. Instead of acknowledging this, many clergymen and women make the occasion into a bid for conversion. My thought: if attendees are churchgoers, they don't need a second weekly sermon. If they're not, you just emphasized for them why they don't go to church.
The other thing I wonder is if the dead really would enjoy seeing their loved ones publicly exposed in the throes of their grief. It is painful to me to be present as family members suffer. I don't want to watch them being led into the church before and out of the church after, following that dreadful box of dead. Where did we get the idea that grief is somehow resolved by publicity?
So here's my personal declaration. No funeral. When I die, I want a nice dinner for anyone who cares to attend. No wringing the grief out of people by capsulizing my life and telling everyone what a great gal I was. The minister can attend, and he will be allowed to say grace if he can do it in a minute or less. After that, just talk about me while you enjoy the chicken and meatballs. Or don't, as the mood strikes. Enjoy each other's company. That's what a funeral should be for.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY
People often ask authors where their ideas come from. I speak not for others, but as for me--not a clue most of the time.
THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY, my January release, seems to have stemmed from a conversation I had with my son, a Merrill Lynch VP. He mentioned that he had fired one of their employees for selling away. I asked what that was, and he explained. It took root somewhere in my head, and the idea for a mystery formed.
Where the dead part came from, I could not tell you. I had no real desire to jump on the paranormal bandwagon, and to be honest, the story is not a typical paranormal: no vampires, no screaming vengeance from beyond the grave, and most certainly no ghouls or zombies. Think the Thomas part of Odd Thomas, not the fighting-other-worldly-creatures part. Kind of gentle paranormal, kind of speculating on things other-worldly without being scary or gloom-and-doom-ish. It's a mystery that just happens to involve dead people, and even though I don't know where the idea came from, I had a great time with it. And sometime in January, I hope a lot of other people do, as well.
THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY, my January release, seems to have stemmed from a conversation I had with my son, a Merrill Lynch VP. He mentioned that he had fired one of their employees for selling away. I asked what that was, and he explained. It took root somewhere in my head, and the idea for a mystery formed.
Where the dead part came from, I could not tell you. I had no real desire to jump on the paranormal bandwagon, and to be honest, the story is not a typical paranormal: no vampires, no screaming vengeance from beyond the grave, and most certainly no ghouls or zombies. Think the Thomas part of Odd Thomas, not the fighting-other-worldly-creatures part. Kind of gentle paranormal, kind of speculating on things other-worldly without being scary or gloom-and-doom-ish. It's a mystery that just happens to involve dead people, and even though I don't know where the idea came from, I had a great time with it. And sometime in January, I hope a lot of other people do, as well.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Proud Words and Self-Publishing
Look out how you use proud words.
When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back.
They wear long boots, hard boots; they walk off proud; they can't hear you calling—
Look out how you use proud words.
—Carl Sandburg, American poet and essayist, Primer Lesson, 1922
The same can be said for self-publishing.
I went to a book-selling event last week, and of seven authors in attendance, two were traditionally published. As we chatted, all five of the self-pubbed authors admitted to me privately there were mistakes in their books they wish could be fixed.
That is what's wrong with self-publishing.
To be fair, it can be done and done well. But in too many cases, self-publishing equates to impatience, and we all know the adage about haste making waste.
Sometimes it's just plain ignorance, like the author who kept informing prospective customers that her book was a "fiction novel". Sometimes it's frustration, like the man who tried for seven years to get the attention of The Machine and could not. Often it's lack of study of the industry, a lack of awareness of consequences. And sometimes--perhaps more so of late when e-publishing has begun to take off--it's a conscious decision. The writer understands that she will be doing her own promotion; she gets help with editing and formatting; she carves out her niche and works to make it as attractive and visible as possible. She keeps in mind that if people read a book with her name on it that is badly produced, full of errors and weak elements, they are unlikely to repeat the experience.
So take Sandburg's warning to heart. Like proud words, self-published books cannot be taken back once they are out there. Writers should send them out only under carefully considered circumstances. Every collection of words you offer the world should be words that make you proud.
When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back.
They wear long boots, hard boots; they walk off proud; they can't hear you calling—
Look out how you use proud words.
—Carl Sandburg, American poet and essayist, Primer Lesson, 1922
The same can be said for self-publishing.
I went to a book-selling event last week, and of seven authors in attendance, two were traditionally published. As we chatted, all five of the self-pubbed authors admitted to me privately there were mistakes in their books they wish could be fixed.
That is what's wrong with self-publishing.
To be fair, it can be done and done well. But in too many cases, self-publishing equates to impatience, and we all know the adage about haste making waste.
Sometimes it's just plain ignorance, like the author who kept informing prospective customers that her book was a "fiction novel". Sometimes it's frustration, like the man who tried for seven years to get the attention of The Machine and could not. Often it's lack of study of the industry, a lack of awareness of consequences. And sometimes--perhaps more so of late when e-publishing has begun to take off--it's a conscious decision. The writer understands that she will be doing her own promotion; she gets help with editing and formatting; she carves out her niche and works to make it as attractive and visible as possible. She keeps in mind that if people read a book with her name on it that is badly produced, full of errors and weak elements, they are unlikely to repeat the experience.
So take Sandburg's warning to heart. Like proud words, self-published books cannot be taken back once they are out there. Writers should send them out only under carefully considered circumstances. Every collection of words you offer the world should be words that make you proud.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
It's Wrong, So Make It Right--Rewrite
A writer who is paying attention knows when something's wrong with a project. That knowledge does not come early on, and often not easily. For me, when the writing is ongoing, it is important to get the main story down, and details almost have to be left fuzzy. I am an insistent advocate of "rest time" for a first-draft manuscript, time (like a month) in a drawer or on a CD so I see it with fresh eyes. Any MS needs multiple rereadings by the author before anyone else ever sees it. Like your child, you should want your writing to be as beautiful as possible when the world sees it.
Multiple re-reads allow a commited author to notice the things that aren't logical, places that need rewriting. There are times when I'd rather not. (Why can't I stretch credibility a little? Even great writers have done it. For example, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. How many times can two people accidentally stumble into each other in one lifetime?)So I may be tempted to gloss over why the protag goes to a particular spot. Or how she happens to leave her cell phone at home. Or when she chooses to go there, it is where the murderer is, too, by some odd chance. But as I go back over the piece, each time looking for different types of errors, those places feel weak. They need fixing. They need rewriting.
I just finished the edit of my January release, THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY. The editor found more things that needed rewriting, and that's to be expected. No author I know is capable of judging her own work alone. It takes an educated and committed editor to finish the job, acting as objective reader and polisher. So even after I'd read the piece and rewritten the weak spots I found, I was in for more work. However, I know the book gets stronger each time I read again, write again, examine again.
Rewriting is not a lot of fun, and the mark of an amateur is unwillingness to do it. Many would rather stagger onward and write more junk than go back and make that first draft into something worthwhile. For me, the term "writer" might be more correctly termed "rewriter". It is the people who are willing to reread and rewrite, many times, who produce excellent books.
Multiple re-reads allow a commited author to notice the things that aren't logical, places that need rewriting. There are times when I'd rather not. (Why can't I stretch credibility a little? Even great writers have done it. For example, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. How many times can two people accidentally stumble into each other in one lifetime?)So I may be tempted to gloss over why the protag goes to a particular spot. Or how she happens to leave her cell phone at home. Or when she chooses to go there, it is where the murderer is, too, by some odd chance. But as I go back over the piece, each time looking for different types of errors, those places feel weak. They need fixing. They need rewriting.
I just finished the edit of my January release, THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY. The editor found more things that needed rewriting, and that's to be expected. No author I know is capable of judging her own work alone. It takes an educated and committed editor to finish the job, acting as objective reader and polisher. So even after I'd read the piece and rewritten the weak spots I found, I was in for more work. However, I know the book gets stronger each time I read again, write again, examine again.
Rewriting is not a lot of fun, and the mark of an amateur is unwillingness to do it. Many would rather stagger onward and write more junk than go back and make that first draft into something worthwhile. For me, the term "writer" might be more correctly termed "rewriter". It is the people who are willing to reread and rewrite, many times, who produce excellent books.
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