After the dodgy dealings revealed in the Social Media & Book Deals post, I came across a dissection of how easily Amazon’s bestseller status can be achieved:
(Click on more to read the whole article)
Such duplicity is further proof that no one knows what the truth is these days. The meaning of words is altered so drastically, that sometimes they mean the opposite of their real definition.
Fake News as a phenomenon is depressing.
I agree with Abraham Lincoln!
By writing a book, you’re tackling a challenge that many people talk about but never get around to doing.
Some of them buy the equipment and do the training—books on writing and attending courses—but you’re actually climbing the mountain of creating a story. There are a thousand ways to reach the peak, and nothing to prevent you backtracking to try a different route. To get to the top, you’ll need determination and self-belief to the point of arrogance; the worst thing you can do is beat yourself up. If you do that, you’ll stop climbing, crawl into a crevasse and freeze to death.
Our greatest weakness is in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always try one more time.
It could be that no one much will care that you make a successful ascent—that’s what literary agents are for, to bring you down to earth—but, you’ll know you did it and that’s what’s crucial. You’ll feel better for it:
So, enjoy what you’re doing. Writing will always be hard work, but it shouldn’t be excruciating. You need to get on your own side.
When your book is written, you’re marked out as different—to be admired and, of course, criticised. But, you did it. Don’t be denied!
After the recent Reading In Bed post, I wondered about another horizontal way of reading—in the bath.
It’s a risky activity with books, let alone electronic ways of reading. People’s addiction to their smartphones has led to all too many dying by electrocution, foolishly recharging their phone while in the bath:
http:// https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39307418
In an ideal world, one would have a loving narrator reading your favourite book to you:
If you’re going it alone, then why not be comfortable? Stay long enough, and you’ll turn into a human prune!
Toddlers have long been well supplied with waterproof books!
And now, adults can get classic literature in a waterproof form:
http:// http://bibliobath.com/
Reading in the shower is tricky, but you could show your literary interests with the right shower curtain:
https://fineartamerica.com/shop/shower+curtains/girl+reading+book
Should you be worried about dropping your book into the bath, or making the pages go crinkly from the humidity, it’s possible to buy a waterproof cover! At $85 it’s pricey…Ziploc food bags are cheap if you really can’t resist…
http:// https://www.bookofjoe.com/2014/10/book-read.html
I admit, that I’ve read in the bath many a time, several times nodding off and dipping the book into the water, waking with a start to insert toilet tissue between the pages. Funnily enough, the last time it happened, the book I was reading, The Dreadful Judgement by Neil Hanson, is about the Great Fire of London. It’s a wonder, it didn’t hiss when it touched my bubble bath foam! The book now looks like it’s been gnawed on by a hippopotamus.
Do you read in the bath?
Dropped any books?
Chen Bolan (Born Shanghai, 1955)
Try making your own up – it might add some soap to your hole.
http://www.rinkworks.com/said/spoonerisms.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Archibald_Spooner
We all remember memorable openings and closing lines of famous novels – the ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged’ and ‘After all, tomorrow is another day’ phrases that have entered the language as expressions.
Sometimes powerful quotes are lifted from the body of the narrative, and it helps if the writer is witty, such as Oscar Wilde with this observation from The Picture Of Dorian Gray – ‘Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.’
I’ve wondered how much an author laboured at coming up with something meaningful, hoping it would pass into posterity. I didn’t consciously try to compose anything pithy while writing my novels. If I did write something that reflected a character’s view of the world, it was more as a way of summing them up than meant for posterity. All the same, my beta-readers commented on several phrases that I’d used, which was encouraging.
Their praise set me to thinking that I should, perhaps, sprinkle a few pearls of wisdom into my writing – only in passing, not setting them up as some portentous pronouncement to the universe! Readers like phrases that ring true to them – I know that I do.
I had proof of this a few years ago, when I found an interesting novella in my local out-of-town discount retailer, a place that sellseverything, including remaindered books. It was a book called The Fly Truffler, written by Gustaf Sobin – an American-born writer, who lived in France, and who had more success with his poetry than prose. I was intrigued by the story, as I didn’t know that truffles could be traced by the flies that hover above where they’re growing. I’d heard of truffle hunters using pigs and dogs to find them.
The story is about an ill-advised affair between a middle-aged professor and one of his students. It’s intense and poetic reading, and I really enjoyed it.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Fly-Truffler-Gustaf-Sobin/dp/0393321797
As the discounted book was only 50p, I bought several copies to give to friends. They all picked out a couple of sentences that had struck me as being wise and expressive :
‘ Maybe it’s not a person we fall in love with so much as a distance, a depth which that particular person happens to embody. Perhaps it’s some inconsolable quality in that person, some unappeasable dimension that attracts one all the more forcibly’
It fascinated me, that we’d all noticed the same thing, and again I wondered how consciously the author had chosen his words.
Do any of you pause for thought, trying to come up with memorable phrases that might take on a life of their own? And, if you do, how about some examples…
We’re advised to become our own brand these days, to be as much a part of what readers buy into as the stories we create. This is all part of the relentless marketing that’s needed to get known, and is something that’s alien to most writers, who shun the limelight and work reclusively.
Once an author achieves a level of success that sees their name as recognisable as that of their literary creation, then that’s something publishers will capitalise on – even after the writer dies.
It’s happened with the James Bond series of books, where nine authors have written continuations of the secret agent’s adventures since his creator Ian Fleming died in 1964. These include well-known writers, such as Kingsley Amis, Sebastian Faulks, William Boyd and Jeffery Deaver.
Stieg Larsson’s untimely death has seen some nasty squabbling between his civil partner of many years and his family, about the fate of the Millennium trilogy of crime novels, including the continuation of the series. A fourth Millennium novel is about to be published, written by David Lagercrantz, a chameleon of a writer who specialises in mimicking the voices of others.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/19/stieg-larsson-girl-in-the-spiders-web-david-lagercrantz
This has caused much controversy, but I can’t say that I’m surprised it’s happened. After all, if J.K. Rowling or E.L. James dropped dead, do you really think that more novels would not appear, using their brand name?
What do you make of this practice? Imagine your own identity as an author being continued after your death – would you be pleased for the ongoing fame (and income for your family), or offended that you were being exploited?
After reading several well-respected advice books on the writing process by Stephen King and Lawrence Block recently, I looked around for something more modern. Their wisdom is palpable, but things have moved on a lot since with the 1980s with technology.
I saw several favourable reviews of How to be Writer in the E-Age, by Catherine Ryan Hyde and Anne R Allen, so bought the Kindle version for a mere £2.82. They are both very experienced authors, who’ve encountered the sort of problems that beset us Colonists. The interplay between them is amusing, as they write alternate chapters, feeding off what the other has just said and bouncing ideas around.
They really know their stuff, offering up-to-date advice that I found valuable. I wish that I’d discovered this book a year ago, as the way that they cut through the bullshit to give practical tips on things like the social media is very helpful.
Definitely worth a look: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15738764-how-to-be-a-writer-in-the-e-age-and-keep-your-e-sanity
I was sorry to hear of the death of E.L. Doctorow in 2015. He’s one of my literary heroes. Try reading Ragtime or Homer and Langley, if you haven’t done so already.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/22/author-el-doctorow-dies-in-new-york-aged-84
He said many wise things about writing, including the much-quoted :
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/22/el-doctorow-in-quotes-15-of-his-best
Blimey, I’m starting to feel glad to be ancient. Apparently, the latest genre of writing to be expanding is what is known as Baby Boomer Lit.
It’s undoubtedly a trend in all aspects of entertainment, including books, film, music, fashion and exercise. There’s an increasing number of people who are living longer, so it would be foolish to ignore them as a consumer group.
I’ve never been keen on the term baby boomer to describe my generation. Mind you, I once asked my parents why they had me. I was only a little boy at the time, and I thought that they’d say something romantic about how they loved each other very much and wanted to have a baby to prove it. But no, the blunt reply was that: “Rationing ended, so we could afford to have you” – welcome to real world economics, Paul.
I’ve written stories with characters from eight years old to eighty, but have only concentrated on the complications of ageing a couple of times. Once was in a novella that contemplated what happens after a marriage partner chooses assisted suicide as a way out of suffering in life, with the bereaved widower having to begin again at 60. The other story portrayed a newly single divorcee spreading her wings at 50, trying to reinvent herself. This was partly based on some of the women I’ve met while computer dating. I may write more about what’s it like to age – after all, we’re advised to write about what we know.
Should any youngsters reading this post have wondered this very thing, let me propose that you think about when you’re going to stop listening to your favourite bands, drinking the booze you enjoy, indulging in the sex that floats your boat, driving too fast sometimes for a thrill – or even writing those stories that you spend so much time on…
Your answer will probably be never, I’m always going to do those things, as I love them.
Good for you, that’s exactly how I feel. Ageing really is a detail.
Writers are outsiders, observers, solitary folk who can be eccentric. We’ve all got our funny little ways – I know that I have, though some of my idiosyncrasies are solutions to my current circumstances.
I live in a very noisy place, a flat above a petrol station with a car repair workshop nearby, and a main road and airport flight path running parallel to the site. Lord knows what possessed me to take the tenancy, but I’ve had to adapt to the noise and lack of insulation in my roof space garret.
I listen to loud music through earbuds while I’m working. In summer, it reaches 90 degrees, so my electric fan becomes my best friend, as I turn into the Nude Novelist – there are advantages to living alone. In winter, it’s rarely above 50 degrees, so I become the Michelin Man through wearing up to twenty garments – including woolly hat and gloves
With writing material, I tend to make notes in LibreOffice Writer and I have about 100 folders of ideas for different things, such as character names, titles for poems, phrases to use and plot outlines. I’m also in the habit of jotting notes and reminders on jobs that need doing on squares of card, cut from food packets. These are scattered around my workstation, and I sometimes remember to look at them.
When I see those articles that Sunday newspapers like to run in their magazines, about writers and their offices, I wonder what they’d make of mine!
Some authors are weirder than me, as this article reveals :
I’ve visited George Bernard Shaw’s home at Ayot St. Lawrence, which is not far from my home town of Stevenage, Hertfordshire. It’s a strikingly minimalist house, as Shaw was an ascetic and didn’t believe in fripperies. His writing shed is situated at the bottom of a steeply sloping lawn, at a distance from the house. What’s useful about its revolving capability, is that when it’s turned away from the house the hut windows and door are covered over by the thick hedgerow, affording complete privacy.
How strange are you? Confession is good for the soul…