Where In The World?

With NaNoWriMo wrapping up today, I figured now was a better time than any to give one important writing tip: Google Maps is a writer's best friend. I'm assuming that everyone is already aware of Google Maps and uses it religiously for their stories. Except, of course, those stories that take place in some magical kingdom of your own imagination. But for those of us who write stories set in the present real world, it can be a big help.

If you follow Joe Schreiber on Twitter, you know he just recently returned from a trip to Europe. Despite how much fun he and his family no doubt had, ultimately it was a business trip. After all, the sequel to his YA book Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick (which I predict right now will be a bestseller) is set in Europe, so he went over there to do research.

I don't blame him. If you get any excuse to visit another country to research a book and you have the time and money to do it, why not? Actually being in those locations will give you a better sense of the overall setting, much more than you could get from the satellite images from Google Maps. But for the majority of us who don't have the time and money to visit specific locales, Google Maps is our best bet.

I remember reading somewhere that in writing The Ruins, Scott Smith did not visit Cancún, Mexico, but instead researched the location from websites and brochures. Does that make him a lazy writer? Not at all. If he had the money and time and could have gone to Cancún, should he have done that instead? Who knows. In the end, what does it really matter?

Sometimes when using Google Maps I find myself becoming consumed with trying to make everything too authentic. Such as if a character is in a specific town or city and needs to, say, find a gas station, I search for an actual gas station on the map. Then I find myself changing the story to accommodate the true location. Which, if you think about it, is rather absurd. That's why, unless a story or book is taking place in a major city, I try to keep locales as vague as possible. It gives me, the author, more freedom to let the characters do what they need to do and not become restricted with "real life" ... though I must admit I still do try to keep things as real as possible.

But that's just me. Anybody else use Google Maps for their "research" or is there a better option?

And while we're on the topic (which we really weren't), did they ever capture Carmen Sandiego? Do it, Rockapella!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuzc4jgwlT8

The Problem Of Prolificity

The following clip aired about a month ago, but I just recently came across it and want to point out a few things. Yes, it's about Jonathan Franzen, who, believe it or not, I don't hate. That's right, I haven't jumped on that bandwagon. I mean, really, what is there to hate about the guy? His talent? Have we really gotten to the point in our society where we hate people just because they are talented and successful? Okay, on second thought, the answer is obvious, but that's stupid.

In the following clip the deputy managing editor of Time magazine reveals their new cover, which is the one featuring Franzen. The last time an author graced the cover of Time magazine it was Stephen King. Which is interesting considering what all he says. Just watch.

Did you catch it? The man hasn't even read the novel yet. The person they really should have had on to promote the cover was Lev Grossman himself. But anyway, he makes it a point to mention how this is "not a small book. It's not weird. It's not odd." It's one of those books that "if you can get through it, will help you understand the way we live now."

Now I'm currently reading this particular book, about 80 pages in. It's good. I'm enjoying it. Is it the best novel I've read in the past decade? Too early to say. As a writer, I certainly appreciate a magazine like Time trying to make a point about novelists and getting more people to read (though, let's be honest, the vast majority of Time’s readership already reads more than one book a year).

But the impression I get from this clip is that the real reason Freedom is such a great novel is because it is not only 600 pages long, but it took the author almost a decade to write. Let's not forget that Justin Cronin's The Passage clocks in at a little under 800 pages and no doubt took him a few years to write.

Oh, but that's right. The Passage is "commercial" fiction. Freedom is "literary" fiction. Is there a difference? You bet you ascot there is.

See, the purpose of commercial fiction is entertainment and to sell a lot of books. The purpose of literary fiction is to write great art and win or be nominated for some really big awards ... and if it sells a few copies, great.

Stephen King could probably write a 600 page novel in a weekend, and it would be published and get somewhat good reviews and sell a lot of copies and be made into a movie. And then a year later the same thing would happen. He's a writer of -- yep, you guessed it -- commercial fiction.

But Franzen? He's a literary writer. It took him almost a decade to produce a 600 page novel. That's works out to about 60 pages a year.

Please keep in mind, I'm not knocking Franzen. I respect him and his work. But it's the perception of certain people that really irritates me. They see that it took him a decade to write his new book and they immediately think, Well it must be good because he put so much time and effort into it. And maybe he did. But these same people will look at writers like, say, Jodi Picoult or Jennifer Weiner, and see that it took them only a year to write a new book and they'll think, Well, I'm sure it will be entertaining, but it can't be that good if they were able to write it so quickly.

It's that wonderful problem of prolificity (which, by the way, is a word). But just what makes a writer prolific? One book a year? One book every two years? One book every five?

Of course, it depends on what kind of fiction you write. If it's commercial, then you are expected to produce at least one book a year. If it's literary, your best bet is to take a few years off, then spend a few months writing a new novel, then take a few more years off, then turn in your novel to the publisher. Oh yes, it will be an event. Who knows, you might even get your picture on the cover of Time.

Again, I'm not knocking Franzen. I'm just knocking the skewed way some people think. I mean, you saw the clip. Talking about how in our ADD-filled world of Twitter and Facebook and blah blah blah. These are the same people who will thumb their noses at something like, oh I don't know, an anthology of stories in 25 words or fewer. Would a book like that have been published ten years ago? Maybe. But even though it's being published today (or in two months), does that make it any less value or is simply a testament to our rapidly declining attention spans?

Awhile back, I was in New York and met a doctor who knew many important people in the world. We got to talking about writing and he mentioned how one of his favorite writers was Joyce Carol Oates. He mentioned how he knew someone who was on the committee who handled the Nobel Prize for Literature. He said he had asked this person whether they would ever consider Oates for the award. The response was simple: No, because she publishes too much and in too many genres.

Sad, yes, but that's prolificity for you.

On Being Naive

I happened upon this somewhat recent website, and while it's not an author website, I checked out the "About Me" and found the following:

I have a novel ready, and another right behind it. I am accepting agent queries at this time. Please include your query in the body of the email, and list authors you represent and any awards you have won. Agents not listed in Writers Market [sic] should supply additional references. Publishers are encouraged to work through the agent channel. Email first: XXXXXXXXXXXXX.

Now, as you can guess, this is an unpublished author. I know I've never heard of the person. But maybe they're a great writer. And maybe I don't understand agents and publishers like I think I do. I've always thought that if agents or publishers seek any writer out, it's from maybe reading a story of theirs in a magazine or journal. But who knows, maybe they do troll through author blogs, searching for a hot new talent. Let's just hope if they come to this writer's blog, they are listed in Writer's Market, or at least supply the appropriate number of references. (Or is this writer being facetious? I honestly can't tell.)

Awhile back I talked about what makes a professional writer, even one who hasn't published anything yet, and something like this ... well, I can just imagine that if agents or publishers did happen across this particular page, they might not stop laughing for quite a long time. I know I didn't.

Oh, and what should a writer put instead? Just an e-mail address. If an agent or publisher is interested in your work, they will contact you.

Publishers Weekly Presents The Who's Who Of Self-Publishing

So apparently Publishers Weekly -- who I used to have quite a bit of respect for -- has decided to "embrace the self-publishing phenomenon" and create a "quarterly supplement announcing self-published titles and reviewing those we believe are most deserving of a critical assessment." But wait -- there's more!

This whole shebang costs you only $149! (You could buy a new Kindle for less than that.) Of course, some of the e-books submitted will be reviewed. It's not like you're paying to have your stuff reviewed. PW would never lower themselves to that, would they?

We briefly considered charging for reviews, but in the end preferred to maintain our right to review what we deemed worthy. The processing fee that guarantees a listing and the chance to be reviewed accomplishes what we want: to inform the trade of what is happening in self-publishing and to present a PW selection of what has the most merit.

Ah, yes, well it's good to see that they haven't decided to sell out completely. After all, they are professional. Then again, this entire "supplement" is nothing more than a way to make self-published authors pay for ad space. And you know what that eerie voice in Kevin Costner's corn field says: "If you build it, they will come." (Yes, yes, the actual quote is "he will come," but you get the idea.)

And, sadly, I guarantee self-published authors will come in droves with their wallets open.

* * *

In other news, I've added a new widget to the sidebar of upcoming appearances for the Hint Fiction anthology's release. The Vroman's and McNally Jackson events I've mentioned already, but there will also be an event at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore in Philadelphia on Friday, November 19. I have also been asked to speak at the Morgantown Poets gathering on Thursday, December 16; this is in Morgantown, West Virgina for anyone close by. And there will most likely be something around my area on Monday, November 1st, but nothing has been decided yet. Once I get a full list of anthology contributors attending each event, I'll make an official announcement.

* * *

The Los Angeles Review's fiction editor Stefanie Freele asked me to do a blog post for their website. I wrote a little something called "Our Best Work" and you can read it here.

* * *

You're probably wondering why I'm blogging when I said I wouldn't be for awhile. Well, that Publishers Weekly thing really ticked me off for starters. Work on the Y.A. book is coming along nicely, and I'm on the downswing, really getting momentum, so it would make sense that I would have to put off writing for a few days. This Wednesday I'll be headed to Las Vegas; my brother-in-law is getting married so my wife and I will be there for a few days to attend, and I'm not about to take my laptop along with the intention of continuing to work on the book. I mean, I could take my laptop, but we all know I wouldn't get any writing done.

So ... yeah, that's about it. Hope everyone's doing well. I must now go rewatch The Hangover in anticipation for this week. I wonder if they have some kind of bus tour dedicated to the movie. It wouldn't surprise me if they did.

The Predictable Unpredictability of Publishing

Anyone can predict the weather, but it doesn't mean it will rain or snow or be sunny. What happens happens, and there's really nothing any of us can do about it.

That's especially true in publishing.

Take me for instance. Ever since I was in middle school I wanted to be a writer. Through the years, I came up with a game plan that I did my best to follow. I wouldn't settle for second best. I knew I wanted to be published and published big, so I searched for an agent. After years and years and writing different novels, I finally got an agent, and I knew -- just knew -- that I had made it. But the first book didn't sell, as neither did the second. In the end I parted ways with my agent, and wrote another novel, and got a new agent. And I knew -- just knew -- that this was going to be the one. But the book he shopped around didn't sell, as neither did the next book.

Then I write a little essay that isn't supposed to be read by more than a dozen people and suddenly words gets around and a publisher contacts me and my agent about doing a book. (For those newer to this blog, details of what went down can be found here.)

Is this how I always envisioned myself entering into the wild and wacky world of publishing? Not at all. But it's a start, and I'm more than happy to take it.

Most importantly, there was no way anyone could have ever predicted that would happen.

No way at all.

Just like with what happened recently with my friend Joe Schreiber. If you remember from a few blog posts back, he finally sold his young adult book Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick. Despite having been rejected by a number of other houses, Houghton Mifflin picked it up in a two-book deal. Great, right?

Well, earlier this week it was reported that Paramount won the movie rights in a very aggressive bidding war with Fox for a nice chunk of change. How friggin' fantastic is that? I remember having lunch with Joe months and months ago, talking about an early draft of his manuscript, and never once did either of us ever imagine that something like that would happen. But it did, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer and more deserving guy.

So predictability? You just can't do it. You can want something to happen, but it certainly doesn't mean it will.

The other day my agent called. He had just finished reading my new novel, a thriller. He liked it, but had one issue. He told me what that issue was. I said, "That's a pretty major factor in the entire book." He said, "Well, yes and no." He gave me some ideas and then said that if I didn't want to work more on it, he would be willing to go out with it as is.

I could have gone the easy route. The lazy route. I could have just told him that yeah, take it out as is. But doing that would have been extremely stupid of me, and I like to think I'm not a stupid person.

As writers, it's important to understand one basic fundamental truth: we are not as good as we'd like to think we are. In fact, we will probably never be as good as we'd like to think we are. And we need to remind ourselves of that daily. Because when we start to believe we're as good as we think we are, that's when the true laziness sets in and our writing starts to fall apart. We should always be trying to make our work as good as we can make it, and then try to make it even better.

My novel? I understand my agent's concern with it, and I plan to fix it. I think I even know how. But by doing so involves a pretty lengthy revision. Almost a rewrite. The story itself isn't changing, but still many, many chapters need to be reworked. But it's okay, because in the end I know it'll be worth it.

Well, hopefully.

But as I mentioned before, I'm currently working on a Y.A. novel. I plan to finish that first, then start up the reworking on the thriller. Which means that it'll be pretty quiet around this ol' blog for awhile. Don't expect many posts from me unless it's purely promotional stuff for the anthology (and with the release date quickly approaching, there will be many). Maybe there will be a random post here and there, but for the most part, I want to concentrate more on these books. I'll still be active on Twitter, of course, and somewhat active on Facebook, so hit me up there.

For now, though, I leave you with a different bit of unpredictability. In case you haven't seen it yet, a woman went through the drive-thru of McDonald's and wanted McNuggets. It was still breakfast time, and they told her sorry, no McNuggets. And this woman, she freaked. There's no audio for the clip, so I also included a video of the McNugget rap. Play them both at the same time (or start the rap video around the 20 second mark of the first video for optimal enjoyment) and watch the crazy lady go crazy.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Eu_Vvnh6ko

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSZ6k3QIsAk