Archive for November, 2008
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
You’re paranoid, they said.
You’re gloomy about the entire industry because you got boned by an editor, they said.
But mostly, you’re wrong. So said a couple of my writer friends who were put off by my pronouncement on the state of the book industry a few days ago.
What I wrote was, “…over the next couple years, I fervently believe there will be no vibrant market. There will be, in fact, damned few books deals going ’round. It’s been ugly for a while, it’s getting uglier, and there will be lots and lots of great writers whose voices you won’t hear for a few years when it comes to novels published by a major house.”
Trey, don’t be such a wet noodle.
Uh-huh.
Here’s a bit of an email I got yesterday, it’s from the PW (Publisher’s Weekly) Daily Alert.
“It’s been clear for months that it will be a not-so-merry holiday season for publishers, but at least one house has gone so far as to halt acquisitions. PW has learned that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has asked its editors to stop buying books.”
There is other verbiage, that’s it’s “not a permanent change,” that the right projects could still be greenlighted, etc., etc. But what else do you need to know? One of the largest book publishers in the world is no longer buying books.
Yeah, that Trey is so gloomy.
I mean, okay, yeah, I am, but that’s not the point in this particular case.
One of HMH’s head muckety mucks, in the press release, said, “In this case, it’s a symbol of doing things smarter; it’s not an indicator of the end of literature. We have turned off the spigot, but we have a very robust pipeline.”
First of all, they didn’t turn off the spigot. The spigot is the user end of the pipe, where water pours into a cup and where the books pour into the hands of the readers. What HMH did is close the valve at the water plant, where all the water is collected and sifted and filtered and made palatable and put into the pipeline. So when he says there is a robust pipeline, how long does he think that will last when the very thing it is filled with – literature – is no longer being put into the pipeline?
But believe it or not, there is one tiny, little, micrscopic bit in the release that actually got to me maybe more than the lack of acquisitions. This guy who doesn’t know one end of a pipe from another said that HRH’s decision “is less about taking drastic measures than conducting good business.”
Therefore, by his definition, conducting good business for a book publisher is to not buy any books. Huh? Seems to me, then, that the obvious and logical inverse is that the bad business model for a book publisher is to buy books to publish.
And this is one of the people charged with care and feeding of the industry. There are two things I’ve done my entire life, two things that are absolutely essential to how I view and how I define myself. One is music and the other is writing. And this mope is in charge of the writing side of things.
Man, oh, man, does that blow industrial chunk.
And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, here’s the last sentence in the PW story. “But perhaps an editor at the house put it best; in an e-mail, the editor mentioned the policy and added, ‘Who knows what’s next.’”
Great…it might get worse than not buying books. I don’t even want to think about what that actually means.
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Friday, November 21st, 2008
“Are you a backwoods Christian, sir?”
A homeless man biking across country to Montana, after serenading me with a few verses and a chorus or two of ‘Down In The Valley.’ Without waiting for an answer, he then launched into a pile of moderately funny but ultimately obscene jokes.
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Thursday, November 20th, 2008
120 days since….
But I’m retiring the clock. It was a passive-aggressive way to get someone who probably never reads the damned blog to pay attention to some vague promises they made and then ignored. And yeah, they used the weakest, most bullshit ridden reasons I’ve ever heard to ignore those promises.
Passive-aggressive is good…unless ain’t nobody paying attention, and in this case…ain’t nobody….
Also, I believe that, Bush’s economy and the massive recession we’ll face in 2009 and the first part of 2010 (and longer if the private jet flying auto CEOs can’t pull their collective heads out) will absolutely slam the door on what this clock was counting.
There are always writers who whine about not getting book deals. There are always writers who whine about other writers (usually referred to as hacks) getting great deals for putrid books. There are always writers who believe they are being left behind even in vibrant markets.
Truth in writing here – I am absolutely one of those writers. I’m always guilty of those sins.
But the point is that over the next couple years, I fervently believe there will be no vibrant market. There will be, in fact, damned few books deals going ’round. Sales at nearly all of the major chains and many of the independent book stores would have to rise dramatically just to be considered in the toilet. When people are concerned about losing their jobs and getting medicine for the baby, they buy fewer books and no one can tell me any differently. LuAnn and I have the same income we had a year ago and two years ago and we – bookstore owners – are buying fewer books!
It’s been ugly for a while, it’s getting uglier, and there will be lots and lots of great writers whose voices you won’t hear for a few years when it comes to novels published by a major house. But maybe that means the small press, which I’ve always loved and supported as well as I could, will take the place of the behemoth publishing houses, just as small specialty car companies will replace the dinosaur Big Three.
Anyway, this was all to say that I’m bagging the Countdown Clock.
Or maybe I’ll find something else fun to count. Hairs left on my head…length of my toenails…how many Sudoku games I’ve played….
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Saturday, November 8th, 2008
We’ll call him Ronnie and he first came to my attention a couple weeks ago.
A Spring Valley copper called me and said he’d found this kid walking across the bridge over the Illinois River. Seems the kid was walking home from Illinois Valley Community College, which is in a town called Oglesby. Ronnie had walked from IVCC to the bridge and the southern edge of Spring Valley.
That’s nine miles.
We’re not done yet.
Ronnie was headed out toward Seatonville, fully prepared to walk that entire distance…another seven miles. So the Spring Valley officer gave him a ride.
We’re not done yet.
The copper called me and said Ronnie was headed west on Route 6, did I have time to give him a ride further down the line? Yeah, that was no problem. It was dark, it was starting to get cold, and I’m not wild about people walking on the road in those conditions.
Ronnie told me he lived in the High Rise. In Princeton. That’s thirty one miles from IVCC.
Thirty one fucking miles.
And he was walking.
The next morning, one of the deputies got a call about a man on the road at 2:30. Five days a week, Ronnie leaves home at 2:00 a.m., walks to school, then walks home. He’s done it since the semester started. He needs to go to school, he has no license and no one to give him a ride. So he walks ’cause he wants to get to school.
Truth in advertising: Ronnie isn’t quite all there. He’s not stupid and he’s not mentally ill, he just has a touch retardation to him. The kind of degree that leaves people wildly uncomfortable. If someone is more retarded, then they can be talked down to and forgotten beneath a sheen of guilt and pronouncements about supporting social programs and donating to Special Olympics.
This kid is mostly there, just off a few degrees.
But this son of a bitch wants his education. Regardless of whatever wires in his head are misconnected, he knows education is the silver bullet, that education can solve every single problem – EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM – America has, and he wants it so badly he’s willing to walk 31 miles to school every damned day to get it.
*****
We’ll call her Jessie and she first came to my attention a couple of weeks ago.
My wife has a second job and works with Jessie at that job.
Jessie is pregnant.
Not as an accident. Not as, “Hey, the car ran out of gas and it’s getting cold so we’ll have to hold each other in the back seat…oh, don’t worry about that.”
But as in, “I chose to have a baby. I chose to complicate my life in ways that I can’t even begin to imagine.”
Jessie is excited about her baby. She should be. While I’m not into kids, I do believe that if you’re having one, you should probably be excited about it. Jessie is aglow with excitement and is reveling in the attention.
Jessie is 17. Jessie’s no longer in school. And Jessie is excited about filing papers to participate in WIC: Women, Infants, and Children.
It’s a social program, a form of welfare from the USDA.
Understand, I have no problem with the concept of welfare. I do believe there are times when people need help. Decades ago, it was churches that often tried to help but anymore, churches are – mostly – houses of judgment rather than compassion. So now we have government programs and I generally support them.
But to make that your life plan. To, with flushed cheeks and a hitch in your voice, inquire about WIC because you have no other plan, is a nightmare. Jessie’s short-sightedness has left me breathless and speechless.
Maybe Jessie will make it. Maybe, at some point, she will realize she’s got to have an education. Maybe, regardless of one or two or more kids, she’ll try and get her silver bullet.
I have my doubts.
I have my doubts that Jessie will ever come close to being Ronnie. Ronnie, who is self-aware enough to realize he’s not that smart, is doing everything he can to make a life for himself. Jessie, who seems bright enough, is doing everything she can to make sure her life is over.
And no, I’m not saying motherhood is the end of your life. I’m saying motherhood at 17 with no diploma, no supportive family (which, if we looked closely enough, is probably the psychological underpinning of the entire baby motivation), and a plan that involves government handouts, is probably the end of her life.
The dichotomy makes me crazy and there’s nothing I can do about it. One kid walking 62 miles a day to get educated and one kid walking to the local federal office to fill out paperwork. One has nothing and is working to get something. Another has – not everything, but quite a bit more than nothing – and is working to toss it all on the garbage heap.
I have no idea here, I have no thoughts to fix this for either party. This is just something that’s been on my mind lately.
And the last bit of information? The nugget I’ve been holding back? Ronnie was kicked out of school a few days ago. He’s having trouble paying for school and getting to school regularly and staying awake when he’s there. Seems he’s not getting enough sleep.
Posted in Random Thoughts | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
I thought so. I was pretty sure. I figured, “Eh, yeah, we’ll have a black president…when I’m 60…65…maybe older.”
And first we’ll have a woman.
And a continuing pile of old, white men before that.
(If I snark on old, white men, I do it gently, after all, that’s where I have to park my car.)
I like to think I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. I didn’t really grow up there, but I spent a lot of time with my Mama, who was a bookkeeper and did books for clubs ‘over there.’
(I also believe that’s where I got my love of blues and funk ’cause those clubs weren’t playing no Merle Haggard.)
Anyway, she did the books for lots of those clubs and had lots of friends and even though it was Midland, Texas – home of reformed drunk and future President George W. Bush – race never seemed to be a thing to me. People were people, as cornball as that sounds.
There is a story Mama used to love to tell, and I don’t remember it very well, but apparently I came home one day from a local park and told her all about some new friend I’d made. I went on and on, as both kids generally – and I specifically – are wont to do, and eventually she asked me about his race. According to her retelling of the story, I had a blank look on my face and was unable to tell her.
Black or white, I had no idea.
I don’t remember it but it made a pretty good impression on her. I went to Robert E. Lee High school, the Rebels (whose logo was, literally, the Confederate battle flag). There were a pretty good mix of races there but I don’t remember any problems. I’m sure there were, but being a white kid, they didn’t touch me much.
The point is I don’t remember race as anything other than genetic happenstance until I got to Lubbock, Texas to go to school. That’s where I remember discovering racists and and people who randomly and casually threw around ‘nigger this’ and ‘darkie that’ and all the rest of the crap.
Some of the talking head reporters are wondering if color played a role in the election and seem astonished that Barack Obama got 43% of the white vote. (Clinton did that well once and Carter did better, and that’s about it). I think color did play a role, but I think that color was green.
“It’s the economy, stupid.”
People were more frightened for their financial prospects than they were of a black man. ‘Don’t care what color you are, long as you can help me keep my job.’
But I do have to wonder: if Obama had been more visually black – that is, a wider nose and darker skin and long enough hair that it was more obviously kinky – how would he have done? Is it possible that white Americans who were not completely comfortable with him, were able to trump their discomfort because he didn’t look like the stereotypical criminal the media feeds us every hour of every day?
A random thought and it might well be a wasted thought because I do believe everything for the average American boiled down to the economy.
But…economy or not, I am still amazed at this country and proud of this country and still so in love with this country, though I am puzzled at how we could elect a black man while, at the same time, telling the gay and lesbian community around the country to fuck off. Check out some of the state ballot measures and how harshly anti-gay they are.
Baby-steps, I guess.
And we took a huge baby-step last night. So I’ll celebrate that for a while, then start working on the others.
Posted in Random Thoughts | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
“The time goes on and the manuscript crawls on. And after a long time it will be done. I am not sad. In fact, I am pretty glad now.”
John Steinbeck, “Working Days,” Entry #62, September 2, 1938
I am glad, too. In fact, I’m as close to rocking as I have been for quite a long while.
No, the novel’s not done. Not even close. But I’m working it again; stretching and pulling and beating and tearing and then trying to sew it back up.
I had gotten in a funk about it and some personal goofs and my schoolwork and whatever, and I left poor Jace with a knife to her throat in a darkened, abandoned holding cell for way too long. But now we’re moving again, she and I.
The book has a ton of problems, no doubt, but my novels always have a ton of problems in the middle passages. By that time, I’ve always thought of a hundred thousand new colors that will absolutely improve the painting and so I just start splattering cobalt blue and flake white and viridian green and a touch of cadmium red all over the place.
In other words, on page 358, suddenly there will appear a new character or a new situation with references linking backward. I have to keep lots of notes as to what new thing happened when so I can remember to go back and set it all up.
As confused as it sounds, it actually feels like I’ve come home again ‘cuz it’s always this fouled up. Hah, this is normal for me so that’s sadly reassuring.
On the other hand, this is where the painfully solitary act of writing starts to get giddily fun.
What I did, when I realized I had lately lost my writing discipline, was to ease back with a new short story (and by selling an older one to a market I’ve been trying to break in to…Thuglit.com). The new story was an idea I had before Bouchercon, but hadn’t touched because I wasn’t sure what was up. But at Bouchercon, because of the booze or barbeque or inspiring writers or rage inspiring hack writers, the thing took shape.
See…it’s all dialogue.
That’s right, baby. Nothing but dialogue. No description. No narrative. Nothing literary or literate like that. Nothing but quotes. Nothing but two guys talking and…eventually…shooting. It’s odd and experimental and structurally goofy and I love it.
Getting the thing done over the course of two days – I’d planned two weeks for it - quite wonderfully charged the writing batteries. Now I’m all atwitter, much like a two-bit tweaker, to crank up the stereo (jazz or instrumental world beat when I’m composing new words, brutally loud rock or blues or metal when I’m editing), toss a twelve pack of cheap beer in the fridge, snatch up a few big bags of Skittles and some Oreos, and get the fuck back to work.
Plus, I finished my second Master’s class (out of twelve…oy, vey….) so there is nothing in front of me except wide open roadway.
I know who’s dying next, I know who’s discovering the nugget next, I know where the beer is and how best to suck the filling outta the Oreos.
Hah…this is what it’s supposed to be like and I’m glad I found it again.
So don’t call me, don’t email me, don’t send me a text message that’ll cost me ten cents, don’t send up smoke signals. Leave me alone and when it’s done, assuming I’m not dead, I’ll come up for air.
Posted in Working Daze | No Comments »
