[Many readers of this blog are familiar with my unconventional and acerbic opinions about the writing business—see the posts archived in the “Writing” category of this blog.  I recently saw something about SkillShare, so I thought maybe it was time to distill some of those ideas into a short course on fiction writing for would-be authors.  You’re in luck.  A perusal of that site’s offerings about writing didn’t impress me at all.  So, here’s my short and unconventional course—and it’s free!

Actually, like any Irish whiskey, this little course is thrice distilled—a development over the years of my own ideas about writing, the afore-mentioned blog posts, and now this mini-course.  You might not like some of the things I say because I don’t sugarcoat my opinions.  That’s too bad.  They’re my honest opinions at this stage in my writing career.  BTW, while readers might enjoy my points of view, this is mostly for indie writers, but traditionally published authors who aren’t Patterson’s workers on his book-writing assembly line, or other Big Five old stallions, i.e. midlist authors, can benefit too. Without further comment, here’s lesson four.]

An Iconoclast Examines Fiction Writing

Lesson Four: You’ll Need Help

There are three hurdles to jump through along the track to publishing and marketing your book: producing a polished MS, turning it into a book, and letting people know about you and your book.  Every author has to jump through these hurdles.  A traditional publisher will do most of the second step but usually very little of the third (more on this later).  This lesson is for the indie writer.  S/he’ll usually need help with some of that second hurdle.

Again, King ignores all this in On Writing.  He can afford not to give a shit, of course, and probably hasn’t worried about these issues since he wrote and sold newspapers and stories in high school.  He probably doesn’t know Arial font from Times New Roman either.  You should be aware of these issues and seek help when you need it.  You’re not King.  He lives in a different universe now.  You can perhaps ascend to that plane of existence someday, but you won’t if you don’t pay attention to details King doesn’t worry about.

Formatting.  You’re faced with a plethora of ebook formats.  You want a paper version of your book.  These are multiple formatting chores.  While it’s possible to go DIY here, it’s time consuming and there are multiple learning curves in order to negotiate all the different bureaucracies at Kindle Direct Publishing (mobi formats), Smashwords (all formats, but based on epub), and Create Space (POD)—these are the main ways to produce your indie book.  Given these complications, you might want help with the formatting.  This runs the gamut from informal to formal (the latter often takes a cut of future royalties if the organization accepts your book).

Deciding on formats is important.  Most are investments of your time and money.  Beyond ebooks and pbooks (paper versions), there are audiobooks.  Given current trends, I wouldn’t be surprised if multimedia books aren’t in our future.  I’m a bit old to jump on that bandwagon, but the idea of replacing non-words describing sounds is still attractive!  (A silencer on a gun produces a pfft!, but that non-word doesn’t begin to carry all the emotional content when the detective hears that sound.)

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“Diversity is America’s super power.”—Will Smith

As a boy, my friends and I had a “secret club” where we could be boys (grossing each other out with bugs and snails, practicing fart noises or having burp contests, and talking about those strange creatures called girls).  Sometimes that childhood club only has one member, but that one kid can let his imagination roll.  (I’m being sexist, but I never observed this among girls until junior high when they created their cliques.)  These secret societies are relatively harmless (except when the school ones turn to bullying).

Grown-ups participate in them too.  There are the really obnoxious ones—fascist militias, the Ku Klux Klan, East LA gangs (street gangs anywhere, for that matter), the Mafia, and so forth.  There seem to be good ones—the Shriners, Masons, Key Club, and so forth.  There are also the ambivalent—Scientologists, Better Business Bureau, fraternities and sororities, and so forth.  Most of these represent people coming together to form some kind of tribe, people with a “me-against-them” attitude and agenda, and that’s where problems arise.  People amongst like-minded people feed off both positive and negative emotions and ideas, some recognized, others unconscious.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a secret society, a super-exclusive one.  According to the LA Times, its members are 94% white and 77% male.  They’re also old, most above sixty.  The first percentage compares to the Ku Klux Klan; the last one to the Klan and most men’s lodges, even if they have a lady’s auxiliary.  Moreover, no one knows who they are!  They are supposedly so-called “experts” and impartial judges who determine who in the industry deserves to be recognized for cinematic achievement.  The impartiality is questionable.  In most cases, the Academy’s nominating process is like asking members of ISIS to determine which evangelical in America is the best Christian.  Hollywood is dominated by old white men; they own the studios, they set the priorities, and they have zero qualifications for determining cinematic achievement precisely because they’re old members of the status quo.  As Spike Lee says, Hollywood is rotten from top to bottom (in Mr. Lee’s defense, that’s my paraphrase—I have no desire to be politically correct here by coddling the members of this institution).

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Those in the know can deal with snow, but move with care with black ice there.

[One flop and one surprise today—not bad for Hollywood.  The first review contains my second published poem!  You should boycott the Oscars.  Chris Rock will be the only black face on stage.  The Golden Globes are much more honest about assessing films and actors.  I wonder if Hillary Clinton will have anything to say about that—she’s married to the “first black president,” after all!]

Joy.  David O. Russell, dir & screenplay.  Summary: A major flop about a mop turns you sour wastin’ star power.  I could blame the director and his terrible screenplay, but what were these talented actors thinking when they signed up to make this loser?  Jennifer Lawrence shone in Silver Linings Playbook, but not much anywhere else, including Hunger Games, where she was tiresome and boring.  She should choose films more wisely.  (Situations and language more appropriate for adults, but nothing more than what you might see on cable).

13 Hours. Michael Bay, dir.  Like Concussion, this movie is probably one the NY Times will NOT promote in its mission to coddle moneyed and political interests.  Trump, in his cheap-beer, effervescent elan and true to his dirty political persona, handed out enough tickets to the movie to fill a theater.  Where the Times is coming from, of course, is that they’re pro-Hillary, this movie reflects poorly on her, and Trump knows it.  Whether the blame rests squarely on her shoulders, as SecState during the Benghazi fiasco, she’s tainted by the events you’ll see in this movie.

So, what’s the story?  A few contractors took it upon themselves to buck the CIA and try to save Chris Stevens, who was sent with only two bodyguards to the consulate in hotbed Benghazi (or did he initiate the trip?—it doesn’t matter, and we’ll probably never know the truth).  Consulates are notoriously unprotected while embassies are usually fortresses (the one in Bogota only lacks moats to be a medieval castle).  The CIA station head working in Benghazi, according to the film, resisted sending the contractors to the consulate to bail out the ambassador because that CIA station was top secret.  In order to ensure that the secrecy was maintained, the U.S. government left the job of protecting the facility to the contractors.

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[Many readers of this blog are familiar with my unconventional and acerbic opinions about the writing business—see the posts archived in the “Writing” category of this blog.  I recently saw something about SkillShare, so I thought maybe it was time to distill some of those ideas into a short course on fiction writing for would-be authors.  You’re in luck.  A perusal of that site’s offerings about writing didn’t impress me at all.  So, here’s my short and unconventional course—and it’s free!

Actually, like any Irish whiskey, this little course is thrice distilled—a development over the years of my own ideas about writing, the afore-mentioned blog posts, and now this mini-course.  You might not like some of the things I say because I don’t sugarcoat my opinions.  That’s too bad.  They’re my honest opinions at this stage in my writing career.  BTW, while readers might enjoy my points of view, this is mostly for indie writers, but traditionally published authors who aren’t Patterson’s workers on his book-writing assembly line, or other Big Five old stallions, i.e. midlist authors, can benefit too. Without further comment, here’s lesson three.]

An Iconoclast Examines Fiction Writing

Lesson Three: Indie or Traditional?

Indie writers need to make a lot of decisions and do a lot of DIY before they reach out to their readers with a new release.  So do most traditionally published writers.  So, what’s the difference?  The first group manages their entire business; the second supposedly pays others to manage the first part of producing the book from a manuscript (MS).  The traditionally published author pays for that too, though.  Don’t think so?  Are you in for a surprise!  The bloodletting will continue for the life of your contract and beyond.  (Here’s where I differ from King’s On Writing in a major way, of course.  Not mentioning this choice dates King’s book at the very least, or shows he disparages the indie option at the worst.  We can excuse him, I suppose—he’s so famous he doesn’t have to worry about much, except maybe where his desk is placed.)

Don’t kid yourself.  Whether indie or traditional writer, you’ll be working your butt off.  The first step is always the same, creating that polished MS.  The last steps are always the same (see the next two lessons).  And you’ll pay dearly for the in-between by going the traditional route. First, traditional contracts are egregious (they always have been, even according to King).  Not only is your royalty percentage low (the publisher’s cut is high because s/he has a lot of inflated bureaucracy to pay for, although, as years have passed, s/he does less and less for you, the author, so s/he gets more), and you often have to repay advances if your book doesn’t sell.  Moreover, that starry-eyed yearning to see your book on the shelves of a big book barn doesn’t last long, max a few months, before all books are returned to the publisher.  Finally, you’ve signed all your rights away to that book for years to come unless you pay a hefty penalty.  Of course, there are a wide variety of contracts and lots of fine print—the publishers have lawyers on staff, and you don’t.  Those lawyers are protecting the publisher’s interests, not yours.  Be sure you understand what you’re signing!

Negatives and positives for the traditional route.  Maybe you’re expecting your book to be a huge success, so you’re willing to tolerate the meager royalties from traditional publishing.  You don’t like the idea of DIY and having to be your own boss.  Or, you’re saying you just want to write your stories and forget about the rest.  OK.  If you were indie, you’d still need things that a traditional publisher provides, but the latter might not listen to you if you don’t like her/his cover, and s/he might not listen to you if you push back on final editorial comments of your MS  (agents do that too—see below).

King, Koontz, Baldacci, and Deaver, to name a few best-selling authors (the definition of that is often arbitrary because sales don’t necessarily imply the book earns any literary respect) might be able to get by with meager royalties—they sell a lot of books!—but you don’t own their brands.  Let’s face it: readers pay attention to authors if they spin a good yarn (that’s why any author should mention previous books somewhere in the new one).  I can’t even say the four I’ve mentioned are household names, but they’re known brands in the publishing industry.

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[A new feature just for my readers, wee bits of popular science nostalgia.]

John Archibald Wheeler (7/9/1911—4/13/2008) might have received only popular recognition for his students if he hadn’t coined the term “black hole” (Hawking popularly comes to mind first as the scientist most associated with black holes, of course).  His most famous student was Feynman, but Misner and Thorne were two others (the doorstop-sized tome Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler, is one classic on the subject of general relativity).  Wheeler was a physicist’s physicist, though, like Feynman, dabbling in anything that interested him.

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (8/8/1902—10/20/1984) was more like physic’s Harper Lee; he did a few things too (the idea of physical “constants” varying on a cosmic scale is intriguing), but he’s most famous for the equation that bears his name and postulating the positron as the electron’s anti-particle to make sense of it (it took physicists awhile to find that pesky particle, though).  He had an early tome on quantum mechanics where he introduced bras and kets—today we know them as vectors in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space and complex-valued linear functions on them (Hilbert spaces existed in Dirac’s time, but, like Feynman and many other theoretical physicists, Dirac eschewed rigorous mathematical formalism).

At a conference in the early 1970s held at New Orlean’s Loyola University (next to Tulane), Dirac and Wheeler were guests of honor and sat in the front row competing to see who could doze off first when the geekiness became as stifling as the bad AC.  Dirac was particularly energetic during his talk, though.  Loyola is a Jesuit school, so one smartass grad student decided to embarrass Dirac by asking him if his belief in absolute measurements didn’t imply a belief in God.  Dirac, either agnostic, atheist, or just pissed (those might not be mutually exclusive, from Dirac’s reaction), dashed offstage and returned with a meter stick.  “This is a meter,” he said, “and it will be a meter whether God exists or not” (that’s a paraphrase).  Since Napoleon’s scientists invented the meter, he had a pretty good case.

By shifting several decades, black holes had a history similar to the positron—theory predicted them long before they were discovered.  Many other predictions of general relativity were confirmed experimentally before that happened (I’m discounting extensions to women’s large handbags).  Physicists play with positrons and a whole slew of anti-particles now; no one wants to play with or even come close to a black hole (unless you’re one of Pohl’s HeeChee).  Today astrophysics brings the small (like the positron) and the large (like the black hole) together, at least theoretically.  I’m sure Dirac and Wheeler are smiling about that—if they’re not taking a nap.

And so it goes….

[All politics today, along the lines of “Did we deserve all these bad presidential candidates?”  I’m seriously depressed….]

Item. Daughter Chelsea shows her stripes.  It’s not enough that Hillary trots out old Bill to try to sell her brand of snake oil, but she also employs their daughter Chelsea.  Apparently the couple has coached her well in the art of dirty politics.  Her spin on Bernie Sanders’s healthcare plan?  She said he wants to destroy Obamacare.  Even Hillary had to backtrack on that one!  What Sanders wants is to improve Obamacare by eliminating the insurance companies and Big Pharma’s stranglehold on it.  It’s called single payer, folks, and I’ve been pushing it for years (Hillary did too, for a time).  That’s socialism, you say.

OK, is Medicare socialism?  Maybe.  Aren’t all government services?  In the tristate area, you can hear Wall Street bankers complaining about socialism while they ride in on the commuter rail from their million-dollar mansions in posh areas of Connecticut.  Socialism is only a necessity that recognizes that capitalistic corporate America isn’t service-oriented but profit-oriented.  But ask any elderly person whether we should eliminate Medicare and you’ll get a ration of you know what.

Sure, Medicare has some problems (not enough pursuit of scammers, for one), but it mostly works.  And it’s much better than Obamacare because it’s 100% single payer for Part A and 80% for Part B.  I’d upgrade Part B to 100% (insurance companies offering supplement plans would resist that, of course) and make Obamacare single payer too.  Even generalizing the current Medicare to all ages would be better than Obamacare.  That’s what Bernie is proposing.  Chelsea’s spin is a lie.

Item. Where’s my freedom of religion?  Did you notice the two nuns in the audience at Obama’s State of the Union address?  The new Speaker of the House invited them.  I thought it was a nice touch at first—who doesn’t love Mother Teresa?—but I wondered why they looked pissed most of the time, a bit like nun-teachers in a parochial school.  Turns out they’re business moguls because they run thirty for-profit nursing homes.  Because they’re a business with so many employees, they have to offer healthcare to their employees.  They fought paying for birth control services to female employees under Obamacare.  A work-around was offered so their female employees could go to a third party for birth control meds.  The nuns are still fighting it, though, because they don’t want anything to do with that dirty business.  Why do these nuns have the right to force their religious preferences on their employees?  That IS a failure of Obamacare, but it was imposed by the conservative Supreme Court.

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The Oscar nominee list and many other horrific and egregious examples show we still have a long ways to go to realize Dr. King’s dream, so let’s resolve to continue working for equal opportunity and fair play for all Americans.  That’s the best thing we can do to celebrate his birthday!

Item. New plug-in.  Amazon has just announced the “Kindle Instant Preview Widget.”  It’s a plug-in to your website to allow visitors to view your writing samples (book excerpts, short stories, and so forth).  If you’re an author with a website, you might like it, but I don’t see much use for it.  First, I publish free short stories and book excerpts on my blog, and the “peek inside” on each Amazon book page allows readers to peruse my writing.  I’d rather send readers there with links to the Amazon book page because they can buy the book if they like what they see—I don’t and won’t sell books from my website.  Second, I pretty much stick to the WordPress plug-ins (contact page and social media icons) and have resisted even adding a Goodreads icon, all to avoid clutter.  Third, my website designers, Monkey C Media, use a lot of HTML stuff—I pay them for updates already from my royalties, so adding this widget would just increase that expense item.  That’s my take.  You might see it differently.  If you try it and like it, send me an email about your experience.  You might change my mind!

Item. Interesting phenomenon.  The WD (Writer’s Digest) police finally caught me.  I let my subscription lapse, so they cancelled all their email newsletters too.  Fine.  That rag is mostly a mouthpiece for traditional publishing anyway, and the newsletters were generally zero useful content or links to the WD website.  The magazine offers some advice about writing, but the content is all too often dedicated to finding a publisher or an agent—useless blather to me, but maybe useful for writers interested in being traditionally published.  They also promote their contests, money-making machines that prey on naïve writers—do the math.  They don’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts, you know.  (Of course, just about any contest, paid or free, is a waste of your time.)

Item. New feature.  Asimov stopped writing fiction for a while to write popular science.  Although some of my blog posts could already be classified as popular science, I decided to formalize a bit with a series titled “Sciences and Mathematicians.”  It starts next week.  Don’t worry.  I’ll still write fiction.  In spite of my R&D background, writing’s always been my first love.

Item. Continuing feature.  Are you following my lessons on fiction writing?  This short course (lesson #2 appeared Wednesday) distills my ideas.  Readers, learn what one author thinks about writing fiction.  Writers, see if you agree—whether you do or don’t, send me an email with your comments, if you’re so inclined.  Or, comment right here after any lesson.  I’m interested in your opinions.

Item. Old but new book.  After reading some of the other books in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” (they’re all independent stories, by the way), have you wanted to read #1, The Midas Bomb, and balked at the Infinity edition’s price?  I’m not accusing you—I would have balked too!  Now you can read the completely rewritten and reedited second edition for $2.99 in ebook format.  It’s also available in paper at Create Space for $9.99.

Item. New books.  An indie writer often has to make the choice of spending money on PR and marketing of existing books or preparing the next book.  I prefer the latter.  Look for the sci-fi saga Rogue Planet this spring and Gaia and the Goliaths, #7 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” this fall.

Item. Getting acquainted.  I provide free stories on my blog so you can get to know my writing, but I don’t give away free books.  My ebooks already are good entertainment at a reasonable price, so you have no right to complain.  I need some royalties in order to prepare the next book, pay for the upkeep of this website, and do some PR and marketing with what’s left over (I always run in the red, by the way).  Besides, my ebooks at $2.99 or $3.99 are much better for you than any McDonald’s meal.  Use any excerpts provide in this blog’s archives or the “peek inside” feature on each Amazon book page if you just want to dip your toes in my literary waters before buying.

Item. Only want free?  OK, you can read one of my books for free.  I’ll send you a freebie (Amazon’s Whispernet is the most convenient for me) in return for an honest review.  Query me via my contact page.

In libris libertas….   

Readers of this blog know me as a progressive, so I usually lean toward Dems.  Unlike some, though, I cherry pick ideas because reasoned conservatism has a place in American society (Tea Party candidates and Donald Trump are excluded from any discussion about reasoned conservatism, of course).  Moreover, I can’t stand any politician who has the arrogance to think that her/his electability is her/his right.  Readers of the blog also know I find political dynasties despicable.  With Jeb! out of the way, we’re halfway there, but we still have to get rid of the Clintons.  Hillary is the nation’s shingles to Bill as chicken pox.  Remember Bernie’s gracious apology on the debate stage?  That was doubly gracious considering that Debbie Wasserman Schultz as DNC chairperson had gone overboard to punish the Sanders campaign.  Hillary agreed to open up her records in response to the apology but still hasn’t.  The reason?  First, I can only suspect that Hillary’s team did what Bernie’s did, only earlier, as Sanders said.  Second, things are tighter in Iowa and Bernie is leading in New Hampshire, so the Clintons don’t want a replay of 2008.

The Clintons play dirty politics, and they have the DNC in their stable.  Bernie doesn’t have a chance with their sycophant Wasserman Schultz and the DNC biasing the primary process in Hillary’s favor.  The GOP doesn’t have a monopoly on sleazy politics—the Clintons have been doing that for years.  Hillary already lost to one grassroots candidate—Obama came out of nowhere to stop the dynasty in 2008.  She and Bill are doing everything they can to go after any new threat they see threatening the continuation of their dynasty.  It’s old politics as usual for them.  They’re arrogant enough to move their agenda forward, but it’s an agenda many people want nothing to do with, and those people aren’t just Republicans!

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