The Dog Walked Down the Street

2011-12-16T11:36:00.000-08:00

SIMILES FOR RENT: De-worming Makes New Friends

(NOTE: I got the key to the highway / Billed out and bound to go / I'm gonna leave here running, people / Because walking is most too slow / I'm going back to the border / Before they put up the fence / Where I'm better known / Because you haven't done nothing, baby / Except drove a good man away from home / When the moon peeks over the mountains / Baby, I'm gonna be on my way / I'm gonna roam this mean old highway / Until the break of day)

Mr. Detroit is on the telephone, loud as an over-aged Arrowsmith roadie who spent his formative years too close to the amplifiers. This limits the exchange expected in a conversation. Quotation marks for Mr. Detroit are used anyway.

“What’s with not including similes in your post about metaphors and analogies? That’s like building a house out of sugar cubes and expecting to move in after the rain lets up. You got to have it all, otherwise language just sits on the page without any animating force. Analogies use ‘as,’ metaphors just are, and similes use ‘like.’ Push this rule so the confusion is cut down.”

I thought I did.

“Nope. I have a close personal friend who looks like she would make a bishop kick in a stained glass window, and she agrees. A writer knows the names of the tools in his or her box and their proper usage. The reader wants only the experience of the story, not to stumble over the hammers and wrenches of grammar left lying around after the job is finished. Tidy your mess.”

You’re hard to please.

“The division of similes and metaphors is a matter of degree. A simile states that this is like that, while the metaphor is less explicit and encourages the reader to find a connection. A lot of hairs get split on this, and pulled out in frustration.”

So if a character sticks out like spats at an Iowa picnic, this is a simile?

“Excellent illustration. Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) started writing short stories for the pulp magazines when he was forty-five, two years younger than Lawrence Sterne when he turned to the novel. What set Chandler apart from other detective genre writers was his approach to American English as a foreign language. He played with the figures of speech and turns of phrase that came from the American tongue in novels like THE BIG SLEEP, THE LITTLE SISTER, and THE LONG GOODBYE. When he was good, Chandler’s descriptive sentences shined like the gold in old paintings. When he was bad, he was still Chandler, walking down the mean streets a man must go who is himself not mean.”

GEORGE WHITMAN (1913–2011)

In exchange for reading one book a day and writing a biographical sketch in any of the blue exercise books scattered around, George Whitman gave shelter to the broke and busted traveler in Paris. He started out selling books on the street after World War II until he had enough to open Le Mistral on rue de la Bûcherie in the Quartier Latin, later changing the name to Shakespeare & Co in honor of Willie the Shake’s 400th birthday and the book shop begun by Sylvia Beach in the 1920s. In his quieter moments (and there were few), George confessed to being the great grandnephew of Walt Whitman. On the outside of his shop he installed a plaque commemorating his relative that read in French, “Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?” Thousands spoke to George over the years. Shakespeare & Co remains, run by his daughter, Sylvia.

HAVE A HOLLY JOLLY WHATEVER

For the generous of heart and wallet, no holiday stirs the soul like Christmas. Why? Advertising. From television and print to the giant junkyard of the internet, ads shuck off their regular somber colors and get bouncy in red and gold and green. Ever heard of Santa dressed in dour tweed? I thought not. To commemorate the holiday season and wrench the last dollars from your pocket, purchase several copies of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95). These make great gifts, even stocking stuffers if the socks are big enough, and will provide chuckles and insight throughout the years to come. Run to www.indiebound.com for the nearest independent bookstore that sells this award-winning, gosh-almighty book.

NEXT: Scratching and Napping

2011-09-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

TAKING CHARGE OF COLOR: The Beauty of the Leash

(NOTE: Well Delilah was a woman fine and fair / She had good looks and coal black hair / Delilah, she came to Samson’s mind / The first he saw this woman that looked so fine / Delilah, she set down on Samson’s knee / Said tell me where your strength lies if you please / She spoke so kind, she talked so fair / ‘Till Samson said “Delilah, you can cut off my hair / You can shave my head, clean as my hand / And my strength ‘come as natural as any a man” / If I had my way / If I had my way in this wicked world / If I had my way / I would tear this old building down)

A story is more than a collection of sentences arranged on the page. It must include the reader, make them experience what goes on between the characters, or when using first person, be the character. How this is done is by choosing the right word or phrase; piling on adjectives is as useless as buying dance shoes for a mollusk. A snail remains a snail regardless of how much encouragement it is given.

What is the punch and bounce that makes writing lively? This is called color. Editors and writing teachers ask for more color with comments in margins of manuscripts, and mean more description. A wall can be a white wall, a brown wall, a broken plaster wall, or glass brick wall. Other comments will follow if the specifics of the wall miss reflecting the scene, characters, and action.

METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING

The Crayola box is far from empty. Sitting in front with a sharp point is your friend the metaphor. These can be dismal, like John Bunyan’s “the slough of despond,” and also slip into the cheery, “happy as a clam.” (This has nothing to do with the mollusk mentioned above; clams are bivalves and very tasty when steamed with garlic and white wine. Besides, the phrase, “as useless as,” makes this an analogy instead of a metaphor. ) Metaphors can make the abstract more concrete, as in “Bernice tumbled off the mountain of Ira’s indifference.” To only say he was indifferent makes the interrelation of the characters abstract. Using a metaphor makes the emotional state concrete, gives a sense of striving to overcome this obstacle, and shows the wreckage caused by pursuing this haughty twit.

One metaphor in one paragraph is enough. When the following paragraph has a sentence like, “The cold war between Bernice and Ira soon escalated into mutually assured destruction,” this obscures the relationship between the two and the story dissolves into a collection of nifty lines with other stuff in between that is forgotten. Using strong metaphors calls for a surgeon’s touch, placing them right where they need to be, and when.

Think of the metaphor as an active analogy where you take out the boring “as” and make the thing real. Since metaphors are figures of speech there are divisions to make it easier on academics and those without a stable relationship. Allegory is an extended metaphor that illuminates an important part of the subject. Catachresis is a mixed metaphor used on purpose. The parable is an extended metaphor that comes off as an anecdote and teaches a moral lesson for those who need the lesson or a slathering of unfamiliar morality.

WILLIAMS TO THE RESCUE

No mention of metaphors is complete without a tip of the hat and nod and wink to poet and raconteur Jonathan Williams. He created the four words per line form in the mid-1980s and below is an excerpt from his “Poem Beginning with Five Words by Gerard Manley Hopkins.” We miss you, Jonathan. Think of what you could do with Michelle Bachmann.

beauty’s what bites you
on the butt and
don't leave a hickey
on monday morning we
must be kind to
jesse helms you must
brake for senior republican
senators from north carolina

STOCK UP IN ADVANCE FOR THE NEXT NATURAL DISASTER

During uncertain economic times, the best and most inexpensive companion is a book. No restaurant reservations, no taxi fares, and no regrets. Better than a book is a book about books, especially publishing them. Jump and run to the nearest independent bookstore for one copy, or several, of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95). Inside are thrills and chills without the unsightly parade of zombies, vampires, and Republicans. Online readers can click over to www.indiebound.com for books when and how they want.

NEXT: De-worming Makes New Friends

2011-04-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

GET EDITED AND AVOID THE RUSH: Fashionable Outerwear for Pit Bulls

(NOTE: Oh Mr. Noah / Oh Mr. Noah / May I take a ride / In the Ark of the Lord / ‘Cause it’s gettin’ mighty dark / Gonna rain mighty hard / Doodly do / Doodly do / Doodly doodly doodly / Doodly doodly do. / Oh no, you can’t sir  / Oh no, you can’t sir / You may not ride  / In the Ark of the Lord / ‘Tho it’s gettin’ mighty dark / Gonna rain mighty hard / Doodly do / Doodly do / Doodly doodly doodly / Doodly doodly do / Well, go to the devil sir / Well, go to the devil sir  / You can go to the devil / In your durned old scow / ’Cause you know darn well / It won’t rain anyhow / Doodly do…)

Every trade and craft takes a hit when a recession goes on and on, regardless of any positive prognostication. Publishing is no different. The chain stores that touted their acres of aisles as the future of bookselling are now closing doors and moving to Detroit, but not before rewarding their execs with big bonuses for failure. Small publishers fold and independent publishers are eaten by the big ones or gobbled up by private equity firms. What about the book itself? Readers still care about books, even as their value declines according to formulas dreamed up by the MBAs that fudged their final exams and now run e-commerce.

A skip and hop through the comments about new books on Amazon.com shows that editors are still needed, and right now. Complaints about spelling, mangled syntax, passive sentence construction, and general confusion are spread between nonfiction and fiction books. Nice covers mean nothing when the writing begs for a little tightening or an argument flops from missing that last set of eyes on the manuscript before it went to press.

What the hands-on editor brings to a book cannot be quantified as contributing to its success or failure, only that the cost of editing dips into profits that should go directly to inflated executive salaries. Little is left over for the fussy, demanding, green eyeshade-wearing, and actual working editor. He or she can often be found slumped over in exhaustion from explaining what they do. An editor brings shape and form to a manuscript, keeps the writer honest, and is the first reader in what is hoped to be a long line of readers. An editor is as important part in making a book as a printer.

Like other aspects that used to be the publisher’s responsibility (marketing and publicity anyone?), the decision to have a manuscript edited is left to the writer. A publisher agrees to pay for the printing and not much else. Warehousing maybe, but check your contract. Editors within publishing houses are kept busy negotiating contracts, filling out spreadsheets, and sitting in meeting after meeting after meeting, and rarely have time left over for basic hygiene. Agents try to take on some of the workload, but a look at their web sites shows that agents want complete, ready-to-sell manuscripts. Anything less means a short trip to the recycling bin.

Here comes the freelance editor to rescue the writer. These men and women of the blue pencil are terrific folk who never quit, on account of it’s the only word they can’t spell properly without referring to a dictionary. Quiet or quiz? One of those. No matter how many books a writer reads about being your own editor, hiring a freelancer is best. They dig into a story’s pacing, point of view, character development, and whether the argument holds water better than a vestal virgin’s sieve. The freelance editor also keeps a writer’s vague classical illusions to a minimum.

The freelance editor believes in the importance of the book. In THE IMMORTAL PROFESSION: THE JOYS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING, Gilbert Highet says, “Those are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but MINDS alive on the shelves. From each of them goes out its own voice, as inaudible as the streams of sound conveyed by electrical waves beyond the range of our hearing; and just as the touch of a button on our stereo will fill the room with music, so by opening one of these volumes, one can call into range a voice far distant in time and space, and hear it speaking, mind to mind, heart to heart.”

After a long day of consulting dictionaries and THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE, and going back through to see if they missed something, the freelance editor gets a good night’s rest by reciting past participles in alphabetical order: arisen, borne, beaten, begun, bent, bet, bitten, bled, blown, broken, brought, built, burst, bought, caught, chosen, come, cost, crept, and on into the night. Only the lame will settle for counting sheep.

THE BLANKET THAT HAS SLEEVES

Instead of spending your hard-earned green on a dumb Snuggie, every faithful reader and writer should buy THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95). Oh heck, you say, why should I walk down to my favorite independent bookstore and demand a copy of this swell book? On account of you care, dear sweet reader. You can also care by logging on to www.indiebound.com. Every copy is printed on paper, using ink and bound into a real classy cover. Do it.

NEXT: The Beauty of the Leash

2011-01-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

THE NEED FOR FICTION: Water Dog on Dry Land

(NOTE: Inspiration is everywhere for the astute writer. Newspapers and news feeds, snatched bits of random conversations, Top Ramen instructions, weather forecasts, out of print tales of derring-do, buttons from San Francisco’s Beat Museum, road maps, bobble heads, blurred photographs of dead relatives, bookmarks, and newt mating rituals provide the enterprising writer with the starting blocks and information to crank out a really nifty novel, or at least a swell short story. A writer works all day, every day, in search of his or her next great idea.)

“What’s the fuss about fiction? That stuff is only make-believe,” said a guest during the holiday season. Instead of a dead tree, sprigs of holly, and hanging mistletoe, the apartment was crowded with books on shelves and stacked in the hallways waiting for more shelves. (The guest was not Mr. Detroit, who turns fifty this month, and will miss the gala celebrations being held in his honor due to previous commitments in Rio de Janeiro with a swimsuit model who cannot be named due to contractual agreements with L’Oreal and Mr. Bubble.)

Like the blue moon or an eclipse of the sun, stupidity makes a brief visit. “Stupid” by itself is an adjective and means a lack of basic intelligence. Slap on a suffix and “stupid” becomes “stupidity,” a noun. Both poke their heads out of the French language around the middle of the sixteenth century, from the Latin “stupere,” to be amazed or stunned. Though “stupid” and “stupidity” have a fine beginning, neither is worth the trouble to look up the etymology. Stupid is as stupid does. Got me?

Fiction has a purpose beyond what is written in the flap copy. With the novel, the reader can experience different times and people and cultures that nonfiction, even creative nonfiction, can only report. That fiction is make-believe is preposterous when writers labor over injecting the real into his or her stories. Fiction comes from real people with real conflicts, the dull parts deleted so that these elements are shown in relief.

Reading any book is a complex operation. Words enter the eye by the pupil, and the cornea and lens focus the rays on the retina at the back of the eye. The rods and cones of the retina translate the words to electric signals, sending them to the left occipital lobe. Individual neurons seek patterns and we react in light of what we have read before. What happens next when reading fiction is dangerous: empathy.

Anyone who cares about Africa beyond sending money to Bono should read Chinua Achebe’s THINGS FALL APART. THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK by Doris Lessing slaps the remaining sexism out of the most pointed of heads. The novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Gardner, Djuna Barnes, Umberto Eco, Jorge Amado, Jonathan Lethem, Jane Smiley, Joyce Carol Oates, John Fowles, and Iris Murdoch show us at our best and worst. These writers encourage readers to join the big messy world. They are (in some cases, were, on account of they are dead) committed to inclusion, not isolation. Reading fiction makes us more human and vote for Republicans less often, and there is nothing make-believe about that.

GOING BACK TO SAN JOSE, THIS TIME FOR REAL

The Barnes & Noble bookstore at the Eastridge Mall in San Jose sponsors a writing group and this coming Tuesday, January 18, I’ll be appearing as part of their Writers on Writing series. The shindig starts at 7:00 PM and promises to be the event of the season. Expect tirades, excellent hygiene, gossip, thrills, and lots of talk about telling stories. Signed copies of THE DOG will be available for purchase, each one a bargain. Paul Weller’s musical question, “I’ve got a pen in my pocket/Does that make me a writer?” will be answered.

WRITERS ON WRITING
7:00 PM, Tuesday, January 18
Barnes & Noble
Eastridge Mall
2200 Eastridge Loop, Space 1420
San Jose, CA 95122
(408) 270-9470

NEXT: Fashionable Outerwear for Pit Bulls

2010-10-13T15:49:00.000-07:00

MEA MAXIMA CULPA OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT: Bones for the Boneless

(NOTE: A writer apologizes many times through the course of his or her career for mistakes being caught by watchful readers and personal gaffes made in public. Humility is important when making the apology, except when blame can be assigned. This situation allows the application of slander and libel to avoid responsibility. When in the silly position of having to make an apology, remember that somewhere else someone is getting away with what you got caught doing. Take comfort in knowing that the next time your vile behavior may go unnoticed, or even be accepted.)

After private screeds and foul-tempered blog entries that called down the Furies to attack the digital greed-heads, THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET is now available in a Kindle edition. What happened, why this change in attitude? Simple. I didn’t read the contract.

When Cynthia Frank, the publisher of Cypress House (hereafter known as the “Publisher”), and I went through contract details during a dinner at Pane e Vino, most of my concerns were about having the book set in Bembo. This is a fine classic typeface, revived by Monotype in the early twentieth century, and never looks weak, weary, or dull. THE DOG must have a bookish look, I said, since it is about the making of books. Other parts of the contract were glossed over on account of I could not see making a fuss over film rights (still open to anyone willing to make the investment) or audio or translation or any other minutia that crowd into standard boilerplate contracts. The publisher trusted me to deliver the manuscript on time and I trusted her to produce a well-designed book, but we were not dumb enough to enter into a partnership without a contract. Even the most solid of friendships has limits.

Imagine my horror at finding out THE DOG was in the process of being converted to a Kindle edition. What is a book, especially my book, without type and paper and cover? Nothing more than a bunch of text floundering in search of a form. Respite from the digital world is necessary for any attempt at writing, whether another cookbook or free-ranging novel of insights and goofy dreams, and THE DOG was meant to have its spine broken and be stuck on a writer’s desk right next to Merriam Webster’s Medical Desk Dictionary, last used to look up the correct spelling for “anaphylactic.” With a fire-hose blast of abuse at the ready, I was drawn back to the contract. In twelve-point type under “Secondary Rights” glared my defeat:

The rights granted to Publisher, and Publisher’s licenses, under this Agreement include (in addition to all other rights described herein) the right to prepare, publish, use, adapt reproduce sell and otherwise distribute electronic versions of the Work.

Darn. She had me. The section went on to list “any and all physical media now known of or hereafter devised including, without limitation, magnetic tape, floppy disks, CD-ROM, DVD, game cartridges, laser disk, optical disk, IC card or chip, eBook, sound recordings, programs for machine teachings, ephemeral screen flashings or reproductions thereof, Internet downloadable books, PDF, Adobe Reader, Microsoft Reader, SoftBook, and any other human or machine-readable medium….” Slap me twice and call me silly. A little bit of attention in the right direction would have saved me from this embarrassment.

Now I have to give the proper support to my publisher and book by touting this new edition. For those who enjoyed the physical book comes the latest leap in digital thrills: THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95) is available in a Kindle version for the low sum of $9.99. No more lost Post-It notes or water stains and every page is a clean page for your perusal and delight. A backlit DOG is yours for the asking at www.amazon.com. Buy early and buy often. Batteries not included.

(On a budgetary note, Amazon does not give free copies to publishers or writers of any Kindle edition. This is kind of cheap and shows a lack of interest in developing goodwill. Not like I’d read THE DOG in any form but paper.)

NEXT: Water dog on dry land

2010-07-31T06:56:00.000-07:00

WHEN WRITERS GET BLOCKED: Breeds of Discontent

(NOTE: Writers have issues, especially the more sensitive. The rants about where the book is going are temporarily shelved to address another important issue that plagues every writer worth his or her thin skin. Insensitive writers could care less about rants or issues. They sit with their laptops in the local Starbucks and crank out prose by the ream, only looking up to sneer at the barista that sweeps the floor and replenishes the napkin holders between making strawberry-cherry-mocha-soy milk lattes. The barista doesn’t like the insensitive writer that much either. He or she should quit sitting around and get a real job. This is difficult for the insensitive writer since many video stores have closed and those still open are not hiring new staff.)

Writing isn’t easy, and when writer’s block hits, it’s impossible. No words will smash into each other on the page like senior prom dancers zonked on overproof rum-spiked punch. You stare at the screen or the paper and nothing comes. Insecurity creeps in, confidence skulks out. The hours turn into more hours and hands tremble over the keys unable to start a simple sentence. Brain refuses to function. Whatever happens outside the window becomes very interesting, even an airshaft.

Some claim that writer’s block is caused by excessive use of alcohol and recreational drugs, listening to popular music, and improper diet. These reasons are hogwash since any of the above can be used to the writer’s benefit. A semi-comatose writer does not question his or her talent, especially one deafened by the White Stripes and bloated with Doritos. Mind you, they can’t write worth a damn either.

The block has its source in the usual calamities: the agent dumps you, a colleague says your work is dull and pointless, a receding hairline recedes further, rent is two months late and going for three, a girlfriend or boyfriend or partner finds someone better, the refrigerator conks out with nothing to spoil except ice cubes, a novel written by a hack first-timer hits the best-seller lists and it’s better than anything you’ve come up with, cable is cut off from lack of payment, and the water stain on the ceiling keeps getting bigger. The result is that you cannot write. Not a word. Not even email or a postcard. You’re screwed.

SURMOUNT, DO NOT SUCCUMB

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the walking and talking polymath, had this as a maxim: Mut veloren, alles veloren (Courage lost, all lost). Copy in big letters on a sheet of paper and hang it over your desk. Keep writing and you, too, might be a cultural center. Likely not but one never knows.

Never blame. Tossing around blame is dumb. Yes, this year’s summer movies sucked, the healthcare initiative was a bust, last night’s gnocchi boiled into unappetizing goo, and Lady GaGa’s last seventeen outfits were an assault on the eyes. Big deal. You have most of your fingers and part of your brain. This is enough to tell a story that will enrich writer and reader.

Change how you do what you do. Write while standing if you depend on a chair, or go for the horizontal on the divan bought at a yard sale, the one with sprung springs twisting through the brocade upholstery. Have a clear narrative to follow, like Bob and Sam go to the haberdashery store and try on gloves. What is the relationship between Bob and Sam? How do they get to the store? Are the gloves expensive? Let Bob and Sam shoplift at least three items and they have to match. No argyles, please.

Take a page from a novel or short story by a favorite writer and type it out. This will get the feel of writing well into your starved fingers. Take a page from a novel or short story by a writer you despise for the right reasons and type it out. Now go through and rewrite the junk until the prose starts singing a happy tune. This is only plagiarism if you publish the thing under your own name. Use the name of a former employer instead.

Rummage through old notebooks and travel journals for ideas. They may be ridiculously out of date or full of blather about the human imperative, but a source is a source. Make the embarrassing less so with retrospective speculations. The result will still be embarrassing so delete it. Write something new, better, shinier, and with fewer big words.

Never, ever, give up. Writing is how we come to understand each other, and still carries a weight and power undiminished by technological advances. Support other writers as you stumble through another depressing day of not one original thought in your head, buy books, go to readings, sit in your local library, and know that tomorrow you will start on your best work. Got it?

FORGET THE LITTLE BALD PUPPY, ADOPT A BIG HAIRY DOG

Missing from the last post was a plug for THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95). For many readers and writers, this book is an essential part of their home libraries. Now you can purchase one for your very own from an independent bookstore. Log on to www.indiebound.com, where friendly bits and bytes will provide directions. I mean, heck, THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95), is a treasure that cannot be measured in mere lucre. Now that I’ve mentioned the book twice, can I go play outside?

NEXT: Bones for the Boneless

2010-06-02T15:26:00.000-07:00

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE BOOK?: The Dog Has Teeth

(NOTE: Rested and refreshed from his sojourn in Belize, the writer of this blog has decided to make his comeback with a screed. This is done with much thought and coffee, one important and the other not so much. It must be coffee on account of cutting down on thought has never given anyone a rude headache. Early mornings and late afternoons went into its composition to say what has yet to be said about the confused, fouled-up, idiopathic, nonsensical, and generally dumb current state of publishing. Read without the benefits of adult beverages and a steady hand. The future is bleak.)

One of our local literary agents has just returned from a quick trip to New York, where they were taken into the office of an editor at Random House and shown the new iPad. “This is the future of publishing,” he said. “No more print or paper or binding. We can realize greater profits than ever before.” Great. Let’s jump up and trash the book while it is in the worst shape of its 500-year lifespan (I date the beginnings of book publishing with Aldus Manutius in Venice; all Gutenberg ever did was print a bible). Bigger profits for publishers will mean less money for writers, who are used to getting screwed anyhow. They are being advised to give their work away for free as an incentive to increase sales of books that don’t exist in any physical form. Does this make sense? ebooks are a simulation of reading, not the act of reading; that takes type, design, and printing and binding, even when the reader is not aware of those elements. Besides, the different parts of a book are supposed to be a crystal goblet holding a fine wine—the object is the wine, not the glass.

The best analogy is this: Reading an ebook is like making love to a skeleton (consensual, of course; we’ll leave the brain, eyes, and tongue in the skull). Bones are what keep us upright; marrow pumps out red and white blood cells, the femur and patella and tibia and fibula and tarsal and metatarsal make for shapely legs, and the pelvic bones of ilium and pubis and ischium are always ready to make a lap. But imagine kissing a mouth all maxima and mandible. Not very inviting, no matter how long you’ve known each other. Intimacy requires every organ, including the useless appendix hanging around for no discernible reason except costly surgery when it decides to rupture.

So now we have a skeleton with the cool extras like liver and kidneys and lungs and pancreas (a personal favorite on account of how it sounds, not function), and best of all, the heart. Still any prospective lover is not happy. Give them miles of veins and arteries full of blood, and musculature. At last the body takes shape, though far from inviting. A human body without skin is wet, sloppy, and not to be encountered without the aid of strong drink. But when the skin is applied, what has gone on before is forgotten and a pleasant desire makes ready for the ultimate goal.

Reducing a book to text is dumb for everyone. You have to admire Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Apple’s Steve Jobs for shafting readers, writers, designers, printers, and booksellers so efficiently. Only complete greed-heads would go so far and so fast. The text is only the beginning; editors and copyeditors and proofreaders spend entire careers developing the skills necessary to insure the final book is accessible to readers. Ask any writer about the editor’s role and they will say it is essential to bringing their ideas and stories to life.

Designers sweat and strain to find the right typeface that allows the words to speak instead of being splayed on the page as letters. History is taken into account, along with function: what will make the text connect with the reader and not draw attention to itself? The page design is important on account of no two books are alike. Each has separate problems to solve and do so gracefully with display heads and where to put the page numbers. Once this is completed, a paper is chosen and not too bright and not too dim and not so the type disappears. Good paper does not mean cutting down the last of our forests; for acid free and archival-strong paper there is cotton and linen and kenaf, each ready to be grown where the soil is willing. Recycled stock is always an excellent choice since wood pulp sucks anyway.

The printer takes the pages and paper selection and, guided by his or her years of apprenticeship and skill and talent, puts the two together. With the stacks of printed pages comes the need for binding. This means paperback or hardbound, sewn or perfect binding, and a cover that says what the book is and why you should read it. Booksellers order copies, stick a few in the windows of their shops, and get the books out to readers. Craft, skill, and talent also go into bookselling, knowing how many books to order and who of their customers want to read them.

A bookseller acts as a pharmacist, prescribing novels and nonfiction for the lonely and loved and curious. Taking a book in hand that has come about from so much dedication gives the reader the same flush and rush as the eager lover: connection, and not just to the writer but humanity. No electricity, no application or program, nothing is needed except the ability to read and turn pages. What makes the connection is craftsmanship (craftsPERSONship is too clumsy to use so I won’t; women do this stuff too, okay?) in every stage: writing, editing, design, printing, and selling.

With the ebook, most of this is done away with in search of greater profit. Talk of how this will benefit readers is garbage. The only writers to be accepted by the big six publishing companies (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group, Random House, and Simon & Schuster) must have a major online presence; others are better off spending their time watching network television (cable costs too much) until their brains dribble out their ears and they don’t want to write any more. Writers who are big online do not need editors on account of any fans will point out errors as part of the writer’s cloud. Why bother with page or type designers when every text can come out in Times New Roman on a backlit screen?

A recent publisher’s guide for writers is mostly concerned with building and maintaining online presence, every social networking site like Twitter and MySpace and Facebook and reader sites like Goodreads and LibraryThing. To follow the rules in the guide, a writer has to put in a ten-hour day. This means less time for writing skills, reading, researching, thinking, and general hygiene. For this, the writer is guaranteed to make very little money. Amazon wants to fix the price of ebooks at no greater than $9.99, and the writer can expect to make anywhere from 25 to 50 cents, along with having a refrigerator box stuck under a freeway overpass as a permanent address. Where’s the WiFi?

Screw the booksellers, too. They previously bought physical books at a discount of forty percent or higher, priced them according to what was printed on the back cover or jacket, and everyone involved made a buck. With ebooks, this business model is tossed out in favor of the agency model: the bookseller morphs into a sales agent for the publisher, not a seller of books as the title implies. Amazon and iBookstore are shoving price caps down publisher’s throats, regardless of the labor and costs involved with bringing the book to life. The control of pricing hits everyone down to the scribbler who gets a reduced royalty, and you can forget about publishers outside the big six. They cannot survive in such a marketplace. The math is simple: instead of selling a new book for $24.95, the price is now $9.95. Unless the volume in question is a mammoth bestseller, independent booksellers can start looking for jobs as telephone solicitors.

At least the writer gets something: typographers are gone, along with designers and printers and booksellers and editors and dreamers and thinkers. The ebook revolution is not about connection, but disconnection. Who needs to talk when we can text, and the passive-aggressive can post diatribes they don’t have to answer. Insignificant and unsubstantiated data has piled up online until turning on your computer or smart phone is like being thrown into an ever-expanding room full of white sugar: nutritionally useless and will likely blow out your heart when what you want is a teaspoon for coffee.

People need people, the signs and voices of people, and this is done with craft. A well-made object shows the hand. We need to remind ourselves that there is more in the world than just us, to continue learning about other people and places, and reach out to them as they reach for us. Since 1980, the cost of a university education has risen 827 percent (no typo there—827 percent) and so anyone going into higher education must take business and business-related courses so they can get to earning soon after getting their degree on account of they will spend the next ten years paying off student loans (in contrast, healthcare costs have only risen 400 percent since 1980). This has killed liberal arts and made for Americans being dumb enough to follow whatever new toy the greed-heads like Bezos and Jobs want to pimp.

Craft, anything to do with using the hand, is considered beneath us. We can crank out something better by machine, and cheaper when we use overseas labor. The most dangerous thing about craft is that it must be approached with humility; craft show us the limits as well as the heights of what we can do. When you touch a handmade piece of pottery, look at a painting, listen to music being performed, or read a book, you know how fragile humans are, and how strong. Craft is not only good for the soul, it is the soul transmitted.

On January 6, 1946, Pastor Martin Niemöller made a speech before representatives of the Confessing Church in Frankfurt, where he read the apologia that began “THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists…” Let’s do a rewrite.

THEY CAME FIRST for the independent booksellers,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t an independent bookseller.
THEN THEY CAME for the editors,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t an editor.
THEN THEY CAME for the book designers,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a book designer.
THEN THEY CAME for the writers,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a writer.
THEN THEY CAME for me, a reader,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

NEXT: Breeds of Discontent

2010-04-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

TRIED AND TRUE BOOKS: New Fashions for the Unleashed

(NOTE: The faithful and almost genial writer of this blog has been missing for several weeks, much to the consternation of his debtors. Mr. Detroit found him sipping rum drinks under a beach umbrella in the sunny country of Belize. “Why did you run off?” asked the good Michigan native. “I didn’t run. I hobbled,” the writer replied in his defense. While cavorting between manuscripts, he ran into a newel post and broke his left clavicle. This led to surgery and weeks of recuperation. “No place better than Belize to heal,” he said. Mr. Detroit stormed off in anger. Responsibility for the blog had fallen to him. The following is what he wrote.)

This is silly. I don’t have a blog, a MySpace or Facebook page, and I don’t see the Internet as endless entertainment. I’m stuck writing online on account of California weakens people. Most of the population is a bunch of complainers who’ve never seen a real winter with snowdrifts and black ice on the freeways. Rain and fog is the worst for them, and the summers in the northern part of the state are too mild to be considered anything but a long spring. Your regular writer gets a hurt shoulder and he cries like he’d lost a limb. Man up. Stop the sobbing. No one is going to kiss whatever you want kissed to make it better.

So heck, I’m stuck with the assignment. The Easter weekend for many people meant standing in line to plunk down ready cash (or credit for those that still have a working card) at the Apple Store. The iPad is in with apps aplenty, more versatile than a Kindle, and better looking than any other ebook reader out there. A quarter of a million iPads were sold, along with 600,000 ebooks. Chills and thrills, right?

Wrong. Most people start their days by booting up home computers to check for news and email, and go to jobs that require them to boot up other computers. Once home from the office, warehouse, or delicatessen after a long and tedious day wired into a Blackberry, they boot up their HD TVs connected to the Internet and watch bad movies until it’s time for bed, or they get stuck in gaming and don’t sleep at all. None of this makes for a full, integrated life, just efficient consumers.

For the public transit commuter, reading is how time was passed while waiting to hit the destination. Books, magazines, and newspapers were read. Magazines have folded or reduced size, and newspapers knocked down the same. Now books are making the transition (transitioning? Is that a legitimate word?) to digital, and ebooks promise to be the next big thing, at least for publishers. Just think: an ebook doesn't require a designer, a printer, a warehouse, and barely an editor. Download the text file to a server in Colorado and get ready for the income stream. Writers of works will be screwed over on the change, and some deserve to be mistreated, like the whiner with the jug of Bain de Soleil. Many are made of stronger stuff. They’ll get theirs, anyhow.

For my money, the ebook thing doesn’t make sense. Dropping $259 for the six-inch or $489 for the 9.7-inch version of Kindle, or $499 for the iPad, puts a heck of a dent into my book-buying budget for the year, never mind the month. For those amounts of cash I can walk out of an independent bookstore (www.indiebound.org) with a healthy stack of reading material that does not require batteries. Taking the same bankroll to a used bookstore means I leave with two stacks, and a clear conscience about the lightness of my carbon footprint. What’s even more important is that after hours and hours of being logged on and jacked in, I can rest in a world with greater permanence than a pixel. Pop a beer, put a little smooth music on the stereo, settle into a comfortable chair next to good light, and it’s almost like a date except you don’t have to say “excuse me” when you burp.

Nights in with a book are more pleasurable than nights out with those so-called friends who leave you with the bar tab; may they find their foreheads pressed against parking meters. The physical properties of a book are part of reading: Type never lets you down, or crisp off-white paper, or the touch of a buckram binding. I’ll set my own trend, thank you, and read my books in the real world. Plus I get that rush of achievement every time I add another volume to my bookshelves. What screen will give me that?

GET YOUR HANDS READY TO TURN PAGES

Even though I’m writing this and what’s-his-name isn’t, I should stick in a plug for THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95). Available at independent bookstores and other places across the country, THE DOG has been reviewed favorably by those who should know. One reader and likely a writer said, “At last, the rhododendron has perked up. This is due to the wonderful advice and clear-headed explanation of the publishing business I found in THE DOG.” So buy some copies already, please?

2009-12-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

USING THE RIGHT WORD RIGHT NOW: Panache for Puppies

(NOTE: This holiday season, forget friends and relatives and buy presents only for you. They can take care of themselves, at least those that still have a job. Books are the best presents: saucy and tame books, silly and serious books, useful and useless books, and scary and placid books. Go to www.indiebound.com for the nearest independent bookstore, slap cash on the counter, and get crazy with fat bound pages of type and adventure. Greater sales will force the publishing industry to stop wasting time staring up its Twitter and get back to making books. In these perilous times, think of yourself first and let others take a distant second or third, especially those with questionable fashion sense.)

John McPhee is said to have replied to an interviewer who asked about a picture being worth a thousand words, “Yes, but the right word is worth a thousand pictures.” So why do writers insist on using the wrong word? Corrupt usage. Words and phrases that started out meaning one thing have been corrupted by series of dumb people into meaning something else or nothing at all. Below are the most misused of the bunch. There will be more unless writers smarten up and think before whacking the keyboard.

SURREAL, SURREALISTIC, SURREALISM: Has ever a word been more misunderstood? Guillaume Apollinaire, the walking wounded of Montparnasse, coined the word “surrealism” in 1917 for the introduction printed in the theater program to Jean Cocteau’s play, PARADE. The original spelling was “sur-realism,” meaning “beyond real,” and was adopted by French artists unsatisfied with the nihilism of Dada. André Breton was the main theoretician and arbiter of surrealism as shown in his 1924 MANIFESTO OF SURREALISM:

SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner—the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

ENCYCLOPEDIA. Philosophy: Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and all every other psychic mechanism and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life….

(André Breton, MANIFESTOES OF SURREALISM, translated by Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969)

Now you have no excuse for throwing this word around where it doesn’t belong, and also frustrate colleagues at will with your erudition. Being smarter is always a burden.

AMERICAN DREAM: The next time you read or hear the phrase “American Dream,” ask the writer or speaker for a definition. Those that do not hide behind “everyone knows” will flush red at being exposed as a semi-literate poseur. Historian James Truslow Adams laid out the dream in his book, THE EPIC OF AMERICA (Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1931):

“The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement…. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

Heady stuff, right? For further consideration, get down to that local independent bookstore and pay retail for THE AMERICAN DREAM: A SHORT HISTORY OF AN IDEA THAT SHAPED A NATION by Jim Cullen (NY: Oxford University Press, 2003).

HUMAN NATURE: Stop and think for a long time before sticking this one on the page as an explanation for why someone does something. The generalized dictionary definition says that human nature is the sum of qualities and traits shared by all humans, but what are the qualities and traits? No one knows for sure, or they refuse to let the information trickle down to the ordinary man or woman waiting for a bus.

Basic human drives are just like those belonging to our hairy forbearers—eating, copulation, safety, goofing around, and status seeking—and anything else is still debated. An individual like that bozo in the cubicle next to yours can be selfish and competitive compared to the friendly and habitually honest you. Who is showing examples of human nature, both or neither? Philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century dug deep with sharp shovels through layers of culture and social conditioning to find what was truly shared by the entire human race. They came up with fancy notions like benevolence and self-interest as being part of human nature, and later philosophers disproved these with big words in foreign languages.

For those unwilling to embrace Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or give up on the concept and pound down egg nog until the confusion goes away, get a copy of Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault’s, THE CHOMSKY-FOUCAULT DEBATE: ON HUMAN NATURE (NY: New Press, 2006) and ON HUMAN NATURE, revised edition (NY: Harvard University Press, 2004) by Edward O. Wilson.

BUY ONE, BUY FOUR

Lighten your wallet and brighten your prose with multiple copies of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, 2006). As the decade of doom comes to a close, a swell book with a nifty cover full of literate advice is good to have on hand. Plus, a portion of the cover price will go directly to the writer. This is called a royalty.

NEXT: New Fashions for the Unleashed

2009-09-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

BROWN AND SERVE: Whimpers on the Doorstep

(NOTE: Many readers mistake satire for the Greek word, satiros, meaning to rest one’s hindquarters on an inflated object, usually round. This is wrong. Satire comes from the Latin satira, and is used to label those works concerned with making fun of human folly, avarice, stupidity, bad temper, questionable clothing choices, and anyone else’s hair comb-over. This snotty branch of literature makes more enemies than friends, much like the office manager who drinks too much at holiday parties. You never know when satire hits. Maybe you will, or just sit until someone says it’s time to go home.)

Special to the LONDON DAILY INBRED
September 10, 2009

Readers around the world anticipate the six-million-copy release this week of Dan Brown’s follow-up to his previous books featuring academic sleuth Robert Langdon. THE LOST SYMBOL promises to be welcomed in the same spirit as his earlier thrillers, ANGELS & DEMONS and THE DA VINCI CODE. Everyone is happy that the author is poised to once again dominate the bestseller lists, none more so than our blessed Bonnie Prince Charlie.

In a press statement handed out on Friday, HRH The Prince of Wales announced that the Prince’s Trust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping unemployed young people, is sponsoring the first PUBLISH AND PERISH public burning on Sunday, September 13, 1500 GMT. Two accredited executioners will escort Mr. Brown in chains to the recycled stainless steel pole erected in Trafalgar Square near Nelson’s Column, and set the author on fire.

According the statement, “Britons have been deprived of bloodsport ever since the banning of the fox hunt in 2005, and Guy Fawkes Day just doesn’t have the punch necessary for a jolly nice bacchanal. The Prince has warned Mr. Brown on many occasions that his books have put an awful strain on the environment and he should stop writing at least until he learns how to write. Since so many have been printed, used bookshops refuse to accept them, and we’ve got stacks of the things cluttering our beautiful countryside. A Brown novel is a barely a one-time read, never mind twice stepping into that shallow pool. Every henhouse and carport from London to Newcastle Upon Tyne is jammed with copies of his books, paper and hardcover. Recycling companies work overtime to keep pace and they are continually overwhelmed. Every Briton sincerely believes no book should be banned but enough is enough. We’re burning the author to preserve what little is left of our environment.”

The festivities include the parade to post through downtown London, where spectators are encouraged to throw GMO tomatoes and factory-farm eggs at Mr. Brown. Booker prize winner Salman Rushdie has agreed to act as master of ceremonies. “We also want a bit of music for the young people,” said Wynn Shacklesup, one of the organizers. “Is Oasis back together again? I can never keep up and Coldplay refuses to answer our calls.”

America’s Presto Log has donated several hundred pounds of their famous fuel for the fire. In accordance with the PUBLISH AND PERISH commitment to a low impact event, the logs are made of only the lowest quality sawdust, wood shavings, and any newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch. “I’d pay good money to see him roasting as well,” said Shacklesup. “He’d make a fine fire. Maybe next year.”

HRH The Prince of Wales is keen to throw the first match, since the original idea came from him. “Better to burn in Trafalgar than rule at Random House UK,” said Prince Charles. Sponsors include Guinness, celebrating its 250th anniversary, Rowntree’s Fruit Pastilles, and Marmite. Marks & Spencer will offer limited edition tee shirts and scarves, with proceeds going to the Prince’s Trust.

WIN! WIN! GET SOMETHING FOR SOMETHING!

Here’s the skinny: Answer two skill-testing questions and Cypress House sends you a free copy of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH. Yes, indeed, a free copy. Cypress House even sticks the book in an envelope and throws on the postage. This is the book you’ve always wanted, one that tells the truth about publishing, how to publish, and how to write well. Anyone who can read the alphabet from A to Z wants a copy of THE DOG and now you can grab one without bending that over-limit VISA card. Here are the questions:

What is the title of Thomas Pynchon’s first novel?
Where did it take place?

Send your answers to salglynn@aol.com. Winners will be announced next blog.

NEXT: Panache for Puppies

2009-06-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

WRITING IS WAITING: Distemper of Our Times

(NOTE: Most human interaction is not a lot of fun. There are few people you can impress while wearing tattered jeans and a tee shirt, but their numbers increase thanks to social networking. Appearances need no longer be a worry thanks to the new killer apps. Hooray! Go wild and slip into the slinky, daring, and revealing before you approach the keyboard. No one will ever know, especially after you close the blinds against the creep across the street that has his telescope trained on your window.)

WORDS COLLIDE ON NEURAL PATHWAY, ADJECTIVES UNHARMED

Writing takes patience. The computer has to boot up, the coffee be ready, and the neighbor answer his or her annoying alarm clock before any work is started. Confronting the blank screen with a blank mind only makes for a longer delay. What do I say? How do I say it? Should I darn socks instead? The answers come while you are waiting.

John Gardner got stuck when writing his MICKELSSON’S GHOSTS (NY: Knopf, 1982 and if you haven’t read this novel yet, shame on you). Jessica, his heroine, was offered an hors d’oeuvre at a party and John had no idea whether or not she accepted it. His equivocating over the scene showed him that he knew nothing about her. Instead of soldiering on, he stopped and went into his workshop to build furniture. He waited until Jessica became a fully realized character and decided about the hors d’oeuvre, left his workshop for his study, and began writing again.

Waiting is not the same as writer’s block on account of writer’s block is used too often as an excuse for substance abuse. Either you want to write or you don’t. If you do, nothing will stop you, not sciatica, a pile of rejection slips taller than your stack of manuscripts, bad weather, good weather, the rash that refuses to heal even with prescription ointment, blurred vision, past due rent, hangnails, and broken pipes. Writers write, or think about writing.

For those under deadline, waiting is not acceptable and action must be taken to shake off the mental torpor. Here a few tricks to help re-start the words.

TAKING UP THE PEN

Go to the kitchen table and open the windows and doors for lots of air. Take a pen (that stick you use to sign checks) and paper and copy out the last paragraph you wrote before getting stuck. Now start scribbling. Being away from your laptop is kind of fun, right? Treat writing by hand like finger painting, with swirls when you need them and harsh lines blocking out the color. After you fill five or six pages, return to the computer and keyboard the stuff. Now you are better.

HUNT AND PECK TO SUCCESS

Okay, the handwriting made your fingers cramp and you did not like the results. Return to the kitchen table and this time bring along a manual typewriter. You should have one in the back of your bedroom closet or next to the case of 40W oil in the garage. Take the machine out of its case and clean with a toothbrush and rags. Roll in a fresh sheet of paper, stare at the keys in post-modern wonder, and type. Think of how many fat novels and wild, intense treatises have been knocked out in such a manner. Samuel Clemens lost a fortune investing in one of the early typewriters; Dashiell Hammett used to walk Market Street in San Francisco, picking up flyers to use for his first typed drafts. Join the tradition.

BLAME THE MUSES

When the words still refuse to show themselves, this may be the result of forces outside of your control. The nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne known as the muses are messing with you. Calliope takes care of epic song, Clio is history, Euterpe inspires lyric song, Melpomene does tragedy, Terpsichore is the dance, Erato fills the dirty mind with erotic poetry, Polyhymnia cleans up with sacred song, Urania looks to astronomy, and Thalia gives comic relief and the poetry of sylvan glades. Homer asked his chosen muse to sing to him before starting THE ODYSSEY. You can sing to all of them for not handing out their gifts in a timely fashion:

Why do you build me up, Buttercup, baby
Just to let me down and mess me around
And then worst of all, you never call, baby
When you say you will, but I love you still
I need you, more than anyone, darlin'
You know that I have from the start
So build me up, Buttercup, don't break my heart

"I'll be over at ten,” you told me time and again
But you're late, I wait around and then
I went to the door, I can't take any more
It's not you, you let me down again

Baby, baby, try to find
A little time and I'll make you happy
I'll be home
I'll be beside the phone, waiting for you

Why do you build me up, Buttercup, baby
Just to let me down and mess me around
And then worst of all, you never call, baby
When you say you will, but I love you still
I need you, more than anyone, darlin'
You know that I have from the start
So build me up, Buttercup, don't break my heart

You were my toy but I could be the boy you adore
If you'd just let me know
Although you're untrue, I'm attracted to you all the more
Why do I need you so?

Baby, baby, try to find
A little time and I'll make you happy
I'll be home
I'll be beside the phone, waiting for you

Why do you build me up, Buttercup, baby
Just to let me down and mess me around
And then worst of all, you never call, baby
When you say you will, but I love you still
I need you more than anyone, darlin'
You know that I have from the start
So build me up, Buttercup, don't break my heart

I need you more than anyone, baby
You know that I have from the start
So build me up, Buttercup, don't break my heart

“Build Me Up Buttercup” by Mike d'Abo and Tony Macaulay
Copyright © EMI Music Publishing, Warner/Chappell Music Inc.

You can also read a swell book titled, THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET:AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95), available at fine independent bookstores everywhere.

NEXT: Whimpers on the Doorstep

2009-03-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

BOOKS MAKE A HOME MORE CROWDED: Another Collar

(NOTE: Charles Darwin will celebrate the 150th anniversary of his THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES in November. This is a worthwhile book to have and read but there is no reason to rush out and buy a copy on account of Mr. Darwin is no longer alive to enjoy his piece of the action. Many dead writers have the same problem. While they may not have taken their royalties with them, having the checks forwarded would be a nice gesture. This includes film rights.)

MAKING A HOME LIBRARY

Every home needs a library, no matter if you live in a prefab McMansion, cramped studio apartment, or dull condominium. All your stuff is a reflection of who you are: the photographs and art prints on the walls serve as reminders of where you’ve been and with whom, comfortable furniture says you like sitting around, and home entertainment systems tell how much you care about what you listen to and watch. These are dandy, but a home is not truly a home until there are shelves loaded with books.

Your library should consist of what you like. There is no “must have” list to consult. Mysteries? Line them up. The same goes for cooking and cookery, biography, history, science, novels, poetry, or reference books. Recycle the ones you will never read or have read and dislike. A home library does not have to be all-inclusive or expansive, only filled with your interests. Paperbacks can sit next to hard covers without causing any serious zoning problems. Any guest that ridicules your selection should be politely shown the door. You don’t want those people around anyway.

SHELVING MATTERS

In a world better than the abysmal wallow we currently plod through, part of high school curriculum would include building bookshelves. Students learn how to choose woods, saw, sand, countersink screws, and use a spirit level. Since this is unlikely to happen, most people purchase ready-made shelves. Particleboard is a mistake (the crap bows under any weight), so is metal, and dark woods dampen an otherwise bright room. How tall the shelves need to be depends on what you put on them. For those whose taste runs to art books, the shelves should be at least 14 inches apart and likely more. Mass-market paperbacks are 7 inches tall, and hardcover fiction and nonfiction run about 9 inches. Add another inch so there will be no cramping. The measuring tape is your friend.

Wherever the shelves are placed, make sure no direct sunlight hits them. Red book jackets will be bleached to pink in no time under the effects of full spectrum light, and green and yellow and teal also get drained of their original brightness. Sun is brutal on books of all colors. You want light? Go buy a lamp.

ORGANIZE FOR THE HECK OF IT

Save the Dewey decimal system for your next visit to the public library. This is yours and organization is all about what works for you. Should you line the books alphabetically by title or author? What works is more important than what someone else might think. For those with a heightened visual sense, try separating by color. Rimbaud scribbled out: “I invented the color of vowels!—A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green…” Use this for a start while dullards have to make do with whole words.

Those with a range of interests will want to make divisions by genre: cookery here, science fiction there, and racier stuff at the top so the kids won’t get into it until they grow tall enough or learn how to use a chair. Every book is valid so what goes first never matters, only that you can find it when you want. If you live with other people ask their opinions so you can ignore them.

HOW TO BUY BOOKS

Come on, think for a moment. The best place to buy books is at an independent bookstore. They need the help and so do the impecunious writers whose work sits in their shops. Big chain stores will need the help about two days after Earth is sucked into a giant black hole and shot across the galaxy to a new solar system. Since this is not going to happen anytime soon, check the Yellow Pages or log on to IndieBound (www.indiebound.org) for the nearest and friendliest bookstore in your neighborhood. Buy several copies of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95). Special orders will be cheerfully filled.

NEXT: Distemper of Our Times

2008-11-21T15:16:00.000-08:00

SHOP UNTIL YOU HAVE TO: Trimming the Claws

(NOTE: Spare moments are few and many moments are a lot. The non sequitur remains the same while logic avoids the stain of fun by staying indoors when the sun shines bright outside. Have a heart or two as the days grow shorter and the chill winds blow. Call those less fortunate who shovel snow in Wisconsin and watch network television as they wait for antidepressant medication to be delivered. Tell them the truth: you are having a terrific time not being there.)

BUY NOW, ASK ME HOW

Our economy may be taking its last swirls around the drain, yet we still have our health (without affordable health insurance), our homes (only for renters; home owners wait for eviction notices), and our jobs (except those who have been tossed out due to cutbacks). A thinner wallet this holiday season means we can celebrate without giving expensive and hard to maintain gifts from Versace and Sony. Go straight ahead to books for everyone on your list, even those you owe money. The spectacular books below are written by fine people and deserve your best ribbons and bows. Log on to www.indiebound.org for the nearest independent bookstore. Get something for yourself while going through the shelves. No, that one is a complete waste of time. These are better.

THE HOWLING MILLER by Arto Paasilinna (NY: Canongate/Grove, 2007), $14.00

After fighting in World War II, Gunnar Huffman retreats to a small village in Northern Finland and refurbishes a forgotten mill. The locals accept the newcomer until he starts howling late at night. Sometimes a man just needs to let a good one out, a scream against loneliness and loss or as a celebration of fortune’s arrival in the form of an attractive horticulture adviser. The villagers turn on Gunnar for being too much of an individual and send him to a mental institution. He escapes, howling through the woods. This fine storytelling has been kept away from non-Finnish readers until now. Paasilinna, the author of over twenty other novels, published MILLER in 1981 and we have had to wait 26 years for the English translation. Give to the Gunnar on your list, who needs this more than a rechargeable nose-hair trimmer.

THE PARROT WHO THOUGHT SHE WAS A DOG by Nancy Ellis-Bell (NY: Harmony Books, 2008), $23.00

Nancy wanted a bird for the usual reasons: bright plumage, companionship, and fun. What she found was Peg Leg, a one-legged blue and gold macaw that she renamed Sarah on account of Satan was taken. This ultimate idiopathic three-year old is given to loud curses, steals the dogs’ food and stares them down, and rearranges Nancy’s life as she heals the bird from years of captivity. People who like animals, not people who are animals, will take to this memoir. Some readers will be shocked when Nancy admits to letting Sarah take sips of her gin and tonic. I mean, it’s not like she was drinking Tanqueray. Sarah preferred Gordon’s.

ROCKABYE: FROM WILD TO CHILD by Rebecca Woolf (Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2008), $15.95

Hipster, club-hopping, pointy-toed shoe wearing, and serial dating Rebecca finds out she is pregnant, and her response is a panicked “holy shit.” She goes bravely into motherhood without the help of the usual vices or dippy guidebooks, only a whole bunch of heart and her boyfriend, Hal. Her loss of reckless independence is balanced by what she gains in the birth of her son, Archer. What a woman! Okay, I’ve known Rebecca since before she became a mom and I still like this book. In October of this year she gave birth to a daughter, Fable, who already shows signs of being as strong-willed as her mom. The royalties from ROCKABYE go toward a decent education for both children and also keep Rebecca writing. Buy lots of copies and buy often.

THE CAREFUL WRITER: A MODERN GUIDE TO ENGLISH USAGE by Theodore M. Bernstein (NY: Free Press, 1993)

Any writer who says they know everything about how to write is a twit. Writers need reference books, especially beginning writers. This absolutely vital and necessary handbook was originally published in 1965 and does not show its age. Two thousand entries show how words are used, and the intricacies of grammar and punctuation, and with gentle wit. Bernstein was a consulting editor for THE NEW YORK TIMES who spent his entire working life engaged with the English language, not as a watchdog with bad teeth but a fan. His pleasure in the written word comes across on every page except for the copyright notice. There is no way to make a copyright page interesting and he accepted this fault.

GRAMMAR GIRL’S QUICK AND DIRTY TIPS FOR BETTER WRITING by Mignon Fogarty (NY: Henry Holt, 2008), $14.00

You want self-serving? GRAMMAR GIRL is based on the Web site (http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com) hosted by Mignon Fogarty. Every week she posts new podcasts that address the many questions that confront anyone who puts finger to keyboard. I’m a semi-regular guest writer for her site, and by putting in this mention of her book I get another extension on the latest deadline I’ve missed. Mignon solves each problem with a practical solution, and no stops in between for pedantry. How utilitarian is she in regular life? The woman gives batteries for Christmas gifts.

THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH by Sal Glynn (Fort Bragg, CA: Cypress House, 2006), $14.95

I’ll tout this book until the American Booksellers Association pries the last copy from my cold, dead fingers. Just try. Many nice people have said nice things about THE DOG. Here is my favorite from Mr. Detroit: “Ink and paper have never been combined so artfully as in THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET. Writers of all stripes, shapes, and sizes will thrill to the wisdom within. Of great benefit are the chapters on how publishing works, writer’s health, and the need for successive drafts. That THE DOG was passed over for several prestigious awards and grants still astounds me. Can I go now?” Yes, you may.

NEXT: Another Collar

2008-09-30T14:02:00.000-07:00

VOTING BY THE BOOK: Treeing the Cat

(NOTE: The site has new colors, yet is still the same site to make rude comments about in spare moments. This is called marketing: Change the look and recycle the content so readers in search of the new will log on, and punch in their credit card numbers to buy whatever you are selling. In this way, the economy can grow in the most trying of times. Smart marketers deposit their money in offshore accounts. Domestic banks are not to be trusted, especially those owned by Republicans.)

Many letters have come to THE DOG with the question, “What is an argument?” The most forceful of the queries was written in green crayon on the back of racy postcard from Rio de Janeiro, possibly the work of Mr. Detroit, whose deft comments have been missing from this site. The argument is a literary form whose roots go back to Ancient Greece. Aristotle defined the argument as consisting of three parts: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Thesis states the premise, like “red meat is bad for you,” and proves it. Antithesis gathers facts to disprove the thesis, like “red meat has loads of protein and is good for you.” Synthesis weighs the thesis and antithesis, and arrives at a conclusion that proves and disproves both factions, like “eat more fish.” The following illustrates how the contemporary argument is shaped.

SARAH PALIN IS THE ANTICHRIST

Recent brain donor and Alaska governor Sarah Palin has ascended to Republican vice presidential nominee, and promises to bolster a McCain presidency with her own bizarre politics. Questioned about her knowledge of the international scene, Palin replied, “As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska.” Come on, Sarah. The Russians know about the summer black fly infestation. Besides, they’re not even commies any more.

She began her political life screeching at local Parent Teacher Association meetings and running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska on a platform that played up her church work, railed against abortion, and said nice things about the National Rifle Association. While mayor, she mentioned her deranged desire to ban books she believed to be morally objectionable. Palin hung in for two terms as mayor before she went on to become Alaska’s governor and demand polar bears be taken off the endangered species list. This is who we want in a Vice President, a candidate whose gender has been recalled by the National Organization of Women?

Let’s take a more reasoned look at concerned citizen and parent Sarah Palin.

While the boss of Wasilla, Palin cut property taxes, improved roads and sewers, and hired more police. The town doubled its population from 5000 to 10,000 under her stewardship, and attracted Target and other box stores. The once messy homesteaded farmland of Wasilla was tidied into a suburb, where the residents enjoy food from cans and vacuum-sealed pouches instead of raised in dirt. Palin loves progress.

She was a mayor that knew the power of the written word. Palin asked the town librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons (now Baker), about banning books from the public library. Emmons promised “to resist all efforts at censorship” if this happened and was fired. Local residents made a big fuss until Emmons was reinstated. Palin protects readers from books that aren’t right.

As the mother of five, Palin has gone out of her way to protect all children. She wants creationism taught in schools alongside evolution so they can make a choice on what to believe. Sex education is another area of concern for Palin. Where children are encouraged to make adult decisions about how the heck humans got here, she supports sex education that only teaches abstinence. This has proven most effective in her family, where 17-year-old daughter Bristol is expecting her first child. Palin puts children first above rational thought.

Since the days of Richard Nixon, the America’s highest office has changed to an imperial presidency, and does whatever it wants without the agreement of Congress and the Senate except when they get snotty and the President has to pay some attention. The two-term reign of George W. Bush has increased the sovereignty to include the Vice President. Richard Cheney has modified the office to include the right to shoot your friends without criminal charges, or make them rich with by privatizing the war in Iraq.

Many people have come forth since Sarah Palin’s nomination. Deepak Chopra has written: “Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from “us” pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat.” Eve Ensler, author of THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, states: “I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country choose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas, that America may never recover.”

We have come a long way since President Lyndon Johnson referred to Vice President Hubert Humphrey as, “Hubert who?” This November, make a responsible decision in the polling booth. Your vote may be counted this time, unless you live in Florida or Ohio. Take along the words of Brendan Behan: “I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper, and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.” Better still, instead of voting against, vote for someone other than yourself. Vote for the doomed and the damned, the dispossessed and the huddled masses we are supposed to care about. Vote for everyone.

GRAMMAR GIRL GETS DOG

GRAMMAR GIRL is a Web site hosted by Mignon Fogarty, and deals with the everyday problems of putting thoughts into words. Mignon has told Oprah about split infinitives and appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, and USA TODAY. I’m a semi-regular guest writer for her podcast and since she touts my book, I tout hers, the NYT bestseller is GRAMMAR GIRL’S QUICK AND DIRTY TIPS FOR BETTER WRITING (NY: Henry Holt, $14.00). Check out GRAMMAR GIRL here:

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

NEXT: Trimming the Claws

2008-06-24T08:35:00.000-07:00

READ LIKE AN AMAZON: Howls From the Kennel

(NOTE: Stuck for a synonym? Messed up over metaphors? Iron a shirt. The order is simple: collar, yoke, cuffs, and sleeves before front to back to front. Few pleasures outdo a well-laundered and well-pressed cotton shirt. No polyester or poly blend comes close, and linen is only good for the extra hot days. Slip on the shirt and secondary erogenous zones will screech a happy holler. This is the writing life, at its most rewarding in the private moments.)

From papyri to parchment to paper, the book has followed innovation since the word was recorded. The clumsy and expensive Kindle promises to change the book again. Walt Mossberg kept a straight face while he interviewed Jeffrey P. Bezos, chairman, president, and chief executive of Amazon.com, for the June 9, 2008 issue of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. For a man who made millions selling books online, Bezos must not read very much.

BEZOS: Over some time horizon, books will be read on electronic devices. Physical books won't completely go away, just as horses haven't completely gone away. But there is no sinecure for any technology. If you think about books, it's astonishing. It's very hard to find a technology that has remained in mostly the same form for 500 years. And anything that has stubbornly resisted improvement for 500 years is going to be hard to improve.

THE DOG: What the heck does “some time horizon” mean? As far as a sinecure for printed books, they take a lot of effort by writers, typographers, and printers. From an idea to a finished book takes two years. Much of this is spent with the writing but to drop all the parts of the process into one puddle is senseless.

BEZOS: We see [Kindle] as an effort to improve upon the book, even though it's resisted change for 500 years.

THE DOG: The book mirrors technological change. Five hundred years ago type was set one letter at a time and dabbed with ink balls. Typography since has gone through every twist and turn imaginable, from Linotype to Monotype to photocomposition to digital. Some innovations have been more successful than others. Digital type sucked when it first arrived. Typographers put their heads down and solved the problems of the new process.

BEZOS: …you have to capture the essential element of a book, which is that it disappears when you get into the flow of the story. None of us when we're reading a book think about the ink and the glue and the stitching. All that fades away, and you get into the author's universe.

THE DOG: A good book is a collaboration of writer, typographer, printer, and reader. In Beatrice Warde’s essay, “The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible,” she states, “The book typographer has the job of erecting a window between the reader inside the room and that landscape which is the author’s words.” This is done with the physical form, joined to make an engaging experience. To toss out the parts of a book is to prefer protein powder over a grilled lamb chop. What's for lunch, Jeff?

BEZOS: Sometimes big, heavy hardcover books do break you out of the flow because you get hand fatigue. Or turning pages can be loud if you have a spouse sleeping next to you. There are things about physical books that we're accustomed to but that actually aren't very good.

THE DOG: Get a gym membership. The main problem with the physical book are the twits that want to reduce it to a download commodity with no respect for the form.

BEZOS: But you also can't ever out-book the book. You need to look for a series of things that you can do with an electronic device like Kindle that you could never do with a physical book.
Some of them can be pretty simple, like dictionary lookup. I find I don't know what lots of words mean, and I used to guess because—am I really going to get up off of the sofa and go find a dictionary?

THE DOG: Reading is active, not passive. Unless the book is an academic treatise, most are edited for a ninth grade reading level so publishers don’t have to hear dumb complaints like this. Switch to network television for brain numbing.

BEZOS: Over the last 20 years, most of the tools that we humans have invented have made it easier for us to be information snackers. If one of the outcomes of Kindle and other devices like it [is] making long-form reading more frictionless so that you end up doing more of it, I think that's a good thing.

THE DOG: Do I have to make a comment on this? Information snackers have as much connection with knowledge as marmots do with knitting.

GRAMMAR GIRL GETS DOG

GRAMMAR GIRL is a Web site hosted by Mignon Fogarty, and deals with the everyday problems of putting thoughts into words so anyone, even Jeff Bezos, can understand them. Mignon has told Oprah about split infinitives and appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, and USA TODAY. On June 26, I’ll be the guest writer for her podcast on the use and nasty abuse of slang. She also has a new book coming out next month, GRAMMAR GIRL’S QUICK AND DIRTY TIPS FOR BETTER WRITING (NY: Henry Holt, $14.00). Check out GRAMMAR GIRL here.

A CLASS FOR THOSE WITH CLASS

“Book Proposals Basics for Beginners” is a one-day workshop taught by me and sponsored by Book Passage on Saturday, August 9, 2008. The event will be held from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM at 51 Tamal Vista Boulevard in Corte Madera, CA.

The book proposal is the single most important tool in the development of a book. It is a sales tool for the writer to find an agent, and through them a publisher. The proposal also provides a map for the final manuscript. Topics include query letters, writing for clarity, research, developing a platform, and working with agents. Sal Glynn is a freelance editor and writer who has edited more than 300 books for publishers on both coasts, and the writer of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH. The gig costs $95 (an outrageous bargain) and enrollment is through the Book Passage Bookstore:
51 Tamal Vista Boulevard
Corte Madera, CA 94925
(415) 927-0960
(800) 999-7909
Fax (415) 924-3838
www.bookpassage.com

NEXT: Treeing the Cat

2008-05-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

THE TRUFFLE HOUND IS GONE: Orthodontics for Blue-tick Hounds

(NOTE: Winter is over and the longer days are lit with sunshine. Read a good book into the twilight, not crap like James Frey’s new novel that he pimps as recompense for his phony memoirs. Try Stendahl’s THE RED AND THE BLACK, Arturo Perez-Reverte’s THE QUEEN OF THE SOUTH, or Ovid’s METAMORPHOSIS. Slip on your reading glasses and indulge. Burn your television set.)

Poet and publisher Jonathan Williams passed away on March 16, eight days into his seventy-ninth year, at his home in Highlands, North Carolina. He studied with Charles Olson at Black Mountain College, where he also began making books as The Jargon Society. Williams published and championed poets like Olson, Mina Loy, Lorine Niedecker, Joel Oppenheimer, and James Broughton. His own work showed a delight in the possibilities of the word, from his early AN EAR IN BARTRAM’S TREE (NY: New Directions, 1969) to JUBILANT THICKET: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2004). Jonathan was also a first class essayist, gourmand, hiker of the Appalachian Trail and Dentdale, and photographer.

Conversation with Jonathan went everywhere: baseball, the novels of K.C. Constantine, the dumbing down of education, Gustav Mahler symphonies, outsider art, and how the beer at a roadside tavern near Black Mountain College made the greatest impact on contemporary letters. He praised the honest and damned the fools with his voluptuary pen.

Writing about Jonathan Williams in the past tense is wrong. He breathes and stomps the terra in every book out there with his name on the front cover. That some are of print should not dissuade anyone from the search. The gentleman from North Carolina deserves no less. Tip a fork to the memory of Jonathan with a plate of his favorite Hoppin’ John.

HOPPIN' JOHN

2 cups black-eyed peas
1 large onion
4 cups chicken broth
1 pound unsliced bacon
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 cups long-grain white rice

Anyone who knows anything about cooking dried legumes knows that before they go into the pot the peas must be pawed through to pick out the rocks. Put them in a bowl filled with cold water and let sit while listening to Anton Bruckner, and then drain and rinse.

In a large pot, place the clean black-eyed peas and fill with enough water to cover. Set the burner a touch under high heat until the peas boil. Turn off the heat, slap on a lid, and let the peas sit for one hour as you read Basil Bunting to your guests. Drain the peas in a colander and rinse.

Chop the onion. In the same pot, combine chicken broth, black-eyed peas, bacon, onion, and red pepper. Keep the heat to medium for 1-1/2 hours. This is not the time to be fooling with music and poetry. Watch the pot so it never boils. Take out the bacon and cut into manageable pieces. Stir the bacon and uncooked rice into the pot. Use the lid again and let simmer for 25 minutes or until liquid is sucked into the rice and peas. Serve to six of your best friends.

A CLASS FOR THOSE WITH CLASS

“Book Proposals Basics for Beginners” is a one-day workshop taught by me and sponsored by Book Passage on Saturday, August 9, 2008. The event will be held from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM at 51 Tamal Vista Boulevard in Corte Madera, CA.

The book proposal is the single most important tool in the development of a book. It is a sales tool for the writer to find an agent, and through them a publisher. The proposal also provides a map for the final manuscript. Topics include query letters, writing for clarity, research, developing a platform, and working with agents. Sal Glynn is a freelance editor and writer who has edited more than 300 books for publishers on both coasts, and the writer of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH. The gig costs $95 (an outrageous bargain) and enrollment is through the Book Passage Bookstore:

51 Tamal Vista Boulevard
Corte Madera, CA 94925
(415) 927-0960
(800) 999-7909
Fax (415) 924-3838
www.bookpassage.com

NEXT: Howls From the Kennel

2008-03-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

FOR FIRST-TIME AUTHORS ON THEIR FIRST BOOK SIGNING TOUR: Scratching for Enlightenment

(NOTE: People who give advice know less than they say they know. Smart men and women keep their own counsel unless asked, and then they make up things so the questioner fumbles his or her own way. Giving advice will come back to you in blame, insults, and subpoenas to appear in court next Wednesday at 9 AM. Still, advice is dumped on the unsuspecting and there is no end to the shattered lives caused by opinion tendered as fact. With the caveat that the following is not advice, read with caution. My lawyer is bigger than your lawyer.)

Writers who have signed a contract with a publisher, gone through weepy sleepless nights of the editorial process, and finally been given a ship date for their book now have to promote the thing. Web site up and running? Good. Friends and family promise to buy the book when it comes out? Swell. Now hit the bookstores.

Most promotion is the responsibility of the writer. Publishers, especially independent publishers, help where they can in setting up dates but the writer is the one who has to get to the gig. Once there, the writer can either make a good impression or screw up. The following will help with the good impression. To screw up, you’re on your own.

Take three excerpts from your book, print them out double-spaced in 14-point type, and read them out loud. Complex compound sentences and sentence fragments will need to be rewritten for the oral presentation. Do the work. When you are satisfied the excerpts sound right, read them until you have them almost memorized.

Read a different excerpt at each appearance. When on a tour of more than five bookstores, the writer can get bored with their own material. Having three excerpts to choose from will keep you fresh.

Always arrive thirty minutes early to greet the bookstore staff and events coordinator. Tell them how thrilled you are to be in their store, their town, and their neighborhood. A little lying helps everyone involved.

Bring your own water and drink only hot tea with honey before reading. Tea is a weak sister compared to the pleasures of coffee but tea and honey are nicer on your vocal chords. This is true.

Call the bookstore in the afternoon before the reading and make sure they have books. Even the big publishers fall down once in a while. Always travel with plenty of your books in case there is a problem with shipping. When there is a problem, smile gracefully and do not toss blame around like plastic beads from a Mardi Gras float.

Get the name of the events coordinator and send him or her a thank-you note, not a thank-you e-mail. Personal notes make you a class act.

Dig deep into your lint-filled pockets and buy a good pen for signing. Watermans are best at showing the breadth of creativity. Ask the purchaser’s name, shake their hand, and have a brief dedication ready. “All best,” is safe but dull. Come up with a line that has flair, like: You’re so cool; Moms rule; Love that blouse/shirt; Thanks for being here; You’re so you; and Thanks for not pushing.

Audiences are unpredictable, especially their numbers. How many show up at the event does not matter. Give each appearance your best.

The audience will likely be in casual clothes and there is no reason to go formal. Make sure everything you wear is clean, pressed, and in good repair. No nudity. Please.

Cultivate fans and groupies by carrying a notebook with you for people to sign up for an e-mail list. Everyone wants into the act.

Have bookmarks or calling cards or both printed with the cover of the book, the ISBN number, the publisher’s name, and your web site. These are good for those who are a little behind on their bills and will remind them to buy a copy of your book as soon as that check comes in, the one they have been waiting on since last November.

ROCKABYE REBECCA

Rebecca Woolf, who wrote the foreword to THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, ISBN: 978-1-879384-66-8, $13.95), is on tour in support of her new book, ROCKABYE: FROM WILD TO CHILD (Seal Press, ISBN: 978-1-580052-32-0, $15.95) This poignant and compelling memoir of contemporary motherhood is an intriguing study that eschews the normal and is crafted with lyrical musings. (For those interested in the preceding sentence, see THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 25, 2008, “Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing” by Bob Harris.)

Here are the dates for Rebecca’s tour. Come on down and buy a book!

CALIFORNIA

Los Angeles: Saturday April 5th
Book Soup, West Hollywood: 5:00 pm.
8818 Sunset Boulevard
W. Hollywood CA 90069

San Diego/ North County: Wednesday April 9th
Borders Carlsbad @ The Forum 7:00pm
1905 Calle Barcelona
Carlsbad, CA 92009

Orange County: Tuesday, April 15th
Borders @ South Coast Plaza 7:00 pm
3333 Bear Street
Costa Mesa, CA 92626

Oakland: Tuesday, April 22nd
A Great Good Place for Books: 6:30pm
6120 LaSalle Avenue
Oakland, CA 94611

San Francisco: Wednesday, April 23rd
Books Inc, Marina District: 7:30pm
2251 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA, 94123

Grass Valley, CA: Thursday, April 24th
The Bookseller 5:00pm
107 Mill Street
Grass Valley, CA 94945

WASHINGTON

Seattle: Saturday April 26th
Elliott Bay Book Company, 4:30pm
101 S Main Street
Seattle, WA 98104

CANADA

Vancouver: Tuesday April 29th
Sophia Books: 7:00pm
450 Hastings Street West
Vancouver BC

OREGON

Portland: Monday May 5th
Powell's Books, Burnside Location 7:30pm
1005 W Burnside
Portland, OR 97209

COOL BOOK OF THE DAY

THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET made Dan Jana’s Cool Book of the Day for February 14. Here is a quote from the article:

Q: Is there anything else we should know?
A: Opinionated, irreverent, and derived from years of hands-on experience, THE DOG demystifies the problems faced by both first-time writers and experienced pros.

Read the whole shot at www.coolbookoftheday.com/category/writing/

NEXT: Orthodontics for Blue-tick Hounds

2008-02-01T15:02:00.000-08:00

WHERE READERS READ WHAT WRITERS HAVE WRITTEN: Water Bugs in the Water Bowl

(NOTE: Galoshes, sou’westers, and golf umbrellas are de rigueur for the literati this season. Swaddled in rubber and neoprene, readers and writers and editors jump puddles in search of what’s out there in the world of books and what’s to come. Freelance editors and writers stay at home with their electric heaters on high to drive out the damp, and stick zinc and plastic buckets under ceiling leaks. The only consolation is that the precipitation could be snow, and who has time to shovel?)

“And working writers are about the only people I can talk to. They’re the only people that understand how serious having fun is and how much fun being serious is.”
—James Crumley, 1985 interview

Writers also talk about the problems of literacy, for their own base reasons (more readers means more readers buying their books) and concern about the health of literate culture. In order to be erudite on the subject, they have to read the studies where numbers take over for words.

Dr. John W. Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University, has released his study of America’s most literate cities for 2007, and the results are sort of surprising and sort of expected. The six indicators used to compile the list are newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, education levels, and Internet resources. Here is the top ten (out of 69 cities listed):

1. Minneapolis
2. Seattle
3. St. Paul
4. Denver
5. Washington, DC
6. St. Louis
7. San Francisco
8. Atlanta
9. Pittsburgh
10. Boston

Minneapolis is an easy call since there is not much to do, and the same with Seattle and its annual 340 days of rain, dull office jobs, high divorce rate, and wretched freeway system. St. Paul has the same problems as Minneapolis, Denver is a mile high and reading is easier on taxed lungs than long distance running, Washington, DC has an imperial government run by Apocalypse addicts, and St. Louis is in Missouri. San Francisco falters at number seven for no good reason. What is keeping these people from reading, Pilates, investment opportunities, mall shopping? Have civic pride, even though the local newspapers suck, and get turning pages.

Atlanta is Atlanta, Pittsburgh the same, and Boston has too many beans and not enough history. Compare the most literate cities with the top 10 bookselling cities and the ranking goes weird. The indicators used to compile this list are the number of retail bookstores for every 10,000 people, number of rare and used bookstores, and how many American Bookseller Association members.

1. Seattle
2. San Francisco
3. Minneapolis
4. Cincinnati
5. St. Louis
6. Portland, OR
7. Pittsburgh
8. St. Paul
9. Cleveland
10. Washington, DC

Seattle may be number two with readers but is number one with booksellers and San Francisco rises above its embarrassing seventh in the literate to take second place. Cincinnati, Portland, and Cleveland have great bookstores without the attendant great readers. Avid followers of the book whose home towns have missed both lists should ask, do we move for the company of like-minded people or for greater selection?

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WITH A CHECK

The $100 million defamation lawsuit that Judith Regan, former head of the defunct HarperCollins imprint Regan Books, filed in November has been settled, and without taking too much time or cash from HarperCollins parent company, News Corp. The joint statement issued on Friday, January 25, stated: “The parties are pleased that they have reached an equitable, confidential settlement, with no admission of liability by any party.” Her alleged anti-Semitism, being used as a media stalking horse for the debacle around OJ Simpson’s IF I DID IT, and threatening Rudolph Giuliani’s presidential aspirations are sheer piffle, a blip, and puffs of smoke.

Regan followed the statement with a gracious thank you to the people she worked with and promised to strike again in a new venture. Back to the NATIONAL ENQUIRER?

NEVER THREATEN WHAT YOU CAN’T DELIVER

The kitten from the last post grew to a cat, changed its colors, and stomped the well-armed dog before a shot could be fired. Purchase multiple copies of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95) and a portion will go to the canine’s physiotherapy bills. Patronize your local independent bookseller today.

NEAL CASSADY BIRTHDAY BASH

The Beat Museum is holding the Third Annual Neal Cassady Birthday Bash to benefit the Foundation for Creative Expression. Everyone who is anyone will be there, including a special appearance by Al Hinkle (Big Ed Dunkel from ON THE ROAD) and a silent auction of Beat memorabilia. Also on the block this year is the chance to bid for lunch with local heroes. These include: Sal Glynn, David Meltzer, Mark Bittner, Judy Irving, John Allen Cassady, Jami Cassady & Randy Ratto, Carl Nolte, Jack Hirschman, Robert Altman, ruth weiss, and David Amram. We know time, man.

NEAL CASSADY BIRTHDAY BASH
February 9th and 10th
10 AM to 10 PM
THE BEAT MUSEUM
540 Broadway (at Columbus)
San Francisco, CA 94133

NEXT: Scratching for Enlightenment

2007-11-19T15:22:00.000-08:00

EDITING ON DEADLINE OR CLOSE ENOUGH: Chew Toys for the Lonely

(NOTE: For a number of reasons, none of them true, THE DOG has been on temporary leave. Mr. Detroit is lying when he says the major cause is laziness. Only a quick brown fox would jump over a lazy dog. The first healthy royalty check came in and a trip to the Grand Caymans was necessary to fill an offshore account and price island getaways with Wi-Fi. Beachfront parties sponsored by frivolous bankers made adding new posts impossible. Be assured THE DOG still barks.)

Many freelance editors work in conjunction with agents and subject to their deadlines. Once the in-house editors are done shedding dead skin from healing sunburns, the fall selling season begins and agents wrestle with their clients to pull together the best, most dynamic, and thrilling proposals. The overview, about the author, marketing and promotion plan, competition, table of contents, chapter summaries, and sample chapter have to sparkle or the editor will write off the agent and the project.

I have the luck of working with Nancy Ellis-Bell, known as the bulldog for her tenacity. We started going through the proposals for business books and other nonfiction in September, and carried on through October with a brief respite for the annual Northern California Independent Booksellers convention. Cynthia Frank kept her promise to continue promoting THE DOG past its first year and had a signing for the book. Forty had their title pages scribbled on in less than an hour. More manuscripts came in soon after and Nancy needed other proposals tightened and teased for her meetings.

Proposals call for hours of writing copy that is cut down and rewritten, and only to be written again. The hardest part is the marketing and promotion plan. Editors always want more material, and days of online research result in bad tempers and keyboard abuse. After the hair-pulling, second-guessing, and animal sacrifices to appease the gods, there are thirty pages that someone smarter than you reads and immediately points to what you had missed.

We hammered at mutual keyboards early in the morning and late at night. Her enthusiasm zipped through the telephone wire to infect me. In book publishing, we don’t do enthusiasm until 50,000 copies are sold. Since she broke the rule first, I figured following along was safe. She got on the plane with a bundle of manuscripts in hand and others sent ahead to her hotel in Manhattan. Her last trip turned weird in the first couple of days when she was offered a contract for her own book, THE PARROT WHO THOUGHT SHE WAS A DOG (Random House, July 2008, $23.00). We’ll see how she fares this season.

NEWS YOU CAN ABUSE

James Frey had expected a morbidly obese royalty check for his A MILLION LITTLE PIECES before the purported memoir was exposed as a ridiculous fraud. He blamed his publisher, agent, editor, and a low-flying mallard drake for his indiscretion, yet none of the blame stuck and a class action suit followed. On November 2, details of the final settlement were released: Of the $2.35 million Random House held for the case, $783,000 went to the attorneys, $432,000 was spent on publicity about the settlement, and $27,348 in refunds was mailed to 1,729 claimants. Another $180,000 was divided between the American Red Cross, the Hazelden clinic Frey slandered in the book, and First Book. Rumors the American Bar Association sent flowers to Frey have not been confirmed.

On November 13, Judith Regan has let rip her promised lawsuit on former employer, HarperCollins, to the fanciful tune of $100 million. The 72-page document accused an executive at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., parent company of HarperCollins, of a smear campaign to protect Rudy Giuliani and his presidential aspirations. Seems that his former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik was involved with Regan when she had her own imprint at HarperCollins, and has recently been indicted on federal corruption charges. Ms. Regan also says the screeching over OJ Simpson’s IF I DID IT cast her as an “unethical businesswoman devoid of any integrity,” and the New York Times story about her anti-Semitic comments was pure poppycock. Publishing never has been and never will be for the weak of stomach.

BUY MY BOOK OR I’LL SHOOT THIS KITTEN

Black Friday comes at the end of this week. This is biggest sales day for retail stores and an indicator of how books will sell during the Christmas season. What better time to hit your local independent bookstore or even a chain store with credit card in your reckless hand? Save the kitten and purchase multiple copies of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH (Cypress House, $13.95). Don’t take my word. Take this happy reader’s opinion instead:

I met Sal in 1988 when we worked on my first book, THE GLIDING FLIGHT. From day one, his enthusiasm for ideas and disdain for nonsense made every page better. Finally, he’s written down some of that straightforward wisdom. Every page of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET crackles with sharp, practical advice every writer ought to read.
From the cover to the biting descriptions in the resource list, THE DOG has teeth. It’s writers’ boot camp you can read in an afternoon and spend a career internalizing.
Everybody needs an editor. If you think you can’t afford one, you should at least own this book. It’s like having Sal in the room, making everything you write a heck of a lot better.

—John M. Collins, author of THE GLIDING FLIGHT, RETURN TO THE FOLD, and FANTASTIC FLIGHT

Zip over to Red Hot Book Review (www.redhotbookreview.com) for an interview with Lauren Smith about THE DOG. Read fascinating answers to questions like: What is your book about? Why did you write it? What do you think is the biggest misconception about getting published? What are some qualities an author needs to have to become published (besides being a good writer)? How is the publishing industry changing and how will it affect future writers looking to become published?

While you are online, T.J. Sullivan has a post on his site about plans to preserve the 5124 De Longpre Avenue home of Charles Bukowski, writer of the quote gracing the cover of THE DOG. Read the news at www.tjsullivanla.com/2007/09/is-this-that-bukowski.html

NEXT: Water Bugs in the Water Bowl

2007-09-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

THE BOOK YOU READ MAY SAVE YOUR OWN: Snips and Nips

(NOTE: According to the Associated Press-Ipsos poll released on August 22, one in four Americans was unable to read any books last year. Venezuela President Hugo Chavez has called for an end to this literate blight: “The richest and most powerful nation cannot deny its citizens the right to books.” The Venezuelan and Cuban governments have joined forces to supply unread Americans with fiction and nonfiction airdrops in strategic locations throughout the continental United States. “If our plans are successful, we’ll do runs to Hawaii and Alaska as well,” said Chavez. “Who knows? We might also include Guam.”)

August is the month when book publishing slows to the languid motion of the Australian Crawl done in tepid waters. Editors and agents take vacations to places where there are no bookstores or people who use “bildungsroman” and “hermeneutic” in polite conversation. Aloe-based SPF 30 is the garment of choice. About two weeks of lazing about is all they can take before they rush back to their desks, and call and e-mail with unreasonable demands for the next season’s manuscripts.

Those left behind use this time to read books. Everyone involved in publishing has more than a couple of books on the bedside night-stand. There are stacks of books in the hall, under the dining room table, over by the front door, and dumped on the desk. Cookbooks and dictionaries share the same shelves in the kitchen, not by an aesthetic decision but by available room. Guests to the homes of publishing professionals are told that the obstacle course is an occupational hazard. Fiddlesticks. We enjoy this mess.

Besides the books bought by personal choice, there are the books given by the people who wrote or produced them, ARCs (advance reader copies) pilfered from sales reps at trade shows, and gifts from well-meaning friends and relatives who thought you might like a certain title on account of, “you like books.” The stacks teeter until another bit of floor space is found, and a new tower of books is constructed.

I have three stacks of unread books separated into fiction, nonfiction, and reference. The fiction is doled out for good behavior, like chocolates to unruly child who listens for once. (Okay, I cheated and read the appendices to SUITE FRANÇAISE by Irène Némirovsky, but will stay away from the chapters until enough billable hours are worked to pay the rent.) Nonfiction depends on mood, and sometimes they can languish for a year before being read. Most of the reference books are about writing and must be tackled everyday. I read books about writing to know what my clients are reading or not reading, and for the kick in the pants needed to be at the keyboard everyday.

Writers write about writing when they can’t think of anything else to write about, or decide to put their suspicions and opinions in print to see what happens. Milan Kundera, Czech siren singer of THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING and THE JOKE and IMMORTALITY, follows the novel as art in THE CURTAIN: AN ESSAY IN SEVEN PARTS (NY: Harper Collins, 2006). His investigation is far from an arid academic treatise, his definition of the curtain being what separates us from what is really going on in the world, and the novelist’s job to tear down that pleated rag. With well-considered pleasure, he explains the birthplace of the novel in Cervantes and Rabelais, recommends other writers who should be read, and takes a side trip into the state of Middle Europe. Kundera’s continued enthusiasm for books and living deserves to be rewarded with thousands of readers, even though he is stone cold wrong about Franz Kafka not being a Czech or Prague writer.

Israeli writer Amos Oz cut loose his THE STORY BEGINS: ESSAYS ON LITERATURE (NY: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999) on account of his fascination with beginnings. Instead of ramblings about the whole of a novel or short story, he looks only at the auspicious openings, and uses examples by Fontane, Agnon, Kafka, Checkov, Marquez, and others. “Beginning to tell a story is like making a pass at a total stranger in a restaurant,” Oz says, and his insights into the machinery behind effective storytelling is worth reading six or seven times a year.

OBLIGATORY MARKETING PLOY

New quotes have come in for THE DOG from Northern California, Canada, and another foreign country. None were the result of payola, honest. Only threats.

“THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET provided the amps and booster cables to help me write more clearly and concisely. Sal’s quirky style gave me the confidence in my quirky style to jump head first into my next writing project.”

—Taylor F. Lockwood, writer of CHASING THE RAIN and TREASURES FROM THE KINGDOM OF FUNGI

“Congratulations on a very fine book. I’ve read THE DOG with much admiration, and often amusement. It’s a pleasure to see that the canine is out there winning prizes and kudos—it deserves them all. You pack a hell of a lot into your slender commonplace book! Your love of good writing comes through every paragraph and joke and nugget of advice. Any writer will find a great deal that’s useful here.”

—Cynthia Flood, award-winning writer of MAKING A STONE OF THE HEART

Posted on Amazon France:

Lecutre obligatoire pour tout ecrivain future, 22 juillet 2007
Brent Gregston

Un vrai bijou. C’est une bonne methode pour tout ceux qui veulent non seulement ecrire mais aussi reussir a surmonter le defi difficile de se faire publier.
Conseils sur tout le parcours: trouver un editeur, adresser les problemes souvent rencontres, difficultes contractuelles.
Ce livre fournit egalement de bons tuyaux sur l’approche vis-a-vis les la publicite.
Mais il contient aussi beaucoup d’inspiration pour les jeunes ecrivains et aussi des anecdotes et il est tout simplement drole.

NEXT: Chew Toys for the Lonely

2007-07-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

LET PUBLISHING BE PUBLISHING AGAIN: Curs and Curses from the Curb

(NOTE: Instead of trotting down the alleyway of quaint stories about inbred pups, THE DOG wobbles up to the bully pulpit. Be assured that generalizations are used so the writer can keep working in the business as long as the beast allows. The rule of not fouling your own nest applies here. Complaints are only acceptable when no names are named.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
—Langston Hughes, “Let America Be America Again”

Writers across the country are not being heard, and the excuse offered is “platform.” This begs the question, is a writer supposed to be a marketing whiz or a writer? Publishers want writers to present a strong “platform” for any manuscript, fiction and nonfiction, if it is to be considered for any kind of real promotion. A writer’s platform can be a newspaper column; workshop and public speaking venues; television and radio shows or appearances; short stories in magazines as notable as The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, and Paris Review; or anything else with significant (even specialized) name recognition. Without a platform, editors file the proposal and synopsis in the garbage, and the agent is told not to bother them until writer smartens up.

Welcome to the faithless and perverse generation of publishers. Even with a parade of credits and marketing possibilities, publishers will ask for a buy-back clause in the contract. This means the writer promises to buy a certain number of the first printing, usually amounting to the production and printing costs of the entire run. The writer is expected to subsidize the publishing company to get their work into the bookstores, or quits and finds employment as a clerk at Blockbuster.

Face the out-of-tune music, scribblers. Publishing is a business, and six media conglomerates own the bigger companies. Beyond the big bestselling authors, the focus on "platform" gets louder. Executives with the big six take home larger annual salaries while staffs continue to shrink. First, they carved into the editorial departments. This was followed by consolidating the sales staff so independent bookstores never saw a rep again. Next on the list were the marketing, promotion, and publicity people. For most books the selling and promotion, beyond the cursory review mailing, is left to the writer. Without a guarantee that the writer will successfully flog the book, publishers won't give new work a fair hearing. An author with a platform means that the publisher can make money without doing any work. This seems unfair until you look inside a company and find that there is no one there to do the job anyway.

“The duty of a writer is to write,” said Gertrude Stein. No fooling. The writer sits at the keyboard and has to contend with a cascade of thoughts about grammar, story, conflict, and argument. There is also the scramble for the right word worth a thousand pictures. Writing is a 24-hours a day vocation. The writer needs to have ears open for bits of dialog, constantly hone descriptive skills, and look at the world he or she inhabits for inspiration. For a writer to be effective in marketing their work, they necessarily have to give up writing time, and this is self-defeating for the publisher and the writer. A good publisher wants writers to write and get better, not become just another huckster.

None of the above means writers should not be involved in the selling of a book. Heck, no, but publishers and writers have to find a realistic balance. Let editors be champions for new work and let publishers care enough to increase staff and insure the books they publish are properly supported. Cut the crap about platform and consider the readers who want to take home a solid book instead of a deal. Readers will follow.

OUT OF THE DIATRIBE AND ON TO THE SHELVES

("Honky Bling" copyright 2007 by David Choi. Courtesy of the photographer.)

The next reading/signing event for THE DOG is coming in August at Barnes & Noble in San Francisco. THE DOG has lapped at the hyperbolic fizz of “acclaimed” (see Learning Annex blurb from last year’s class in Los Angeles) and is now “award winning” (see big 2007 gold medal for writing/publishing from Independent Publishers above). Enjoy the B&N air-conditioned comfort after a day on Fisherman’s Wharf watching seagulls fight over crab salad sandwich remains. Here’s the skinny:

Sunday, August 19
4 to 5 PM
Barnes & Noble
2550 Taylor Street
San Francisco, CA 94133

NEXT: Snips and Nips

2007-06-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

Flea Bath Time (Instead of going to BookExpo)

(NOTE: News services with dead space will paw through blog entries for catchy, zippy, and darn swell headlines. Once inside the blogsphere, they read the appended article in the hope the writer has not blown his or her creative output on the headline. The good stuff is grabbed and splattered everywhere. From now on, this blog plans to sport inflammatory titles like a spiked collar on a Pomeranian. Forewarned is forewarned; forearms are near the elbow.)

THE DOG has shown its true nature and won the gold medal for Writing/Publishing at the 11th Annual 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY). Other books in the running never had a chance. Publisher Cynthia Frank took home the gold on Friday, June 1, in New York at “Books Off-Broadway: A Celebration of Excellence in Independent Publishing.” She went without asking me who I wanted to thank. As long as she dressed well, showed up on time, and was gracious to all concerned, I’m fine. Better her than me since the event was held at Providence on West 57th Street, in the downstairs Triumph Room. The club started out as the Manhattan Baptist Church in the 1920s until somebody with big ears noticed the acoustics. Faith-based real estate was replaced with Media Sound Studios in the 1960s, and why I stayed away. Going to a location responsible for atrocious albums like Van McCoy’s Disco Baby, not one but five by Barry Manilow, and Peter Frampton’s Breaking All the Rules is an affront to the sensitive ears of THE DOG. The studio went bust in the 1990s and the building changed to Le Bar Bat until its current fresh coat of paint known as Providence. Some sins should never be forgotten or forgiven. Disco Baby is one of them.

Many thanks to the Independent Publisher for recognizing THE DOG, the one with the waggely tail. We’ll have refreshing adult beverages together at the show in Los Angeles next year.

NEWEST AND MISSED COMMENTS FOR THE DOG

THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET is packed with pungent comments on writing and being a writer. Sal Glynn uses humor to deliver the simple truths every writer needs to know. His book is both a reference of good practices, and a comfort for those times when writers struggle. I recommend it to every writer I meet. Wherever I go I make sure to have two books with me, Sal’s and Strunk and White.
—Marvin Mitchell, president of Northwest Association of Book Publishers and publisher of Beachwalker Press

Sal Glynn abandoned his job as an editor working within the confines of publishing houses to become, in his words, a book midwife, assisting writers directly and intimately with birthing their works. In this slim volume, Glynn provides concise, friendly, and practical tips on writing and publishing, with many funny references throughout. He concludes with an annotated bibliography of useful books on reading, writing, and publishing. Not indexed.
— Reference & Research Book News, February 2007

JAN CAMPBELL, 1952–2005

In the early 1970s, the Vanguard Bookstore on Granville Street was where anyone in Vancouver serious about Left politics gathered. The narrow hallway behind the store opened to a large lecture hall, kitchen, and offices. Loud, beery, all night sessions silk-screening picket signs and posters announcing the next antiwar rally were common. The ink-slopped Gestetner machine cranked out leaflets in favor of legal abortion and against nuclear testing.

The word ruled and two 50-cup coffee urns percolated the damp out of our bones. We fed each other, screwed around when time permitted, and talked big issues to exhaustion. These were good times. Queen Elizabeth planned a visit to the city at the cost of one million dollars a day while one out of every ten Canadian under age twenty-one lived below the poverty level. We made banners and greeted her motorcade with “THE QUEEN’S TOUR MAKES US PUKE!” Royal Canadian Mounted Police waited for a reason to stomp us, except we were well mannered even if our banner was not. A student radical newspaper out of Toronto asked me to contribute an article about the rabble-rousing. With soft pencil, I scribbled out a couple of pages laden with rhetoric, bad grammar, faulty judgments, and general stupidity.

Jan Campbell was a student, either at the Vancouver School of Art or Vancouver City College. She read the draft and fiddled with the frames of her eyeglasses. “This needs a little work,” she said. We commandeered a desk and cups of coffee, and started goofing toward legibility. Jan crossed out the teenage effluence and activated the passive sentences with cheerful patience. Never did she slam the writing, only show how gracefully the words could be strung together.

When I came to the end of the manuscript for THE DOG, I dedicated the book to her: “A wave of the blue pencil goes to Jan Campbell, who introduced me to the editor’s way....” I last saw her at a publication party for VANCOUVER SHORT STORIES before moving to California and she was still Jan, enjoying herself in the crowd. Where was she now? I tracked down friends and set them off looking for her. She had married and moved to Calgary had one report, but no address or telephone number. Finally, news came in last week: Jan had passed away from cancer. Good-bye, Jan. Thanks for sharing your smarts, back in the old days when we were young.

NEXT: Curs and Curses

2007-05-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

Fire Plugs and Other Rest Stops

(NOTE: Coolness is always objective. There is the cool and the not cool, and any debate is specious. This weblog, with its incessant pimping of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET, is cool. Plaid, Republicans, scented bathroom tissue, Rice-a-Roni, and most Clear Channel radio stations are not cool. Know the difference between cool and not cool and save time.)

REVIEW BY JIM COX FOR MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH by Sal Glynn is 96-pages of solid, practical, experienced, 'user friendly' instructional advice for authors in answering a series of fundamental questions about their work. When you finish the first draft how do you decide whether it’s really good or simply too flawed to submit for publication? How do you go about finding a good agent? Sal Glynn draws upon his years of personal and professional experience working as a managing editor for book publishers to demystify the common problems encountered by novice authors and experience writers alike. He presents a clear, accessible approach to writing for publication; offers practical 'first aid' for writers, details just how to stay sane and healthy while writing, and provides aspiring writers yearning to break into print with a strong and effective foundation for their present and future work. THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET is a welcome, thoroughly useful, and critically essential addition to any dedicated author's reference shelf.

THE REGULARLY SCHEDULED SCREED

“No complete son of a bitch ever wrote a good sentence.”
—Malcolm Cowley, AND I WORKED AT THE WRITER’S TRADE

True, except after the good sentence and publication, many writers turn into whining brats from low sales figures. These show how many people have taken copies home to sit on the end table under the decoupage lamp and whether all the work means something, anything. Words I’ve used to mollify depressed writers sound dumb when I repeat them to myself. Mr. Detroit calls with immoral support:

“Hey, deadbeat. Where is the new THE DOG stuff?”

“I’ve had to crank out who knows how many proposals for clients, finish the two novels sitting on my desk for too long, and iron my hankies. Give me break.”

Truth is, I wallow in a slough of despondency over the book. Cynthia Frank, the publisher, is more than kind about the number of sales. Among regular trade publishers like Random House and Penguin/Putnam, three weeks is the maximum time given for a book to hit. Independent publishers hang on long after and pursue the audience, another gold star for these good people.

“I dropped into Barnes & Noble on Taylor Street in the city and found four copies. They are stuck spine out, but a place on the shelf is a place on the shelf.”

“Really? Really, really, really?”

The gloom lifts at the news, although given a choice between an independent bookseller and a chain store, I’ll take the independent. The people are committed, know a whole bunch about books, and the shelves are filled with surprises. Support your local bookseller, right now. Don’t even think of going online. You need the walk.

“Double your medication and calm down. I told you, Cynthia told you, and the grocer on the corner told you this was going to be a hard climb. Six companies in New York control the majority of American publishing, and buyers want to make their lives easier like the rest of us. They order from the big guys and the little ones get the leftovers unless a breakout book is involved. You haven’t broken out yet.”

“Sounds like acne. I’ve done speaking gigs and been nice to everyone I meet. A couple of weeks ago I did the San Francisco/Peninsula California Writers Club in Belmont. Forty people showed up and clapped twice. They even bought books.”

“Good for them.”

“I needed the money for food. Out of all the groups, they were the most responsive with a bunch of questions and no fear of being off topic to get the answer they needed. A swell bunch of folk, no fooling.”

“Keep doing the speaking events. Don’t tell me you went into this for fabulous wealth.”

I did. This may be wrong, but filthy lucre has its attractions.

BOOK PASSAGE CLASS

“Writing Nonfiction To Publish, Not Perish” is a one-day workshop taught by me and sponsored by Book Passage on Saturday, May 12. The event will be held from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM at:

Book Passage Bookstore in San Francisco’s Ferry Building
1 Ferry Building, #42
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 835-1020

This class is for nonfiction writers who want to learn the basics of book writing and publishing. Sal Glynn is a freelance editor and writer who has edited more than 300 books. Topics include first drafts, writing for clarity, sourcing, research, working with a writers group, writing book proposals, and working with editors. Sal is the author of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH. The gig costs $95 (an outrageous bargain) and enrollment is through the Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera:

51 Tamal Vista Boulevard
Corte Madera, CA 94925
(415) 927-0960
(800) 999-7909
Fax (415) 924-3838
www.bookpassage.com

A GOOD REASON TO VISIT NYC

THE DOG is in the running for the 11th Annual 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards. This means I have to beat out other contenders in the writing and publishing category like MISS THISTLEBOTTOM'S HOBGOBLINS and LET’S GET CREATIVE: WRITING FICTION THAT SELLS! Semi-finalist results for the Ten Outstanding Books of the Year and Best Regional Fiction and Best Regional Non-Fiction awards are announced on May 11, with final results for the entire contest on May 18. Gold, silver, and bronze medals will be claimed on Friday, June 1, in New York at BOOKS OFF-BROADWAY: A CELEBRATION OF EXCELLENCE IN INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING sponsored by Desktop Miracles, Color House Graphics, and Combined Book Exhibit. Judges open to bribery should contact this space as soon as possible.

NEXT: Flea Bath Time

2007-03-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

Happiness is a Warm Royalty Check

(NOTE: The following is an opinion, not holy writ. This thing has clouded the brain center better known for keeping track of Mr. Detroit’s dalliances with Brazilian debutantes. The screed must be shouted at the keyboard until neural hideaways return to what they are supposed to be doing. Should any opinion be taken seriously? Depends on who does the caterwauling. If the writer is Ann Coulter, forget about it, and right now.)

Fiction is a place of understanding where the thoughts and actions of people are examined, and with luck, judgment is left up to the reader. The great written works of the west are fiction: BEOWULF, Homer’s ILIAD and ODYSSEY, and anything scribbled out by Willie the Shake. Stories are how we learn about other people’s lives. Want to be empathetic? Read a novel.

American publishing knocks out more nonfiction than fiction. Take a look through any publisher’s catalog and you’ll see memoirs, self-help, diet, goddamn cookbooks, history, and biography far outnumber the humble novel. Fiction has a bad reputation as low entertainment, not worth the pulp paper glued inside a cheesy cover. Lonely old men and stay-at-home mothers read fiction, and those of better breeding stick with nonfiction, occasionally dipping into the classic novels vilified on their first publication, like Gustav Flaubert’s MADAME BOVARY and MOLL FLANDERS by Daniel Defoe.

Why anyone would want to write the stuff is a constant question. A writer is hit with an idea, hammers out a first draft and another and another, sends out stacks of inquiry letters to agents until he or she finds one, then sits and waits for a publisher to have as much faith in the manuscript as the writer. The manuscript goes out to lukewarm response on account of no one really cares about story, especially when Dr. Phil has a new book about hugging your inner mugwump and there is money, buckets of money, to be made selling the hardcover junk.

Smart writers crank out reams of material for in-flight magazines and other venues known for paying on time. Only the stubborn write fiction. The most they can expect is an academic position, since earning a decent wage from fiction is near impossible. Still, writers line up with their stories and attend workshops like the Fourth Annual Big Sur Fiction Writing Workshop. They want to learn the craft of fiction writing from those in the field, beg for the big secret of storytelling (there is none), and meet agents who will help them step up to a new tax bracket.

A fiction writer is a clear-eyed observer of the human condition. This cannot be taught, only grammar, and English is such a weird, unwieldy language many of the rules have exceptions, and those also have exceptions. The most important tool for a fiction writer is another source of income. Robert Hough, writer of the swell THE FINAL CONFESSION OF MABEL STARK (buy multiple copies now), takes eighteen months to do his research before whacking out his first draft. Even if film options are offered and the sales brisk in hardcover and paperback, Hough earns below minimum wage for the hours he puts into his work. Why does he pursue storytelling? He’d be miserable and fraudulent doing anything else.

Be kind to fiction writers and buy their books at retail from an independent bookstore. When you meet them socially, pay for the drinks. The novelist you save may write the novel you read.

DOG WALKING AROUND

The Fiction Writer’s Workshop in Big Sur, sponsored by the Henry Miller Library and Andrea Brown Literary Agency, was a success with forty-six participants. Better still was the Henry Miller Library agreeing to carry THE DOG after an unseemly amount of pleading. Contact the library at (831) 667-2574 or www.henrymiller.org. Thanks, Magnus.

Last Gasp is also selling copies of THE DOG to the faithful. This fine San Francisco publisher and distributor of high art and low filth has the book available online at www.lastgasp.com. Be the first to comment on this item!

For Canadians who want to know how ink gets on pages, www.chapters.indigo.ca has copies of THE DOG. Credit cards are preferred over loonies. Be the first to write a review!

HOW SOON IS APRIL?

The San Francisco/Peninsula Writers will meet on April 21 and host “Are You Ready Yet? Drafting Toward Perfection,” with me as the guest speaker. The event will be held from 10am to noon at:
Hobee’s Restaurant
1101 Shoreway Road
Belmont (near Ralston Avenue and Hwy 101)

Cost (includes a continental breakfast):
$15 for California Writers Club members
$18 for non-members
Reservations in advance are advised. Call the club hotline (650) 615-8331 or send an E-mail to reservations chairman, George Jansen, at reservations@sfpeninsulawriters.com
Mail your check to the chairman, or pay at the door.
CWC Reservations
657 Warwick Place
Hayward, CA 94542

NEW BOOK PASSAGE CLASS

“Writing Nonfiction To Publish, Not Perish” is a one-day workshop taught by me and sponsored by Book Passage on Saturday, May 12. The event will be held from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM at:

Book Passage Bookstore in San Francisco’s Ferry Building
1 Ferry Building, #42
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 835-1020

This class is for nonfiction writers who want to learn the basics of book writing and publishing. Sal Glynn is a freelance editor and writer who has edited more than 300 books. Topics include first drafts, writing for clarity, sourcing, research, working with a writers group, writing book proposals, and working with editors. Sal is the author of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH. The gig costs $95 (an outrageous bargain) and enrollment is through the Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera:

51 Tamal Vista Boulevard
Corte Madera, CA 94925
(415) 927-0960
(800) 999-7909
Fax (415) 924-3838
www.bookpassage.com

CHECK OUT THE DOG IN OTHER PLACES

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NEXT: Fire Plugs and Other Rest Stops

2007-02-21T16:56:00.000-08:00

Muzzle Velocity

(NOTE: Appliances make life easier. Where would our civilization be if not for the toaster, steam iron, and food processor? Fingers are meant for other things, like reading books. You were waiting for the connection and the connection appeared, much like the student and the teacher. This is why the curious man or woman will always pay attention to indicia.)

Workshops are easier than readings. The beleaguered fourth wall is non-existent and whoever shows up is there to participate with questions and opinions. Sunday, February 4 started like a Sunday, the rush around the apartment to make coffee and read e-mail at the same time, iron a clean shirt (see above NOTE), and compile the notes for the workshop. This is followed by a look at the clock. The Golden Gate Transit bus leaves too soon. Where are my house keys? Where is my necktie? What about shoes?

Not until the bus is halfway across the Golden Gate Bridge do I find my notes missing. Heck and gosh, I’m screwed until I find the Corte Madera Public Library open. The librarian shows me to a terminal where I can grab the notes from my e-mail account and print out the pages so I look kind of professional. For empathy and plain niceness, the Corte Madera library is the best in the Bay Area. This is less of a surprise when I walk into Book Passage and find the staff is nice, too. There is a display of THE DOG and flyers posted on vertical surfaces announcing the workshop. Plus, I get to abuse drinking privileges at the cafe. A double espresso and I’m good to go.

Fifteen intense, football-hating writers fill chairs in the room at the back. They are interested in nonfiction and memoir, except for one man who believes the novel is still important. I agree, but the nonfiction people outnumber him and so we concentrate on the mechanics of writing, take a break, and come back for the terrible truths about publishing. My favorite metaphor for the current state of making books in this country is to imagine the hulks of the Bertlesmann Group (Bantam-Doubleday-Dell and Random House), Pierson (Viking Penguin and Putnam), HarperCollins, Hachette (Time Warner Book Group), and Holzbrinck (St. Martin’s, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, and Henry Holt) as a collective giant Komodo dragon lizard. The scaly beast drags its fat belly across sun-warmed rocks until contractions begin and fluffy bunnies issue from where the ugly lizard usually drops ugly eggs.

After the workshop, I sign five books for those coerced into buying copies, and am asked to sign ten more for stock. The coolness continues when I am given a gift from the store, a box of stationery with my name in embossed calligraphy. Book Passage has class and the shelves are full of terrific books. For those who missed the novel when first released, Elliot Perlman’s SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY (NY: Riverhead Books, 2004) is on the remainder shelf at five dollars for the hardcover. Seven voices tell the same story only different, and Perlman has told his story without the bothersome “he said, she said.”

How well did the workshop go? Book Passage has invited me to run an all-day seminar on writing and publishing in May at their Ferry Building store. News about date, time, place, and dress requirements will follow.

HOOPLA HOOPS! WOOLF JOINS THE RANKS

Novelista, blogger, renegade mom, and mistress of the link Rebecca Woolf will soon be a published book writer. She wanted to start with her novel, THE ENVELOPE, but has taken the other treacherous path with ROCK THE CRADLE: ADVENTURES IN URBAN MOTHERHOOD, her story of being a young mom and raising her son, Archer Sage, with her good heart instead of manuals. Ace agent Laura Rennert sold the proposal to editor Brooke Warner at Seal Press/Avalon Books in a “nice deal.” This means Archer gets to eat for two whole months out of the six writing the book will take. We don’t do this stuff to get rich. Rebecca has been in print lots of times with CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE TEENAGE SOUL, but this is her own book with her name in 36-point type on the cover. Check out her web site at www.girlsgonechild.blospot.com

LAST CHANCE FOR BIG SUR

Get yourself down, up, or over to Big Sur for a truly swell weekend of writing, critiques, rewrites, and buffet dinners. Apply for the Fourth Annual Big Sur Fiction Writing Workshop and meet publishing professionals who care about books and writers. The faculty includes Andrea Brown, president of Andrea Brown Literary Agency; Suzanne Herz, publisher of Flying Dolphin Press; Laura Rennert, ace agent mentioned above with Andrea Brown Literary Agency; Barry Eisler, novelist; Eric Adams, producer, director, screenwriter, journalist, and novelist; Sal Glynn, editor and writer of the acclaimed THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET; Robert Hough, journalist and novelist; Cynthia Frank, president of Cypress House and publisher of the acclaimed THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET; and Bonnie Hearn Hill, novelist.

March 9–11, 2007, 2 pm Friday to 2 pm Sunday
BIG SUR LODGE IN PFEIFFER STATE PARK
Henry Miller Library
Highway One
Big Sur, CA 93920
(831) 667-2574
www.henrymiller.org

ARE WE THERE YET?

The San Francisco/Peninsula Writers will meet on April 21 and host “Are You Ready Yet? Drafting Toward Perfection,” with me as the guest speaker. This time I’ll remember my notes. The event will be held from 10am to noon at:
Hobee’s Restaurant
1101 Shoreway Road
Belmont (near Ralston Avenue and Hwy 101)

Cost (includes a continental breakfast):
$15 for California Writers Club members
$18 for non-members
Reservations in advance are advised. Call the club hotline (650) 615-8331 or send an E-mail to reservations chairman, George Jansen, at reservations@sfpeninsulawriters.com
Mail your check to the chairman, or pay at the door.
CWC Reservations
657 Warwick Place
Hayward, CA 94542

NEXT: Happiness is a Warm Royalty Check

2007-01-24T10:19:00.000-08:00

Kibble in Your Bowl

(NOTE: The following is true unless your definition of “true” includes fact and honest-to-goodness real stuff. Embellishment is part of the writing and publishing tradition. Without these little excursions, life would be a series of dental appointments, legal complaints, and leafy greens. Better to have fun now while no one is looking. Growing up is put off indefinitely.)

Women’s Wear Daily for January 22, 2007

BERKELEY, CA: Sunday night in this quaint college town is usually sedate. Fraternity brothers shine their saddle shoes and sorority sisters rinse dainty underthings in anticipation of the next day’s classes taught by avuncular professors who chuckle at the occasional antic. Learning and pleasure are equally pursued under the redwood trees of Northern California. Many important people have come from this scholarly environment, like Ben Affleck, who is busy directing his first movie several hundred miles south in Hollywood.

Clad in a black Italian wool Claiborne jacket and blue-striped Hathaway shirt, Sal Glynn tossed his carelessly worn off-white US Wings silk scarf over his shoulder and seduced readers at the venerable Black Oak Books with candlelight-and-wine tales of publishing. Many of those attending were also dressed in their finery, ranging from organic cotton in this season’s liveliest colors to the latest in hemp skirts and shirts. Eyewear was also well represented: the eyes had “it” made by Dior, Brooks Brothers, and Gucci.

Bookman extraordinaire Lewis Klausner favored a dove gray Ralph Lauren spread-collar shirt worn dangerously casual sans necktie. His introduction invoked the names of Homer, Virgil, and Dante before handing the podium over to Sal. With nary a squeak to be heard from the twenty-five rapt listeners, Sal teetered in white Reebok running shoes and gave a precise accounting of the thrills awaiting new writers in the world of publishing. The too-short event ended by Sal signing copies of his newest book, THE DOG WALKED IN THE PUDDLE: AN OUT-OF-TOWN GUY WRITES WHAT HE WANTS TO PUBLISH.

We were lucky enough to be invited to the après reading get-together at Beckett’s Irish Pub & Restaurant on Shattuck Avenue. Over a delightful plate of beer batter prawns and across from a stunning portrait of Bono, Sal added a few more bits of salacious gossip about the current state of publishing. Books have much more excitement than we had previously thought and many are written with the express intention of being read. Imagine, words on a page strung together in sentences and divided into chapters! We melt at the thought.

Personal manger Mr. Detroit kept the spotlight on Sal by wearing a subdued Armani leather jacket over a Redwings jersey. When asked how the event compared to others, the Michigan native said, “Negotiations were tense. Sal demanded the evening closed to anyone wearing a tie-dye tee shirt and Black Oak prides itself on being egalitarian. Being at a podium is hard work, and staring out at a mass of colors not occurring in nature throws him off his stride. Thankfully, we came to an agreement at the last moment.”

Don’t forget the workshop in February. Sign up now.

WRITING WORKSHOP AND BOOK SIGNING
Sunday, February 4 at 2:00 pm
BOOK PASSAGE CORTE MADERA
51 Tamal Vista Boulevard
Corte Madera, CA 94925
(415) 927-0960

Okay, you need more than an afternoon. Get yourself down, up, or over to Big Sur for the weekend:

FOURTH ANNUAL BIG SUR FICTION WRITING WORKSHOP
March 9–11, 2007, 2 pm Friday to 2 pm Sunday
BIG SUR LODGE IN PFEIFFER STATE PARK
Henry Miller Library
Highway One
Big Sur, CA 93920
(831) 667-2574
www.henrymiller.org

The San Francisco/Peninsula Writers meets on the third Saturday of each month. On April 21, they will host “Are You Ready Yet? Drafting Toward Perfection,” with me as the guest speaker. Here’s the description: “How do you know when your manuscript is ready, or if you should call in a freelance editor for help? Writer and book midwife Sal Glynn will talk about the need for successive drafts, what to look for in each round of revision, and how to make room for the reader. He will also cover how to make research inform a story instead of buried under detail, and the use and abuse of adjectives.”

This informative and fun-filled event will be held from 10am to noon at:
Hobee’s Restaurant
1101 Shoreway Road
Belmont (near Ralston Avenue and Hwy 101)

Cost (includes a continental breakfast):
$15 for California Writers Club members
$18 for non-members
Reservations in advance are advised. Call the club hotline (650) 615-8331 or send an E-mail to reservations chairman, George Jansen, at reservations@sfpeninsulawriters.com

Mail your check to the chairman, or pay at the door.
CWC Reservations
657 Warwick Place
Hayward, CA 94542

NEXT: Muzzle Velocity

2007-01-08T09:25:00.000-08:00

The Weather Outside is Frightful

(NOTE: The wrappings have been recycled, Mr. Detroit is in rehab recovering from a fruitcake addiction, and the tree has lost the last of its needles in the carpet. Time to get back to work. Going into the spring season means workshops and conferences. Writers like invitations to both for the free food, even lodging on occasion. A writer not having to eat his own cooking is a happy writer. Bon Appétit!)

Readings at bookstores can be fun for the reader and bookseller, and worry the writer used to banging at the keyboard in private. The writer soon finds out they should have followed the advice of their publisher and read every page aloud before sending in the final manuscript. Sentences looking good on the page sound terrible spoken from a podium. Before the event, the writer should read the excerpt into a tape recorder and make adjustments to fix any screw-ups. This also means the writer must listen to their own voice. No one outside of Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson have the vocal quality necessary for repeated listening.

The audience shuffles in. Five or fifty, the people in the chairs are an audience. Give me five loudmouths who will spread the word about the book any day over fifty shy folks who stay off the Internet and telephone. Fifty loudmouths are even better, but I try not to push my luck. (One hundred loudmouths will mean early retirement on royalties to a country with sunshine all year round.) The audience is curious and expectant, ready to catch whatever the writer decides to toss. Give them more than you have by asking and answering questions. Don’t know the answer? Tell the truth. Embarrassment is a temporary condition.

Minutes into the reading, the writer is aware of the dreaded fourth wall. This nineteenth-century theatrical term means the separation of audience from performer by the proscenium arch. Comedian Lenny Bruce referred to the complacent audience as “an oil painting.” (He’s dead, by the way.) A successful reading engages the audience and the writer is responsible to make sure this happens. A favorite bit of trickery is having a ringer in the seats who shouts out questions, some even rational depending on the ringer. Still the audience may be stiff by choice. The writer is consoled in the knowledge there are other readings in other bookstores.

Doing the book tour is part of a writer’s job, unless you are Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood. She is currently touting the LongPen after too many years of having to sign books for the unwashed readers who have paid for her home. The device is a remote-controlled pen and the writer scribbles on an electronic pad while talking through a video linkup. Metal arms work the pen until a dedication and signature fill the title page. Wow. No more shaking hands, airplane trips, and hotel rooms. Atwood does her signings from the comfort of her kitchen. Bloomsbury and Virago publishers have invested in the device, demonstrated with more than a few technical glitches at the London Book Fair. As a reader, I hope this fails. As a writer, ditto.

I will be talking live and in person about THE DOG WALKED THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH at Black Oak Books in Berkeley, Sunday, January 21 at 7:30 pm. To heck with Atwood, I’m bringing a Lamy steel-nib fountain pen to scratch words on pages. Here’s the information:

Sunday, January 21 at 7:30 pm
BLACK OAK BOOKS
1491 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 486-0698

Shouts out to the kind and gentle folk who bought THE DOG for holiday gift-giving. Anyone who tossed Martha Alderson’s BLOCKBUSTER PLOTS PURE & SIMPLE and Buck Peterson’s CLASSIC CHRISTMAS SONGS PERFORMED BY BUCK’S DUCKS AND THE BIG BABE LAKE BRASS AND BONG ENSEMBLE into the stockings hung by the chimney with care also get special thanks.

Remember these other cool dates:

WRITING WORKSHOP AND BOOK SIGNING
Sunday, February 4 at 2:00 pm
BOOK PASSAGE CORTE MADERA
51 Tamal Vista Boulevard
Corte Madera, CA 94925
(415) 927-0960

FOURTH ANNUAL BIG SUR FICTION WRITING WORKSHOP
March 9–11, 2007, 2 pm Friday to 2 pm Sunday
BIG SUR LODGE IN PFEIFFER STATE PARK
Henry Miller Library
Highway One
Big Sur, CA 93920
(831) 667-2574
www.henrymiller.org

NEXT: Kibble in Your Bowl

2006-12-11T10:44:00.000-08:00

Wreaths and Wraiths

(NOTE: The duty of every writer, unless they happen to be deceased, is to pimp their books. Following is unabashed hype to promote THE DOG so the writer can have the vacation his publisher says he needs, and also to stop calling three times a day for sales figures. She has other books, you know.)

Reviews are tough. Writers and publishers wait for them with anxiety and trepidation. We know our books are terrific, but will others agree? The bright, intelligent, and good-looking folks at The Midwest Book Review have hailed THE DOG: “An excellent guide for any writer who would understand how to work effectively with a publisher or editor. It not only covers the basics of good writing and good marketing, but also provides some ‘terrible truths’ about publishing and marketing and educates writers on the publishing business as a whole.”

Such praise makes for a happy writer who can ignore the cruel and rapacious season outside his aerie. Flocked fake trees, suspicious fruitcake, ski vacations without snow, nothing but A Charlie Brown Christmas on television, curdled egg nog, mistletoe hanging over your first cousin with terminal gingivitis, disappointing Xmas bonus or none, Burl Ives, and tone-deaf carolers punishing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” in three-quarter time. Anyone who says they enjoy the holiday season is strange. Gingerbread men baked to the consistency of roof tiles? Bring them on! Cocktail parties where the inebriated hostess stabs the inebriated host in the chest with a sharpened candy cane? What a wonderful time! Shopping for someone you don’t like and being hit with a $200 parking fine while in search of the perfect gift? Happy holidays!

While the nonsense goes on, take a moment after a good cry and think about giving copies of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH to everyone on your naughty-or-nice list. For those who read and don’t write, THE DOG reveals how books are made. For those who write, THE DOG is cheaper than most creative writing programs. Each copy is printed with ink on paper.

THE DOG is available from BookSense stores (hit the link on the right), many online outlets, Choi’s Home Video on Lombard Street and the Beat Museum on Broadway in San Francisco, Dutton’s Brentwood in Los Angeles, and next to the map stand at a Union 76 gas station somewhere on HWY 101. You can also order directly from the publisher, Cypress House at www.cypresshouse.com

Other Swell Items for the Holidays

Martha Alderson, BLOCKBUSTER PLOTS PURE & SIMPLE (Los Gatos, CA: Illusion Press, 2004)

The perfect gift for the writer whose story has hit more than a few problems. Alderson uses examples from the novels of Rick Bragg, Janet Finch, Mark Twain, and Ernest J. Gaines, instead of movies you thought sucked when they were first released. Available at www.blockbusterplots.com, everywhere THE DOG is sold, and more.

Buck Peterson, CLASSIC CHRISTMAS SONGS PERFORMED BY BUCK’S DUCKS AND THE BIG BABE LAKE BRASS AND BONG ENSEMBLE (Bellevue, WA: Buck’s Ducks, 2001)

Buck Peterson, master-guide-to-all-that-is-wild-in-the-outdoors, breaks open the breech that brings bounty to the table and calls his feathered friends home for the holidays. With this Christmas album, Bucksters are invited to enjoy the songs of the season by Buck’s alpha ducks, Biff and Eddie, and the Big Babe Lake Brass and Bong Ensemble, recorded live down in the duckblind. Available online at www.buckpeterson.com and www.cdbaby.com
Contents: Quacking of the Bells/Blown Away from the Manger/The Nutscracker Suite/O Little Town of Bedlam/Hunter’s Holy Night/Jangled Bells/Joy to the Chase/Wailin’ Hallelujah Chorus/It Came Around About a Midnight Clear/Silent but Deadly Night

THE NEW YEAR BEGINS IN JANUARY, MORE OR LESS

2007 starts with a reading and signing at Black Oak Books in Berkeley, Sunday, January 21 at 7:30 pm. Even for those on the other side of the Bay, Black Oak is a treasure for readers with new and used books, a smart staff, and a hot-damn reading series. Also, the French Hotel down the street serves the biggest espressos anywhere.

READING AND BOOK SIGNING
Sunday, January 21 at 7:30 pm
BLACK OAK BOOKS
1491 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 486-0698

In February, Book Passage offers a workshop with the writer of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET. Book Passage is a 25-year-old veteran of the Bay Area scene and puts on many swell events. Besides the Corte Madera store, they are part of the revitalization of San Francisco’s Ferry Building. The workshop will be two hours long and divided into two sections, writing and publishing. Bring questions and sharpened pencils.

WRITING WORKSHOP AND BOOK SIGNING
Sunday, February 4 at 2:00 pm
BOOK PASSAGE CORTE MADERA
51 Tamal Vista Boulevard
Corte Madera, CA 94925
(415) 927-0960

The Fourth Annual Big Sur Writing Workshop for adult novels, young adult fiction, and narrative nonfiction is on March 9 to 11. Get your manuscript ready and come on down or up to the Big Sur Lodge in Pfeiffer State Park. From 2 pm Friday until 2 pm Sunday, writers, agents, and editors will dazzle with insights and workshops. Deadline for registration is February 16, 2007. Get your act together now.

Faculty includes:
Andrea Brown, president of Andrea Brown Literary Agency and writer of WRITERS’ AND ARTISTS’ HIDEOUTS: GREAT GETAWAYS FOR SEDUCING THE MUSE.
Suzanne Herz, publisher of Flying Dolphin Press, an imprint of the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group.
Laura Rennert, senior agent with Andrea Brown Literary Agency, specializes in literary fiction, women’s fiction, crossover fiction, mysteries and thrillers, and narrative nonfiction, and the writer of BUYING, TRAINING, AND CARING FOR YOUR DINOSAUR.
Barry Eisler, writer of RAIN FALL, HARD RAIN, RAIN STORM, and other inclement novels about assassin John Rain thinning the population of Japan.
Eric Adams, producer, director, screenwriter, journalist, and writer of PLOT TWIST and BIRDLAND.
Sal Glynn, freelance editor and writer of the acclaimed THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET.
Robert Hough, journalist and writer of THE FINAL CONFESSION OF MABEL STARK and THE STOWAWAY.
Cynthia Frank, president of Cypress House, has more than twenty-five years experience in writing, publishing, editing and teaching.
Bonnie Hearn Hill, writer of IF IT BLEEDS, CUTLINE, and OFF THE RECORD, featuring hearing-impaired reporter Geri LaRue.

FOURTH ANNUAL BIG SUR WRITING WORKSHOP
March 9–11, 2007, 2 pm Friday to 2 pm Sunday
BIG SUR LODGE IN PFEIFFER STATE PARK
Henry Miller Library
Highway One
Big Sur, CA 93920
(831) 667-2574
www.henrymiller.org

NEXT: The Weather Outside is Frightful

2006-11-21T17:30:00.000-08:00

Paper Training

(NOTE: Talk is fine, action is better. Ethics in publishing has always been a problem. The corporate owners of the big companies in New York demand a profit. Few editors are willing to oblige for fear of developing corkscrew souls. Still the sleaze leaks out. Smart readers need information to avoid stepping in the puddle.)

Judith Regan, head of Regan Books, an imprint at HarperCollins and owned by News Corp., has made questionable acquisitions in the past, but none to compare with the latest. She moved her imprint to Los Angeles for greater synergy between books and media like movies and television, and her big title for the fall was sold blind to booksellers. This is not a common occurrence, where buyers are told to order a book without knowing the title or content. They went along with the ruse until finding out the title was IF I DID IT by OJ Simpson.

Advance against royalties for the Simpson book was reported as $3.5 million, and paid to who knows who? Simpson was convicted in a civil court for the murders of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson, and fined around $33 million. Would the advance go to paying the debt? Nah. Fox Television scheduled two one-hour interviews on next Monday and Wednesday night, with Regan grilling Simpson. As soon as the synergy was announced, newspapers and news programs carried the story. “I think the media has spun it in the wrong direction,” said Regan in an interview. Fox mad dog Bill O’Reilly countered with, “The Fox broadcasting unit has reached a new low point in American culture.”

What is the right direction? The premise of IF I DID IT is Simpson detailing how he would have committed the murders if he did the murders. Regan said she saw the book as a confession, and as a former victim of spousal abuse, wanted the truth to be told. The argument holds water like a torn lampshade.

Many fine folk raised voices in protest. American Association of Publishers president Pat Schroeder called the publication “sickening” and railed against HarperCollins for the ripe con of buyers into ordering copies. Independent booksellers hollered to be let go and promised not to carry the book, or send the profits to local battered women shelters. Of the chains, Borders said they would carry the book without the usual hubris of promotion and send the net sales to a domestic violence organization. Barnes and Nobel stayed silent. Borders stock went up fifty cents a share and Barnes and Noble went down fifty cents.

Fox TV affiliates screeched they would not carry the interview, or if they did, run the show with PSAs for victims’ rights and abused women. Here is where News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch canceled the book and show. “I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project. We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.” Though this reads as: “We would have done the deed had we the slightest possibility of making money, but now that has been squashed, we’re taking the moral high ground,” IF I DID IT is dead. Copies of the already-printed book have been pulped. Only on eBay will the perverse reader find this sludge. Major congratulations to the booksellers who rallied against this monster. May trade publishing finish the year without publicly screwing up again, like the Frey scandal, the JT Leroy scandal, and....

APPEARANCE NOTED

Tuesday, November 14 had me at the Bay Area Editor’s Forum to speak on “The Terrors of Book Publishing.” Instead of going into the weirdness of the industry (see above), I took a different approach and talked about reasons to go with smaller publishers, and recounted bits of what happens when an editor writes and publishes a book. Fifteen people showed, some from when I last talked at the Forum in 1997, and well behaved except for the follicle challenged man who showed late asking what the lecture was about. Only four bought copies of THE DOG. They were allowed to leave and the remaining eleven are still stuck in the fourth floor meeting room of the Mechanics Institute. Unless they come up with the cash to buy a book, they are going to stay there. Checks are accepted with valid identification.

NEXT: Wreaths and Wraiths

2006-10-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

Thrills, Chills, and Leash-Training

(NOTE: The promotion machine’s flywheel spins clockwise. Grease splatters the unwary and broad shouldered immigrants shovel coal into the furnace. The analogy works on account of selling a book by an independent publisher requires brute strength to withstand being ignored. Am I a Xanax addict yet?)

Regional trade shows in the fall are different from the BookExpo America held earlier in the year. Weird promotional gimmicks are left behind for next year’s event. No one is allowed on the floor dressed like this:

(Mr. Detroit and a close personal Portuguese-speaking friend in Washington, DC at the BEA. Wearing a character costume is the high point of his publishing career.)

The Northern California Independent Booksellers Association has been held at the Oakland Convention Center on 12th and Broadway since forever, or least as long as publisher Cynthia Frank and I have been going. I started in 1988 for the pleasure of hanging out with booksellers and publishers representatives. Some have lasted in the business through the strange times and many are gone to more reasonable means of employment. For the lifers, this is what we do and likely caused by unresolved Oedipal conflicts. We’ll look into the problem as soon as we can afford a competent psychotherapist.

Autographing Area 3 is draped with green fabric made of extruded petrochemical byproducts and the table is set on Sunday at noon with stacks of THE DOG. The announcement over the PA calls the book, “The Dog That Walked Down the Street,” like I’d ever write a book with such a clumsy title. There is an immediate line and I sign 35 copies in the scant half hour afforded. Booksellers and their families grab for the publishing panacea. A ten-year-old girl asks for a copy. “Are you planning to be a writer when you grow up?” “Yes,” she says. “Marry money,” I tell her.

Publisher Cynthia Frank is cheered by the response, though she writes few orders at the show. Every year is different. This one had goodwill glad-handing as the focus. The booksellers leave bowed under bags of catalogs and free books, and orders come from distributors later in the month or next. Attendees in the booths and walking the aisles say this is a good show and we should believe each other.

Twelve days later on Thursday, October 19, Mr. Detroit drives me to the signing at the Beat Museum at 540 Broadway in San Francisco’s North Beach. Metal folding chairs clutter the main room and a few bodies paw the bookstore section. Is this all we have after sending out hundreds of postcards, e-mail zaps, and threats? The only chance I have of becoming a household name is to change “Glynn” to “Brillo.” George Young arrives, Mr. Detroit unfolds an easel and displays the cover blowup, designer Judy Hicks and her son Shane take seats, Martha Alderson of BLOCKBUSTER PLOTS: PURE AND SIMPLE has come to lend support, and fifteen others make the evening shine.

Jerry Cimino opens bottles of red wine and I start talking and only slow down to refill glasses. The question and answer period is quiet until Mr. Detroit asks about his home team’s chances in the World Series. Pretty good, I’d say. Eight books are sold to the audience of twenty and the cool people make noise down the street at Enrico’s after the reading, where Last Gasp publisher Ron Turner tells a shaggy dog story about the ant who loved an elephant. This is the literary life.

APPEARING SOON

On Tuesday, November 14, I will be speaking at the Bay Area Editor’s Forum on “The Terrors of Book Publishing: One Decade Later.” Topics covered are the roles of editors in today’s publishing, who owns American publishing, the future of the book, and how Detroit fared in the World Series. Copies of THE DOG will be sold at the event and everyone who attends has to buy one for the exit doors to be unlocked.

THE MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE
57 Post Street
Fourth floor meeting room & café
San Francisco, CA 94104
7 to 9 PM
www.editorsforum.org

NEXT: Paper Training

2006-09-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

Get Along Little DOG

(NOTE: What happens next is anyone’s guess. Write a book? Easy. Sell a book? Be nice to everyone you meet and light candles in the church of your choice. Bombast and humility swirl around each other, much like the competing flavors in a quart of Dreyer’s Root Beer Float ice cream, though with fewer chemical additives. Am I a licensed action figure yet?)

The trip to the San Francisco International Airport on September 11 takes as long as the flight to Los Angeles when the airplane is on time. Rebecca Woolf meets me in pink muslin Bohemian skirt flapping from her rush down the escalator. We talk and e-mail but haven’t traded hugs since she married Hal and gave birth to Archer Sage, her son. Gleeful chattering continues in her mom-wagon as she follows the speed limit into Los Angeles.

To hate a city is dumb and I have insulted, bad-mouthed, and otherwise pooh-poohed Los Angeles. Has this hurt the city’s feelings? Nope, and neither would loving on account of the city is a grid of lights and buildings not given to emotional complaints. This time I am coming to Los Angeles as a writer and teaching at the Learning Annex, much different from being stuck in a godawful motel south of the LA Convention Center and listening to nasty drug deals in the night. Rebecca is my guide and we exit the freeway to tour the streets. There is Grauman’s Chinese Theater waiting for the next big premier and the Walk of the Stars less brilliant and cleaner than should be. We steer La Cienaga and Ventura Boulevards, the goofy crush of traffic under the unhindered sun. What pulls my leaking attention span are the trees: coral trees on San Vicente Boulevard, the Mexican fan palms (Washingtonia robusta), slender as an anorexic model along Sunset Boulevard, and Canary Island date palms (Phoenix canariensis) protecting the property values in Beverly Hills. The palms are choking on exhaust caused from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Hummer Enthusiasts Club and plans are being tossed around City Hall to replace the palms with oaks. At a cost of $20,000 per replanting, many Angelenos are trading up to hybrids.

The class is on San Vincente Boulevard, and the students are one memoir writer and four Hispanic women who want to tell their stories instead of mope around with empty-nest syndrome after their children have left home. Rebecca, her friend Lauren, and Bo Lebo are my ringers and the three-hour class speeds by. Two books are sold from the straining satchel I carried, and this is the beginning. Building the audience for any book takes patience, and thanks to a prescription for Zoloft, I have plenty.

After two days, I am ready to go home and face the deadlines for different editing jobs I have been avoiding. Rebecca drives me to the airport with Archer strapped in the back seat and we make promises to do this again real soon. Why not? LA, for its pretensions of being cool, is cool. Further proof is Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore. The kind folks there have ordered and now carry THE DOG in the reference section. Stop by and pay full retail at: 11975 San Vicente Boulevard, (310) 476-6263, or log on at www.duttonsbrentwood.com

DOG ALERTS AND WARNINGS

Okay, the Learning Annex class in San Francisco for September 21 was postponed. This was due to sunspots and hassle of Mercury being retrograde. We’ll try again when the stars have shifted, and soon.

The Northern California Independent Booksellers Association has their annual convention at the Oakland Convention Center/Oakland City Marriott from October 6 to 8. Booksellers troll the aisles looking for the fall season’s breakout bestseller, and trade gossip (professional only, not personal). I will be signing copies of THE DOG at noon on Sunday, the 8th, and likely be at the Cypress House booth, number 22 at table G, all day Saturday on account of I like the show.

After burning rubber north and south, and east and west of these United States, the mobile Beat Museum has found a home in San Francisco’s North Beach. The grand opening of the museum is Wednesday, September 27, at 7 PM. Michael McClure will there, with Al Hinkle (fictionalized as big Ed Dunkel in Jack Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD), Magda Cregg (partner of poet Lew Welch), Wavy Gravy, John Allen Cassady (son of Neal and Carolyn Cassady), Jack Hirschman (Poet Laureate of San Francisco), and an artist exhibition and appearance by Stanley Mouse.

On Thursday, October 19 (fifty-one years and twelve days after the Six Gallery reading) at 7 PM, the Beat Museum will host a signing for THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH ($13.95, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-879384-66-8). The culmination of any American boy writer’s dream is to sign his book in North Beach. Many thanks to Jerry Cimino for the invitation, and his energetic advocating of all things beat.

BEAT MUSEUM
540 Broadway (near Columbus)
San Francisco, CA 94133
www.thebeatmuseum.org
(800) KEROUAC

Special thanks go to Rebecca Woolf (have I mentioned your name enough?) for the new, improved blog. She put in the cover graphic, handled the links, and did a whole lot of other stuff. You are cooler than cool.

NEXT: Thrills, Chills, and Leash-Training

2006-08-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

Promotional Considerations

(NOTE: The following is one hundred percent true, give or take a point. This is high gear time, when a book is tossed out into the marketplace and asks to be taken home for a hot meal or at least a snack. Support your local bookstore and lay down the cash for DOG WALKED. Credit cards are also accepted. Am I a second printing yet?)

As this post is being read across continents and oceans, truckloads of THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH ($13.95, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-879384-66-8) are scarring freeways from Ontario to Northern California. The Cypress House shipping department sits on their hands in wait for the shipment to arrive the first week of September. What joy and caroling of bells in the town of Fort Bragg! Will belly dancers, fire-eaters, and corn dog vendors join in greeting the anticipated bound books? Of course. Selling is even more fun than writing and production. There are people to meet, promises to make, hands to shake, babies to kiss, and repetitive stress injuries from signing heartfelt dedications. Buy my book and your skin rash will be a distant memory, no smelly salves required.

The timing is perfect. I had threatened to shave my head and dye the stubble purple if DOG WALKED waited any longer for its stylish strut along the shelves and into the hearts of literate America. Publisher Cynthia Frank made calming noises and sent a box of canned food by UPS. Waiting for a book to come off the press is like waiting for a date with an unfamiliar woman. The anxiety level needs to be experienced for full appreciation. Will she or won’t she be as cool as I thought? Will the book be as good as I hope, or another marked-down mistake for the remainder table? I’m betting on the woman and the book. The publisher is smart and the gamble is only on the timing, not the content. Ms. Frank told me to have this attitude. Yes ma’am.

DOG WALKED will be available at independent and chain bookstores. If your local store has yet to pile stacks in window displays, be pleasant when reminding them of the error. They can order books through Baker & Taylor, Ingram, Partners/West, selected library wholesalers, and Cypress House at www.cypresshouse.com. For those who shop online on account of parking problems, log on to www.cypresshouse.com and swell places like Powells.com, Amazon.com, and BarnesandNoble.com. DOG WALKED is preaching from the pulpit in Europe at Amazon.de, and in Canada for those who can complete a sentence without adding “eh” at Amazon.ca.

THOSE WHO CAN, TEACH

I will teach at The Learning Annex in Los Angeles on September 11, and again in San Francisco on September 21. Copies of DOG WALKED will be available for purchase at both classes, and signed for polite people who ask politely. Books will also be signed for rude people who ask politely. Rude people who ask rudely will be politely asked to take their nonsense outside.

“Write Your Story and Launch Your Career as a Published Writer!” promises to be an irreverent and informative tour through the publication process, from idea to manuscript to finished book. You will learn:
How to write a compelling story
The importance of rewriting
How to find an agent who cares about your work
How publishing companies work
The care and feeding of in-house editors
Why new writers must promote their books
And more!

Log on to www.learningannex.com, or call (415) 788-5500 in San Francisco, (310) 478-6677 in Los Angeles. Sign up for the class now, not later. Preferred seating is guaranteed for those who can define a subordinate conjunction without using complex compound sentences.

More news of signings and publicity are promised to be posted, and more regularly. An easy supplemental income for writers used to be book reviews. The books given for review were quickly sold to used bookstores before the writer’s keyboard cooled, and added a couple of dollars to the final low amount for the labor. As a break from books and bookish things, I write gallery reviews and interviews for FOCUS: FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE. This is a terrific publication, handsomely printed, and an unbeatable bargain at $5.95 per issue. The magazine comes out monthly and full of the latest in contemporary photography, exhibit reviews, interviews, and appreciations of photographers past and present. Get a copy at your local newsstand, or contact FOCUS online at www.focusmag.info.

Any more plugs? Not yet.

NEXT: Get Along Little DOG

2006-06-26T06:39:00.000-07:00

Goin’ to the Press and We’re Gonna to be Printed

(NOTE: The following is a memoir and as such is told using lies, misinformation, faulty geography, and plain BS. Dialog has been invented in some places and made up in others. The moral compass spins in search of a direction. Am I a book club selection yet?)

When the telephone rings late Thursday evening, the caller has to be Mr. Detroit. He calls on Thursday evening on account of his salaried position gives him weekends and he has better things to do on Friday and Saturday evenings, like chase loose women up and down the hills of San Francisco. My morals are not higher than his. Being a freelancer means every day is a workday and the workdays are very long.

“You blew the May publication date, Sal. The king of deadlines has been dethroned.”

(I made my bones in trade publishing by taking on the most absurd of deadlines and meeting them, once turning a raw manuscript into a printed book in six weeks. The procedure is known as “crashing a book,” though should be changed to “crashing an editor.” I recovered by drinking canned Guinness at my girlfriend’s apartment building swimming pool for four days, and also got a great tan.)

“Mitigating circumstances have caused me lose my crown.”

(When Cynthia Frank and I started on this project, we had the best intention to hit the May publication date. Then her designer needed cataract surgery and she had clients waving checks for Cypress House’s book packaging services. For all her good attributes, Cynthia’s one failing is responsibility to her staff. She believes they should be paid every two weeks. DOG WALKED was forced to wait while she earned the paycheck nut.)

“When can I expect my free book?”

“July is looking good. I’ve just received the final galleys.”

“Quit jabbering on the phone and get on them. No playtime until you’re done.”

Trepidation should come with the final galleys when they contain your book, except so much time had elapsed since the last set, I had forgotten I was the writer and could enjoy the process. Rebecca Woolf (www.girlsgonechild.blogspot.com) wrote a bouncy introduction about our first meeting at the Big Sur Fiction Writer’s Conference and there was a terrific plug for the Green Press Initiative to encourage use of chlorine-free, 100% post consumer recycled paper. I did like the prepublication copy of DOG WALKED, but the early version showed there were a few steps to go before the book took shape. The Cypress House staff delivered like I knew they would.

I spread the galley pages on the dining room table not used as a dining room table, made a double espresso, uncapped my red Sharpie, and went to work. Missing antecedents are inserted, italics added to make a passage clearer, and Cynthia Frank’s polite queries answered with a minimum of beard pulling. What I liked about the original idea of the book is on the pages, a hybrid of commonplace book and book-midwife-in-a-box. The typography invites the reader to take only what they need and leave the rest. After having waded through the deep waters of books on writing and publishing for the Annotated Reading List, I am happy with the ninety-six pages. Readers can get into DOG WALKED without rolling up their pant legs.

Publisher Cynthia Frank’s letter of transmittal had only one word: Woof! Oh yeah? My reply was longer.

Re: Final pages
I am pleased to be finished with the galleys and send thanks to your staff for the wonderful attention to my book. There are, of course, a few questions before sending the DOG WALKED to press.

1. Though I agree with type historian Stanley Morrison’s advice of “Black is a good color,” DOG WALKED would be greatly improved by the addition of color to the text pages. Lowercase vowels A, E, and U should be printed in Kelly green; lowercase vowels I and O in Sarum red (Pantone 485); and capital consonants S and W in Italian blue. This provides a challenge to readability the contemporary reader will enjoy.

2. Punctuation remains a problem. I understand your house style of using commas, periods, and parentheses, but DOG WALKED has special needs. Commas should be replaced by a carat, periods by a star, and the disruptive curves of parentheses straightened to slashes. These alterations reflect the spirit of the text.

3. The International Standard Book Number currently assigned to DOG WALKED, ISBN 978-1-879384-66-8, should be changed to a prime number. Many potential readers will be put off knowing the number is divisible by other than one and itself.

Let me know how you want to address these issues.
Best regards,
Sal

After the final, final corrections are done, DOG WALKED will be sent to Transcontinental Printing in the wilds of Ontario. The province is part of Canada, a mythical country where the poetry of Margaret Atwood and William Shatner’s hairpiece coexist in stately slumber. Printing will take three or four weeks, enough time for Cynthia and I to rest our butts and brains before taking on selling the beast. Writing, editing, and production are easy compared to selling. David Choi of Choi’s Home Video (www.choisvideo.com) has promised to take a counter display on consignment, stuck beside DVD sets of seasons three, four, and five of SEX AND THE CITY. Literary fame is fleeting, while dumb television shows are forever.

NEXT: Promotional Considerations

2006-05-31T08:13:00.000-07:00

Convention News for the Unconventional

(NOTE: The following is a memoir and as such is told using lies, misinformation, faulty geography, and plain BS. Dialog has been invented for a number of reasons, none suitable to repeat in mixed company. The moral compass is pointed north where the good people of the Mendocino Coast lead pure, chaste lives while making books. Am I a bestseller yet?)

Do laundry, get a haircut, pack the bag, and rush to the airport and stand in line at the Richard Reid Memorial Shoe Check. Ever since 2002, when the dippy Mr. Reid tried to sneak plastic explosive and triacetone triperoxide in his suede high-tops on a Paris to Miami flight, the air travel experience includes presenting officers of the Transportation Security Administration with your footwear. The added time to an already tedious check-in procedure is used for worry. Who cares about my book? Why should they seek me out for an unreadable signature? What am I doing?

I am going to Washington, DC, where I attended my first American Booksellers Association convention in 1989 as a publishing shill. Now the show is called BookExpo America and I am a writer with a book. The hour-long stopover in Phoenix is spent outside the airport to chain-smoke in the Bone Yard, a dog walk of rocks, pebbles, and dust surrounded by wrought iron fencing. Another take-off and landing later is the baggage carousel at Dulles International, and meeting Donna, a novelist, and Steve, a nonfiction writer. We ride to Potomac, Maryland, where Steve’s sister, Wendy, has generously offered lodging. Donna has done the show before with her agent, Nancy Ellis, and knows what to expect. Wish I did.

Friday morning begins warm and bright. Inside the convention center, hundreds of publishers have booths ready to attract buyers for bookstores. Catalogs are handed out by smiling and vaguely hungover sales staff, deals are made in the International Rights Center, and Google distributes iced cookies from carts placed where conventioneers’ blood sugar is lowest. There are 22,366 attendees and 7,324 of them official book buyers. BookExpo is not a literary Ozzfest, except for John Updike giving props to independent booksellers instead of touting his new book, TERRORIST, at the Saturday morning “Book and Author Breakfast.” A light step around the booths of major publishers like Random House and Penguin shows tired retreads, celebrity goofs like Tracey Ullman’s knitting book, and novels destined for the remainder shelves at Barnes & Nobel. The independent publishers give hope, MacAdam and Cage relentless in publishing new fiction by new writers and Coffee House Press with Gilbert Sorrentino’s A STRANGE COMMONPLACE.

(Sorrentino passed away on Saturday from lung cancer after a lifetime of chasing the book. He had been an editor at Grove Press, taught at Stanford University, and wrote a stack of brilliant novels like MULLIGAN STEW, CRYSTAL VISION, BLUE PASTORAL, and ABERRATION OF STARLIGHT. He was a writer’s writer who happily goofed with structure and composed sentences washed in energetic humanity. If you do not know this man’s work, get to www.powellsbooks.com for the out-of-print, and www.coffeehousepress.org for Sorrentino’s later work, LUNAR FOLLIES, THE MOON IN ITS FLIGHT, and LITTLE CASINO. Screw the rent and buy the books.)

In the green room on Saturday afternoon, there is one bottle of lukewarm diet Coke to share among the writers, and a video crew filming interviews. One cup of coffee is what I want, along with a chaser of Valium and Xanax. A spectral black figure in wide-brimmed hat sits at a table, Joyce Carol Oates in her funereal finery. Knopf published a collection of her stories in the spring and another book is on the way, AFTER THE WRECK, I PICKED MYSELF UP, SPREAD MY WINGS, AND FLEW AWAY.

I’ve attended signings where the writer sat with pen poised and embarrassment at no one showing. Please let this not be me. Going against Oates is ridiculous. If I wasn’t scheduled to sign, I’d be in her line. Cynthia and I leave to paw at the boxes of prepublication copies. DOG WALKED looks sharp in laminated cover and the print-on-demand is not bad. The final book will look even better. We carry the boxes from behind the curtain and dump them at table 19. My favorite Lamy steel-nib fountain pen leaked on the plane. Cynthia shoves a Bic rollerball in my hand and walks the empty aisle to find someone who might like to have a copy of our bastard child.

The world’s cheapest plastic chain holds back the takers for DOG WALKED. As the chain is released, booksellers and neophyte writers fill the aisle leading to table 19. Cynthia Frank had set the Cypress House publicist to sending out two hundred invitations for the signing. We were cooler than cool. I wrote inscriptions and scribbled my name, effusive for a King County librarian on account of spending much of my childhood in Seattle libraries and flirtatious for a bookseller from Wisconsin. The worries, grunts, and groans since sending Cynthia the manuscript dissipate into the thick air of the convention center. Mr. Detroit is there, George Young who hired me years ago as an editorial assistant, and Duke with a jug of spiked lemonade. I am kicked from the table at 4:30 after scrawling across the title page in sixty books. Being a writer is fun.

NEXT: Goin’ to the Press and We’re Gonna to be Printed

2006-05-12T17:53:00.000-07:00

Sailing on the Galleys

(NOTE: The following is a memoir and as such is told using lies, misinformation, faulty geography, and plain BS. Dialog has been invented for fun and to plumb the depths of honesty for a more meaningful fiction. The moral compass is pointed to where children sing and gambol. Am I an advance order yet?)

After a steamy, cross-cultural weekend involving trans fat-free snacks and two Portuguese-speaking au pairs, the galleys arrived in a fresh white box. Many writers have lost their reason when they see the projected book set in type. The editorial process does not lessen the surprise, and the writer’s question changes from “Does my book suck?” to “Do I suck?” Galleys can intimidate even the writers who score major advances. Thomas Sanchez received the galleys of his novel, MILE ZERO, and rewrote the entire book. This caused problems for publisher Knopf, who spent serious money having several hundred copies printed and were unable to hand them out at the annual bookseller’s convention on account of the changes. Would I do the same to Cynthia Frank and Cypress House? Naw.

The page proportions were solid with enough space allowed for the gutter and the small cap running heads reminded the reader what book they were reading. My concerns were over the typeface, my prejudices coming from years of working with the beasts in lead and on desktop. Any designed by Frederick Goudy were out (too blocky and stolid), along with san serifs (uncomfortable reading best for machines), and Palatino (display face by Herman Zapf accidentally used for text, though Aldus is fine), and the heavy or plain weird designer types. A typeface needs to be readable but should also have a hidden grace based on the movements of the scribe and stonecutter’s hand.

I bless the Cypress House designer’s surgically-cleared eyes. DOG WALKED is in Bembo, a classic typeface named after scholar Pietro Bembo, whose AETNA tanked when first published by Aldus Manutius in fifteenth-century Venice. The face was revived by the Monotype Corporation in the early twentieth century and since become a standard for bookwork. A line of Bembo has a friendly rhythm without being obtrusive, what every reader wants. I have set Bembo in lead and the type is damn terrific to handle. Having DOG WALKED in this typeface is double cool. I burned a pot of coffee and marked the pages. There were two names to add in the acknowledgments and the last entry in the Annotated Resource List read flat so I had to rewrite the short paragraph. Design questions were asked, changes suggested along with a couple of demands. Cynthia had kept her word. DOG WALKED sang in the best of humanist typefaces.

The month is May and BookExpo America runs the weekend of the19th in Washington, DC. Any corrections will wait until after the show. We must have prepublication copies available and this means going print-on-demand, not the least expensive solution. BookExpo America is the grand convention of the American Booksellers Association and showplace for publishers to display what tomfoolery is on press for the big fall season. Booksellers complain about rising gasoline prices and too many chain outlets. Publishers complain about making not enough money. This is business.

“We have a signing scheduled for DOG WALKED on Saturday,” Cynthia told me. “There’ll be a blow-up of the cover and you’re at Table 19, from 3:30 to 4:30.”
“What should I wear?”
“Don’t mix stripes and plaids and be on time.”

Ten Speed Press made a hit of HOW TO SHIT IN THE WOODS by giving away books at the BookExpo convention, and the inky terror has gone on to sell 1.5 million copies. Free books spread goodwill and the welcome word-of-mouth, and encourage booksellers to place an order. Coming from an independent publisher, DOG WALKED depends on goodwill. This means I have to be on my best behavior and not mention the chapter excised from the finished book, “How a Shower Scene Can Save Your Second Act.”

Once more for the detail-minded:
Book signing for THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH
Saturday, May 20, 2006
3:30 PM to 4:30 PM
Table 19, Autographing Area/Upper Level Exhibit Hall
Washington DC Convention Center

DOG WALKED will also be available at the Partners West booth 3157 in Hall A.

NEXT: Convention News for the Unconventional

2006-05-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

Knee Deep in the Amazon

(NOTE: The following is a memoir and as such is told using lies, misinformation, faulty geography, and plain BS. Dialog has been invented for underhanded purposes and the moral compass is pointed away from the local Home Security offices. Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone?)

Down time occurs when a writer has sent off his manuscript, gone through the in-house editorial process, and expects the page proofs. The best approach is to do stay far from bookwork, or forget about the present book and start the next one. Down time turns to drag time for the unprepared. I sunk as low as talking to telephone solicitors while anticipating the publisher’s call, and lower still by checking my name on Google. There was me at different and various guises, and a link to Amazon for DOG WALKED.

Amazon grabs titles when the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for a new book is registered. This is a swell trick, on account of they can gauge the market before ordering a book, but not without danger. Amazon encourages readers to post reviews, and why not? Books are made for readers, not the marketing department or writers.

Any reader can take you down in e-commerce by posting negative reviews. They can also make you a hit, except dwelling on the positive is never allowed in down time. The book has had a messy going of late. James Frey slipped in a million little fictions and was justly slapped on national television, JT Leroy exposed as a family hustle, and Opal caught trading angst for plagiarism and has a half-million dollar advance to return. Readers should be downright angry at the publishing business for having the collective integrity of a Space Invaders lunch box. To regard a new book with suspicion is the reader’s prerogative, just be nice to mine. Please.

I spent February reading, editing other writers’ manuscripts, and thinking about the latest catalog from Readers’ Subscription, called THE GRIFFIN. The front cover set the tone of the issue with the heading, “Myth is the basis of all human knowledge.” Was this true or lame hyperbole? Rebecca missed the deadline for her novel, but made up for the late date with an interesting excuse:

“Last night I caught my right pointer finger in a fold-up chair. I don’t know if it is broken, but it looks like I’ll lose the fingernail and I am in a lot of pain. Thank goodness I didn’t lose the finger. It was caught so badly I needed two people to open the chair to release my finger caught in the X of the fold-up. Luckily I am stubborn and can do the revisions we talked about with my left hand. I also screwed up my tailbone in the aforementioned chair incident so my butt hurts like a royal bitch as well.”

No calls from Cynthia Frank in February and less in March. I watched my numbers on Amazon swan dive from a high sales rank of 700,000 to the 1,000,000 range and past 2,000,000. The DOG WALKED had developed a limp while still in the kennel. I dialed Cypress House and asked for the publisher.

“We may have a spot of trouble on the schedule, nothing to worry over,” she volunteered.
“Don’t be coy. Give me the bad news.”
“Our designer has cataracts and is set for surgery. I had hoped for galleys this month, but he’s behind with books already late going to press. Yours is in line.”

Responding to such news and not sounding like a completely shallow putz is difficult. The designer is a human being with the frailties necessary to being human, and deserves to be treated with respect.

“Hire someone healthy and throw his ass out. Let him sell pencils with dark glasses and a white stick.”
“We’ll both forget what you’ve said. He’ll have one eye done, recuperate, and then have the other worked on. By April his vision will be better than before. You worry about the tiniest problems.”
“Me? Never. I’m right as rain, sound as a dollar, and fit as a fiddle. I’m fine.”
“Good. Now go make a living.”

NEXT: Sailing on the Galleys

2006-04-07T12:57:00.000-07:00

Covering the Cover and Worrying Over the Title

(NOTE: The following is a memoir and as such is told using lies, misinformation, faulty geography, and plain BS. Dialog has been shoddily constructed for greater dramatic purpose in search of lower truth. The moral compass is pointed east on account of some fool left it next to a magnet and screwed up the needle. Am I a “must-have” item yet?)

As the writer burns his remaining operative brain cells fretting with the text, the publisher jumps through the flaming hoop of cover design and tries not to be singed. The writer contributes unhelpful suggestions from relatives, so-called friends, and the cashier at his local Barnes & Noble who is saving for another piercing without saying where.

Before paperbacks, most covers were limited to type arrangements and discrete decoration embossed on the boards. Someone, somewhere, had the idea of treating the dust jacket like a box of soap flakes. Buy this NEW, IMPROVED novel or nonfiction, GUARANTEED to remove stains! Serious readers slipped off the dust jackets and threw them out. Then came the paperback revolution and new printing techniques, and the cover rose in importance at the request of the marketing department. De-bossing, holograms, die cuts, foil stamping, and any other trick devised by printers and graphic designers are used. Whether these make a difference in sales is a constant debate, but all agree the well-executed cover helps establish a book’s credibility.

Cynthia Frank and I had walked the floor at the annual Northern California Independent Booksellers Association show last fall, and looked at covers from publishing companies great and small. Most were clear type arrangements with nothing fancy or startling. DOG WALKED needed more flash to stand out from the rest of the writing books. She postponed work on the cover until the manuscript hassles were fixed and asked me for ideas. One rule I have stuck with is never get involved in arguments over the cover. Another rule I have is not to date women with red hair, unless they have a private income.

An email arrived from Cypress House with three cover suggestions. The first had a black and white pup standing by the side of a macadam road in outer bucolia on a clear blue-sky day. Nope, I said, looks like anything except a writing book. The second had a reproduction of a painting of a dog walking by a red door. Nope, I said, the connection is tenuous at best. The third had the magic, a gray background with a vertical bar of purple and a photograph of a feral cat walking down a South African road. I like this, I said, a double take cover where the browser is knocked off guard and must look closer.

So five thousand or ten thousand copies were not printed in vain, Ms. Frank sent the cover out to several buyers and asked for their comments. Reactions were mixed-up:

“Are you serious? That’s a cat. No one outside the business would understand. Are you trying to say something about writers?”
“Striking but doesn’t convey the subject matter clearly.”
“The book cover made me laugh. It’s a great idea.”
“Perfect. There’s nothing more to say.”
“Immediately liked it. People like absurdist things. At least some people do.”
“I don’t get the ‘dog’ part. If you have to explain a title or cover, they are not doing their job. Think about the minimum-wage bookstore clerk opening the box and shelving this volume with the pet books.”
“It’s dumb and makes the book appear silly.”
“Cover is distracting and probably doesn’t match the tone of the text. Or does it?”

Added to the confusion was a serious thumbs-down on the subtitle, A COMMONPLACE BOOK FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH. DOG WALKED had come far since its original appearance as a chapbook at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. There the subtitle had been REQUESTED AND UNCALLED-FOR ADVICE FROM A BOOK MIDWIFE. Cynthia and I had fussed over the subtitle until we arrived at the “commonplace” version to reflect the quotes, suspicions, and directions in the text. We were happy but the buyer for a large chain said it made the book sound ordinary, like they had never heard of the tradition of commonplace books. Not wanting to stomp on any opportunity for sales, we changed it to AN OUTSPOKEN GUIDE FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH. The buyer wrapped their pointy-head around the new take and promised to order.

One last obstacle remained. I emailed Mr. Detroit the NEW, IMPROVED cover. He called.

“How’s your blood pressure holding?”
“Systolic is steady at 130.”
“Cut down on your salt intake and approve the damn thing.”
“Would you pay retail for this book?”
“Hell, no. You promised me a free copy.”

NEXT: Knee Deep in the Amazon

2006-03-28T09:45:00.000-08:00

What Turns Around, Comes Around

(NOTE: The following is a memoir and as such is told using lies, misinformation, faulty geography, and plain BS. Dialog has been invented and obscenities added for greater dramatic purposes. The moral compass is pointed in a southerly direction to Rebecca Woolf, novelista and mom and blogger at www.girlsgonechild.blogspot.com, who hassled me about not posting more regularly. Thanks for the kick in the pants, GGC.)

Once a manuscript is sent to the publisher and put on schedule with an editor and designer, the best a writer can do is forget about it. You’ve done your job. The pages take their place in line behind the daily emergencies of squabbles with printers, writers not as cool as you, and office flu epidemics. Let’s avoid mention of the staff trying to maintain personal lives outside the business.

I forgot about DOG WALKED and dived into the deep end of the freelance pool. Kate had a novel without a title, Rebecca was going through a complete rewrite on hers, and Doug needed another run at his dialogue. Everyone had billable hours and paid promptly, bless them. Then the UPS man rang the intercom in December with a box from the publisher. I let the package sit for a week before fumbling at the strapping tape with a box cutter. Being edited is different from editing. In my early days as an editor I had a manuscript returned from the writer with “WRITE YOUR OWN F**KING BOOK” scribbled along the margins, and the outrage sparked by asking politely for active instead of passive sentence construction. Like I would be as creepy.

In the July 2005 issue of WRITER’S DIGEST, there is an article by Jenna Glatzer about receiving the publisher’s edited manuscript, “Nice Work-Just Change Everything.” Glatzer recommends to find a fume friend, back away from the manuscript, know the red ink means an editor cares, start simple, prioritize your arguments, compromise, keep a happy file, and picture the rainbow. I’d be damned if I would picture the rainbow. Cynthia Frank had been kind enough to include an Omron HEM-432C manual blood pressure monitor, complete with four AA batteries. I slipped on the cuff and squeezed the inflation bulb until the numbers appeared in the LCD display. My systolic pressure was 120 and diastolic at 80. According to the instruction booklet, these were swell numbers. I read my edited manuscript and by page five the numbers shot up to 140/90 and stayed there.

Where did those contractions come from? What about the dippy formatting, quotes shoved into italic, sentences combined and truncated? The editor was wrong, I was an idiot, the world was a horrible place, and I had no right to a pen, never mind a word processor. How much of a disaster had I gotten myself into? Glatzer said I should have a fume friend. I called Mr. Detroit.

“This is a complete unmitigated disaster, my fault and their fault, and I’ll never get work again. Desolation! Horror! Vicious fate!”

“I’ll jump in here and guess who. Sal?”

“The book is royally boogered!”

“Stop with the exclamation points. Pop volume 27 of BRAZILIAN DEBUTANTES into your DVD player. The corsets will calm you down.”

The much-appreciated corsets failed but Cynthia Frank came through. She told me what I told writers: If you disagree with an edit, change the damn thing and quit your unseemly whining. Her in-house editor had actually used a very light hand. I spent four days with the manuscript and corrected my mistakes, especially the convoluted sentences knocking around the furniture like a child’s balloon freed from its knot. The editor is the first audience for a book. He or she comes to the manuscript as a stranger and if the writer’s argument is muddy when clarity is needed, the writer needs to shut up and listen.

Anyone who edits themselves has a fool for an editor, regardless of those nifty books about self-editing. I also should have had a book midwife to call with my panic instead of bothering Mr. Detroit and the publisher. No one is exempt from overreacting to the publishing process, not even me. Systolic pressure is now down to 130 with no hope of going lower until DOG WALKED is in print.

NEXT: Covering the Cover and Worrying Over the Title

2006-03-09T06:59:00.000-08:00

How Writing is Written

(NOTE: The following is a memoir and as such is told using lies, misinformation, faulty geography, and plain BS. Dialog has been invented for greater dramatic purposes, like having the publisher use the word “weenie” when she has more class. The moral compass is pointed south where the food is better.)

Turn off the stereo, stick the television in the closet, let the answering machine pick up the calls, and plant sciatica-prone backside in chair. Make lots of coffee. This is how the writing begins. Easy, right?

My favorite writing tool is a four-drawer filing cabinet crammed with hanging files and manila folders. I grabbed the files marked “Terrors of Publishing,” “Fun Stuff,” and “Contractual Oblongata,” and spread clipped articles from newspapers and magazines around the apartment in search of a start. The publisher and I talked through the contents of DOG WALKED, and if I had kept the notes the work would go faster. I wrote the chapter heads on three-by-five file cards and stuck them on the bulletin board above the desk. “Introduction,” “Contract Shuffle,” “First Draft,” and “Book Covers” stared at me with malicious yellow eyes glowing in the dark to disturb my sleep.

I started writing one word at a time. A half page was cause for a celebration, a full page gave reason for joyous shouts. Let the neighbors complain about the noise. I was writing. Mr. Detroit dropped by his DVD collection of BRAZILLIAN DEBUTANTES IN DESHABILLE, volumes 1 to 43. “Concentrates the mind,” he said. My friends in Switzerland, Caroline and Jürg, sent a pound of coffee and a carton of Francais cigarettes, and Franklin Market around the corner kept me in meatloaf sandwiches. Elmore Leonard says the secret to writing is four good pages a day. This is fine if you have a year to write a novel and you’ve already received a big check for the film rights. I did a minimum of ten, and woke at six in the morning to rewrite the previous day’s output before starting on the next bit.

Writing and editing are different disciplines. With editing, the words are there. Writing has to find the words, a sure way to expose self-esteem issues. Knowing I knew nothing made the going harder. Grammar rules clashed with content in my head. Did I have anything to say? Had smarter people said it before? The conceit behind DOG WALKED was immediate answers to writer’s questions without going into the soft mush of creativity, art, and voice. Cut away the high-sounding nonsense and every writer is a storyteller, whether fiction or nonfiction. A story needs a beginning, middle, and end. I wrote the first two and scrambled for the last.

The number of finished pages slowly increased. I had to go through the introduction one more time, pound home how important rewriting is to the process, and talk about writers selling their books. On November 12, the manuscript needed another thirty pages. I paced the floor at all hours to the consternation of my downstairs neighbor, and cranked out copy needing an edit or the delete key. November 13 tripped over the stacks of books I was considering for the reference section. I had too many goddamn men and not enough women in the recommended reading, saved only by Flannery O’Connor and Marge Piercy. One of them still lived and counted for two. What to say about the books? Each had landed on the list by merit, and I wanted to sleaze by on title information and forget any commentary. No way. Cynthia Frank would catch my laziness, another reason to only deal with publishers who are strangers.

By the afternoon of the 14th, the manuscript was finished along with the writer. I sent the file to Cypress House, had a shower, and slept. The UPS deliveryman rang my doorbell two days later. Inside a box protected by Styrofoam pellets sat two apple muffins, accomplishment muffins baked by Ms. Frank to acknowledge the receipt of the manuscript one day early. I had made the deadline and now she could deal with the rest of the problems.

NEXT: What Turns Around, Comes Around

2006-02-21T15:00:00.000-08:00

The Accidental Writer

(NOTE: The following is a memoir and as such is told using lies, misinformation, faulty geography, and plain BS. Dialog has been invented for greater dramatic purposes. The moral compass is pointed south where the food is better. Has Oprah called yet?)

Being a book midwife means never getting your name on the front cover of a book. There might be a mention in the acknowledgements but the outside belongs to the writer who had the original idea. If a midwife could invent his or her own stories, they would write instead of helping other people write.

In August 2005, Cypress House publisher Cynthia Frank and I sat at Pane e Vino in San Francisco waiting for our entrees. We had been presenters at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference earlier in the month and the conversation drifted to the problems of first-time writers.

“There’s enough books on the subject,” she said.

"Except for John Gardner and few others, they’re written by writers who can't write. I read the damn things hoping to find advice I can pass on to clients and the books go into the recycling bin.”

“I like the chapbook you made for the conference. Nice bit of postmodern promotion. Ever thought of turning THE DOG WALKED into a book?”

“So far I’ve been asked to critique three different manuscripts for free, like I don’t do this for a living. A book means more requests for freebies.”

“Weenie.”

A man may call another man a weenie without repercussion. When a woman tries the same, male pride bleats and bleeds. Roast duck and ravioli stuffed with butternut squash arrived at the table while we talked about how to expand the current DOG WALKED. Cynthia tucked into the ravioli and made agreeable sounds. The meal ended with a contract and my promise to send in the finished manuscript by November 15 for release in spring of 2006.

We met at the Mendocino Book Arts Festival in 1987, where I was printing broadsides from lead type on a nineteenth century Albion handpress. The late Eighties were the last of the fun years in book publishing, when companies paid attention to editorial standards and independent bookstores held a major share of the market. Cynthia and I kept a watch on each other’s relative sanity as the industry changed through the Nineties, and Cypress House grew under her ownership. She helped me find my first clients when I went freelance. I owed her.

Through September and October I ignored regular hours and weekends to edit three novels and a lone nonfiction work on bird watching. The checks from clients mollified the landlord so I could give DOG WALKED the proper attention in November. How hard could it be to crank out one hundred pages about writing? I had labored in trade publishing for seventeen years, and written a fat novel (SMALL LIVES: A NOVEL IN THREE NOTEBOOKS AND FOUR DECADES) currently with an agent in search of a publisher. Writing a book was easy, especially when I had most of the research material on my bookshelves and in journals.

A new calendar page turned after Halloween. November 1, 2, 3, and 4 slinked by with emergencies and last minute fussing on different projects. DOG WALKED bulked up to twenty pages with the addition of title page, copyright page, and order information. Work avoidance took the place of writing. I dusted and swept, scrubbed the bathroom floor, darned the worn heel of a favorite pair of socks, cooked a giant pot of ratatouille, washed the windows, and trimmed pesky nose hairs. The closest I came to the manuscript was dotting the apartment with Post-It notes: “Bombazine belongs with Dickens, not us contemporaries.” “What about cross-collateralization?” “Describe, describe, describe.” “Coffee important, cigarettes too.” I was doomed.

NEXT: How Writing is Written

2006-02-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

By Way of Introduction

Under “Trade Paperbacks: Literary Criticism & Essays” in the January 23, 2006 issue of Publishers Weekly sits this listing:
THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET (May, $13.95) by Sal Glynn is advice about honing writing skills from a so-called “book midwife.”

Though glad to be in the PW pages, I found the “so-called” and the quotes framing “book midwife” to be disconcerting. This is a legitimate publishing term, not a scam, hustle, or euphemism for the chronically unemployed. Page through Google under “book midwife” and you will find Mindy Gibbins-Klein’s polished Web site, Kathleen Barnes, former HarperCollins senior editor Caroline Pincus, Margot Silk Forrest, and Lisa Alpine. Their clients have gone on to sign with agents and publishers.

Book midwives come from published writers, teachers, and the publishing profession. When they give advice, they know what they are talking about. Each read A. Scott Berg’s MAX PERKINS: EDITOR OF GENIUS (NY: Dutton, 1978) at an impressionable age and have taken on the career of midwife as a holy cause. Midwives have a passion for books rivaled only by bibliophiles with private incomes. The midwife provides support and encouragement to people who want to write, along with critiques and advice. There are also services like proposal writing, research, editing, or in cases of dire need, ghostwriting. The book remains the writer’s accomplishment.

Publishing companies want manuscripts they can send immediately to production on account of the editors are overworked and forced to spend time fretting over profit and loss statements instead of making books. Sure, publishing is a business, but the business side is concerned with increasing profit margins and not the correct use of a subordinate clause. The number of editorial staff has been cut to bare essentials and the job of developing new writers has gone to agents. These shortcomings have made many publishing professionals flee from the frustration of being in-house to the open air of freelancing. During a performance review, a former employer told me, “You’re spending too much time with the writers. Shape up or we’ll find someone else.” I packed my desk and wrote the want ad for a new editor, an MBA who could read without their lips moving. The applicants were few.

First-time and even veteran writers need an editor. A freelance editor will edit hard or soft depending on the needs of the manuscript; the manuscript goes to them and is sent back heavy with Post-It notes and a letter detailing problem areas. A copyeditor makes sure grammar is correct; the manuscript goes to them and is sent back with heavily marked pages. A proofreader looks at spelling; the manuscript goes to them and is sent back with lightly marked pages. None provide the extra attention and teaching some writers need to realize a finished, publishable manuscript.

You are walking down the street, the cell phone charging at home, and not a thought in your head except left, right, left, right, to keep your feet moving. A bronze Acura pulls up to the corner where you are waiting for the stoplight to change color. In the front seat of the car is an older Asian couple, stoic and looking ahead instead of at each other. Sitting in the back seat is a young woman weeping. “Why?” tumbles along your synapses. Who are these people, where have they come from, and what is the woman crying about? A story starts to form in your imagination with scenes, characters, and action. You have begun to write. When you finish the first draft and read enough on writing for complete confusion, the questions nag at you about what to do next. Is this any good or does it suck? What is publishing like? Where can I find a honest agent? Now is the time to call the book midwife, and pick one who specializes in your field. They will be your champion, tell you when you are right and wrong, and help you write your best.

2006-02-05T09:20:00.000-08:00

In May 2006, Cypress House will release my first book, THE DOG WALKED DOWN THE STREET: A COMMONPLACE BOOK FOR WRITERS WHO WANT TO PUBLISH ($13.95 and buy from an independent bookstore, damn it!). A high-powered publishing executive once explained the acquisition process as a coin-toss on whether the marketplace would welcome the proposed book, followed by a brief tug at remaining ethics to decide if the book was worth killing trees. THE DOG WALKED is printed on post-consumer paper so the tree-killing question has been answered. We'll see about the marketplace.

What follows is the story about how the book has progressed from idea to shelf. No prisoners will be taken and none offered. Stay tuned.