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


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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?

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


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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.”)

When Summer Feels Like Winter (photograph of Fendi copyright 2006 by Caroline Weber.)

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.


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