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Why Your Jive Doesn't Jibe with the True Definition

 

The greatest gift social media has given us is the ability to know just how many people not only don't know what they're talking about more than half the time, but also the fact that they don't even know the correct words to use when they don't. Forget about misspellings, those run rampant these days. And with the absurd rationale that enforcement of good grammar is somehow based in colonialism or that it's a symbol of being old, don't except it to get much better. This post is all about usage.

Some of the ones that really grind my gears:

• All the Sudden
• Few Far and In-Between
• Should of/Would of
• Jive instead of Jibe

That last one is the source of all my pain and suffering, the very origin of all that is empty and wrong in the world and, possibly, the universe and its many multiversal equivalents. I will move on at the risk of indulging in hyperbole.

For whatever reason, many people tend to automatically turn unfamiliar words into familiar ones based on fascinatingly obtuse biases. For instance, "Few and Far Between" may make sense to those of us who possess a literary bent, but those who do not look at and see a phrase that looks incorrect. The term refers to something that rarely occurs. To add "in-between" is to create a phrase that no longer means that but sounds more like a description of physical location. To be fair, I'm not convinced that the people misusing the term don't also believe the latter meaning is the one that applies. The same is true for "Jive" vs. "Jibe."

According to the Chicago Tribune, "Jive means either a type of music or loose, meaningless chatter. Jibe means to be in accord; agree. To confuse matters, jibe also means to shift your sail from one side of the vessel to the other (sometimes spelled gybe). And gibe, which means to make taunting, heckling remarks, can also be spelled jibe."

So, if you're using "jive" to mean something doesn't go along with your beliefs or those of someone else, stop it. You look uneducated. 

I had someone who moderates a page on scientific accuracy argue with me about this. Discounting the inherent superiority analytical types feel when dealing with creative people, this is an individual who appears learned and to be a good researcher. Yet in this case, where language is often regarded as secondary to opinion, they relied on a single source and then tried to spin the incorrect usage itself. When that failed, they tried to say the original wrong definition was correct. No amount of proof seemed to sway them.

On second thought, if you wanna use "jive" to mean what it doesn't mean, have at it. Just try not to vote. Or Procreate. Or work with the public. Or run for office. 

Or become a pet owner.

It just wouldn't jive with what makes a well-rounded person~

Excerpt from "2012/21," the First-Draft-Completed-Editing-in-Progress-Novel

This is not where I truly belong. This is a nightmare of epic proportions, the kind of bad dream brought on by late night drinking and total despondency. 

The smell is the first thing to hit me, followed by the sight of bodies stacked as high as the eye can see. I shouldn’t be able to smell anything in this state and I for damn sure shouldn’t be able to handle such a smell without gagging. That means I’m being allowed to experience the stench of death and decay without becoming overpowered. Unlike me, the living walk around in those yellow containment suits you see in movies when there’s been some type of outbreak. 

Somewhere not too far away, somebody cries. It is impossible to tell the sex or age of the person because the despair they express transcends any of that. The grief stretches throughout the street as refrigerated trucks are loaded with body after body. The loaders aren’t even using gurneys, they’re just grabbing the dead people from both ends and tossing them inside the truck into the storage beds like sacks of wheat.

Someone yells, “Christ, Craig! This one’s still alive!”

I can’t see who said this or who they are talking about, but the flurry of activity points to one of the trucks further down the line. 

“What the fuck, Craig?” a female voice says. “How many times do I need to tell you to check them before you shuck them?”

Craig utters a sheepish, “Sorry.” 

That’s the last thing I hear before the scene shifts to what appears to be the outside of a hospital where, if I’m not mistaken, a group of angry people are brandishing protest signs and yelling at medical staff. What could these people have possibly done to incur such rage?

“Fucking crisis actor!” the big guy in the red baseball cap nearest me says, spit flying from his mouth.

The woman in scrubs standing like a statue before him wears a surgical mask and says nothing as he keeps accusing her of lying to the American people and calling her a pedophile.

Where the hell did that come from?

None of the medical folks are reacting to the angry men screaming in their faces like demented toddlers. It’s probably the bravest thing I’ve ever seen, except I don’t know what the hell is going on.

Where is my guide? I don’t care how hideous it is, I would welcome its presence right now. It would be far less nightmarish than what I’m witnessing from my fellow human beings. 

I decide to walk on, past the unmoving medical staff, past the angry, mostly unmasked protestors, past the news crews who are obviously eating all this shit up. I need sanity, peace, something that makes sense. I find the exact opposite on the next block.

Pamphlet-waving, saliva-spewing men and women beckoning all of us who pass by to come hear what they have to say. Most of them want us to sign their petitions for this group or against that group or for no group at all. They have markedly different beliefs but they all somehow sound the same. This whole scene feels less like reality and more like metaphor, but there’s a gritty realism to the whole affair that stubbornly keeps me from dismissing it as such.

Ignoring the shouting would-be activists, I glance to my right and stop dead in my tracks. On the side of an abandoned brick building, somebody has painted, in giant red letters: THE MAYANS WERE WRONG!

It’s all too much. I don’t feel myself hit anything when I pass out, but everything goes black

 

Excerpt from "This Evil Sky" a Novel-in-Progress

 Sleep does not come easy for a killer with a conscience. In fact, it remains ever elusive following a job. The more successful the job, the less likely there will be sleep. Alan is no exception to this rule, which is the only reason he isn’t rudely awakened by the pounding on his door. Throwing on a bathrobe and grabbing a nearby pistol, he walks to the front door of his apartment and stands off to the side as he gazes through the peephole. 

Wonderful. 

He opens it and breathes a heavy sigh.

Detective Moran. To what do I owe the displeasure?

The detective sneers and looks Alan up and down. Still awake, huh?

I’m a light sleeper.

Moran nods and asks if he can come in. Alan tells him he can, but may he?

Moran sneers again, his bearded face a mask of annoyance. How about we cut the crap?

(Shrugging) Fine. Let me just open my robe up nice and wide.

(Face contorted) Excuse you?

Well, if you’re gonna bust my balls as usual, I might as well grant total access.

Fanaticism at War with Creativity (and it's winning)

 

It's obvious now in the U.S. that we got used to thinking all the censorship and persecution was in the past. Movies are made about it and tons of books have been written on the subject. Most of these presumed an evolved, more aware society looking back on a terrible time with the perspective of those who have learned "the lesson" and moved forward. 

It turns out the religious fanatics were quietly getting themselves into positions where they could enact sweeping censorship across the entire nation, the South in particular. This is not an altogether surprising event to me. I have been tracking the Religious Right's mostly successful strategy since the 1990s. Once they realized Ronald Reagan was not the Evangelical-friendly president they'd been hoping for, they set their sites on more realistic targets. Local school boards, City Councils, small-town mayoral elections and even courtrooms were slowly infiltrated by them until the time came for them to begin enacting their agenda for social control in the name of spiritual salvation.

And they were really, really good at it too.

"Questionable" books began to be challenged in school libraries. Laws were passed that would never have withstood the light of day a mere decade before. Harmful deprogramming techniques aimed at gays gained popularity in certain circles and there was a bizarre shift from blaming Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus to hailing them as wonderful because in their view, these people needed to be slaughtered in order to bring on those wonderful End Times. But that's okay because they will be given a second chance to accept Christ as the messiah and everybody will live happily ever after for a thousand years because ancient people couldn't conceive of a number larger than that.

But let's take a quick step back. This is a highly motivated, resentful and frighteningly large group of Americans who have felt marginalized and disrespected for generations. And, to be fair, they kind of were. Most mainstream so-called "secular" Americans saw them as little more than a pack of ignorant hayseeds, members of a vocal minority whose predilection for following flawed, charismatic nutjobs had descended into self-parody. And, to be fair, they kind of had. 

So, where did that leave us? Simply put, with a two-sided coin sitting on its side in the middle of a field of general apathy. On one side of that coin sits a large, angry, delusional minority of religious zealots whose entire lives have been spent in a veritable echo chamber of self-righteousness and magical thinking. On the other sits their opposite extreme, far left social engineers with an alarming level of self-interest pushing various agendas with no real awareness of what they are up against. Meanwhile, on that field of apathy, we have small groups of people just starting to open their eyes and realize what's happening while they watch their streaming shows and stupidly put the names of their children on signs outside their houses complete with the names of their schools as celebration. 

The demands for censorship we are seeing are primarily but by no means exclusively coming from the Right. The difference is the Right's agenda is far more organized because Right-wingers tend to think alike whereas one of the strengths and weaknesses of Left-wingers is their lack of constant, mindless agreement with one another. But where exactly are these calls for book banning coming from and who is initiating them? You might be surprised by the answer:

Surprised? You probably are. Who would have expected school and library boards to issue more challenges than political and religious groups? Who expected the number of elected officials doing it to be lower than the percentage of librarians and teachers? The second column tracks with conventional wisdom, however, as does the third one. It is interesting to note how much importance is placed on the written word vs. other types of media. No matter what, words on a page (or a screen) still cause more discomfort than images and songs. The reason for that should be obvious. Their entire worldview is based on the written words in a book they believe is the only one anybody needs because all of the answers are found in its pages.

Here's the part so many non-believers and rationally minded believers do not get about these people. They indulge in constant magical thinking. In their minds, all fiction is based on belief, most of it running contrary to theirs. They are a bizarre combination of irrationality and literal-mindedness that makes it nearly impossible for them to grasp metaphor and subtlety, let alone allegorical social commentary. In fact, those words are meaningless to them because their over-simplified worldview is based on the most basic concept of good vs. evil resulting in simplistic reward or punishment. There is no nuance there.

This is why when these groups are challenged to present one specific example of why they consider a book unacceptable, they either cannot do it or can't be bothered to even try. What's the point in offering specifics when the entire thing is based on Satanic appeasement? Trust me, when they use the word "Worldly," it's not a positive thing. The actual definition of that word is someone who is well-rounded and educated, but they use it to mean someone who is by default in league with the devil because they are "of the world." The world is evil because of humanity's fall from Grace, despite the efforts of Jesus in the New Testament to usher in an Age of Grace.

It is this very contradictory nature that makes it impossible to reason with book banners who are doing it for religious reasons. Reason is just another way of moving away from God in their estimation. Science is the devil's religion, at least that's what a similar-minded friend once said to me in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.  Funnily enough, following the tiny bit of logic contained in that mentality, one would think politics would be the devil's playground. Yet Evangelicals have been infiltrating local government for decades so they could enact their peculiar brand of American Christianity. Library boards, school boards and city councils were just the beginning. They are well beyond that now and their lack of willingness to engage in the realm of ideas is slowly affecting our lives in ways that are becoming more and more apparent.

(If you wish to join the fight against library censorship, contact these fines folks and make your voices heard)

Pondering my Novel

 As I am now 6,000-8,000 words away from finishing my novel, "2012/2021" I have begun noticing the themes that I wasn't necessarily consciously aware of until I'd been working on it for several months. My intent was always twofold: To write my own Vonnegut-type of novel and to write the novel I wish I'd written when I published "Dreamers at Infinity's Core." And all it took was a global pandemic, idiots who thought it was fake despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and unbelievable amounts of selfishness and self-entitlement.

Funnily enough, the COVID pandemic is only mentioned sparingly in the novel and never by name. I felt keeping it more abstract and ominous worked better as a plot device. Besides, the main protagonist is from the year 2012, so he really has no idea what's coming in 2020. This is a novel packed with ideas and images and connections that bridge time, space and reality itself. Making it about COVID would defeat the purpose and run the risk of becoming preachy. This is not a preachy book. It doesn't slow down long enough to preach.

It does, however, deal with themes that are sure to make some people uncomfortable. It also offers answers that many would resoundingly reject for fear of feeling as if their entire lives were pointless. Others will feel emboldened by the purposefulness they find in the narrative.

Without going too deeply into the story itself, here is a list of themes I have noticed as I close in on the novel's intentionally 

• Selfishness
• Greed
• Lack of Empathy
• Self-righteousness
• Corporate dominance
• The nature of creation
• Cult-like mentalities
• Doppelgangers
• Regret
• Redemption
• Helplessness
• Courage
• Dream logic
• The soul-crushing experience of retail work
• The inherent shallowness of thoughts and prayers
• Revolution
• The death of objective thought

And that's just off the top of my head! "2012/2021" isn't so much a story as an unraveling that feeds on itself like my own mind.

I can't wait to see it get rejected over and over!

The Difference Between Understanding Fiction and Wanting to see Your Juvenile Fantasies Play Out

 

*Stolen with gratitude from Facebook

Sticktoitiveness

 

This has been me for many, many years. Obviously I'm not alone or nobody would have created this meme. Okay, maybe I would have, but nobody else.

This year I resolved to begin and complete my novel "2012/2021" and I am on track to see do. All other ideas and short stories have been set aside and this book is literally the only fiction I have worked on since the year began. 

I fully expect to be finished with the first draft by no later than mid-June.

The writing of "2012/2021" has been incredibly rewarding, perhaps the most rewarding writing experience I have ever had. It is the novel I've always felt I had in me but was not yet able to capture it the way I wanted. The pandemic changed that. 

So, if anyone still reads this blog and was wondering why I don't post as often as I used to, that's the reason. 

Some Chapter Titles from my Work in Progress "2012/2021"

 

Chapter One: Those Wacky Mayans

Chapter 4: Displacement, Dat Placement or de udder Placement

Chapter 5: From Better Best to Sweater Vest

Chapter 6: Ain’t Nobody Got Time for DAT

Chapter 8: Opinions are Like Maskholes...

Chapter 11: Memories & Other Things That Never Happened

Chapter 13: At the End of the World Resides Myrtle

Chapter 15: Absolute Truth Ain’t Always Absolute Proof

Chapter 16: Symmetry at the Cemetery

Chapter 20: What are you doing, Daves?

Chapter 22: A Tale of Two Psychos

As you can see, I've been rather busy. Nearly 60,000 words as of this writing and I couldn't be having a better time. This is the novel I've been wanting to write for years without actually knowing it and I hope, when the time comes, it will be well-received and given a chance to be read by others.

To Hell with Preciousness

 

The Evil Gatekeeper 

A message for all you would-be fiction writers out there who think your words are too precious to alter: Be prepared to rewrite or be prepared to self-publish. It's that simple. Don't wanna work with the so-called "Gatekeepers" who don't "get" you or who you believe want to squash your vast talent? Cool. Keep banging away on those keyboards and tablets and maybe, just maybe, you will find one or two people willing to publish your work as-is every single time. You might even hit the Big Time that way, except you most likely won't.

Writing for an audience doesn't mean whatever you write is what the audience should accept. While I'm no fan of writing specifically for other people, I am aware that other people are the ultimate goal for anyone sending their work out for consideration. Do you think singers only want to hear themselves in the shower? Of course not. And any singer who wants to leave that shower and be heard isn't going to tell everyone they audition for how stupid they are and how they don't recognize talent when they hear it.

I'm sure you can find a story or two to "prove me wrong" as if such an infinitesimal number proves anything.

Ultimately, writing is a craft. Crafts involve being scrutinized and going back to the drawing board. I'm sorry if your parents told you everything you wrote was brilliant and refused to stifle your imagination when you were out in public and should have been in the moment. Participation trophies are awesome, but they don't mean much more than, "I showed up and failed to distinguish myself." Translating that mentality to submitting fiction will not get you far.

Recently, I submitted a short story to a publisher who wrote back telling me they enjoyed the story but felt it dragged in the beginning and needed some rewriting to fit better with the types of stories they publish. Well, I don't mind telling you I was offended as all hell! I fired up the old PC and let loose with a string of invective that would make John McEnroe blush! I told this gatekeeper they were a fool with limited vision who didn't understand the brilliance they had been handed. How dare you, I wrote, tell me my story needs work? That's just an opinion! You are not worthy of my time or my very stable genius.

I don't mind telling you all of that because it's absolute bullshit. I would never and have never done that.

Have I encountered publishers and editors I determined were not very intelligent based on the feedback they provided? Of course. This field is like any other. Not everybody deserves their job. But I kept my mouth shut and moved on to someone else. That's how it works. Anything else is a temper tantrum.

So, yes. I am rewriting the story for this publication. Within the context of this publication's esthetic, the feedback is spot-on. There's a reason an editor would write the following, "You are a very talented writer and I have published you many times because of that. Would you be willing to rewrite your story to streamline it and pick up the pace?"

I earned that by taking feedback and applying it. Preciousness gets you nowhere except the back of the bitter barn.

That's my feedback. Take it for it's worth or condemn me for misunderstanding your stunning brilliance. it's up to you.

Another Place to Order Some of My Work.

 I happened upon "ReaderIQ" which has some of my work available for sale.

Click here for the link.

Editorial Praise

 "Well, Christopher, you did it again. Your story is brilliant. I absolutely love it. Your ending took even me by surprise, and that is hard to achieve.

You also write professionally, so the edits are minimal....

Let me know if you approve the edits. Some day I will do another "Best of The Horror Zine" antho and this story will definitely be included.

See attached. Let me know if you approve the edits.

Thanks,

Jeani Rector, Editor"

"Looks great! Thanks so much for the kind words!"

"Wonderful. You know, you really can write. I'll be in touch."

Who Knows What Hackery Ruins Great Characters? James Patterson Knows.

 

This disgusts me. Not only because of the so-called "author" who purchased the rights to arguably the greatest pulp era character in literary history, but also because Patterson doesn't even write the material bearing his ubiquitous name.

Oh, you didn't know that? It's surprising to me how many don't, including some librarians I have worked with in the past. That's right, kids. James Patterson is a brand name under which hungry writers toil  so he can appear as if he is the most prolific author of all time. Click here if you doubt me.

There are other authors whose names appear on books on a monthly basis. Nora Roberts a.k.a "J.D. Robb", Debbie Macomber, and Laura Snelling come to mind. There are also authors who haven't let a pesky little obstacle such as death keep them from cranking out book after book. Agatha Christie ain't goin' out like that and neither is V.C. Andrews, both of whom have been dead for a long time and still meet their, ahem, deadlines.

The quasi-con of publishing dead authors who didn't actually write the material being published has been going on for a long time. Unfortunately, so has the one involving writers who only wrote a few of their own books before hiring a virtual sweatshop of aspiring writers to do all the work under that person's pen name. Mack Bolan author Don Pendleton did it. So did Oprah's least favorite author/franchise  runner James Frey. So, Patterson certainly isn't an original in this regard. Actually, he's not an original in any sense.

For those unfamiliar with the Shadow character and its history, he is, quite simply, the superhero archetype. As a pulp era hero, he dealt with more grounded situations such as murderers, spies and the occasional misguided scientist. The radio dramas were hugely successful and, in my opinion, the ones where the character was portrayed by Orson Welles were among the best spoken word drama ever made. Without the shadow, there would be no Batman. 

The Shadow's two most famous sayings, "Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? The Shadow knows" and "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit" could be seen as templates for nearly every costumed hero's philosophy over the past nearly one-hundred years. He is a character firmly rooted in the Depression era, steeped in noir-ish grandeur and filled with the charm of a more innocent but still very dangerous time. 

A brief perusal of the plot of this Patterson-endorsed Shadow reveals a ridiculously insipid tale of time travel and a character with super powers that were never in his box of tricks. The publisher disagrees with that, of course, as evidenced by this gem of a quote:

“James Patterson is the all-time master of the American thriller genre,” said Markus Grindel, Managing Director, Global Brand Licensing, Condé Nast. “The origins of that genre began with The Shadow stories of New York’s golden age. There’s a natural creative match at work here along with a significant through-line.”

If you want quality Shadow storytelling, look no further than the graphic novels published by Dynamite Entertainment. The writers over there understand the character and aren't trying to shoehorn him into idiocy for the sake of their own egos.

A Brief Excerpt from a work in Progress

 My novel, "2012/2021" hit a stall due to work obligations but I am now reading what I've written so far and resuming work on it. It is my hope that it will be "Slaughterhouse Five" or "Breakfast of Champions," which is what "Dreamers at Infinity's Core" was originally intended to be.

Below is an excerpt:

I nodded. It made sense in a...nothing-makes-sense-anymore kind of way. Tampering with the laws of nature, interrupting the flow of what Taoists call “The Way” had to come with repercussions. I had practically winked myself out of conscious existence. I couldn’t do shit about vanishing physically, so of course some meathead from the Bronx had arrived to cause me further distress.

You could set your watch by it, if people still used their watches to tell time.

Anyway.

I suppose some part of my rational being knew that didn’t explain a pudknocking thing. The very notion that the two had anything to do with each other was absurd, sort of like clown porn. It sounded interesting until the floppy shoes and wigs started bouncing up and down.

A Poem Upon Returning

 Concrete Beat

By

Christopher Nadeau

Stretching, spreading, growing,

Everywhere at once.

Weeds between the cracks, mothers with broken backs.

Cold. Hot. Always changing,

Footfalls echo, fade, recede, back and forth,

Blood everywhere, unnoticed, unrecognized, unacknowledged.

Bodies soften the surface for those whose feet,

Rarely tread upon roughness.

Sounds fill the air, the mind, the soul,

As dim light hits the eyes just right.

Addictions abound, stenches surround,

Who cares?

Does anyone care?

Did anyone ever care?

It has always been here, unfolding, enveloping.

Leading nowhere, sometimes somewhere, rarely and always

Everywhere. There. Up ahead. 

More.

Enormous, jutting things, filled with

People. Empty, unfulfilled people.

Dwelling and toiling inside the same

Material that leads to them.

Who cares?

Who gives a fuck?

Where does it end?

Shall we go for a stroll?

Rediscovering Vonnegut, Rediscovering Me

It's been a while since I posted anything here. New job responsibilities and a decision to go on a writing hiatus made it seem pointless. I even made the announcement on Facebook that I was going to stop writing for an indefinite amount of time. Then something truly miraculous happened: The world somehow went even more batshit crazy than it had before. At least, the sizable corner of it known alternately as the United States of America and 'Murica did. It was those who tend to employ the latter term whose insanity and gullibility were on equal display January 6th.

In case you're living in an alternate universe that I would very much prefer to live in, you know that was the day a horde of Donald Trump's supporters descended upon the U.S. capital and did their best French Revolution impression. People were hurt, some died, and property damage and theft rounded out the horrific triumvirate of insipidity. We had, to my way of thinking, officially entered a time where all the surface-level  BS would never return to its subterranean depths again. It was here to stay and it was only going to get worse before it got...I didn't know that it would ever get better. However, the writer in me watched with cool, dispassionate interest, cataloging and extrapolating.

I had no idea he was doing any of that. Having dived headlong into my new job, a job I love, by the way, I had, much like Luke Skywalker in "The Last Jedi," cut myself off from the Force. But the Force has other ways of reasserting itself. Much like how the character of Rey came into Luke's life to rekindle his heroism, another type of powerful influence returned to me in the form of a seemingly random audiobook selection on the shelves at work.

Those who know me, those who have read this blog, and those who have read my first novel all know my first real literary hero was Kurt Vonnegut. Despite an apparent hipster-led assault on his literary reputation over the past decade, he remains the singular influence on my writing voice and sensibility. The elitists can go to hell of they want to diminish me for that. 

Ever since the global pandemic started, I have experienced the urge to reread Vonnegut. I own most of his work. The urge usually occurs whenever I am feeling lost or needing to find my center. Other authors have come along since that fill a similar niche, but none has the powerfulness of Vonnegut's simplistic prose and grand yet grounded notions about the human condition. For most, his best work is "Slaughterhouse Five." It was the first thing I read thanks to an English Lit class. Of the five short novels we read in those 7 1/2 weeks, his was the one that prompted me to run out and buy another novel of his during the semester. 

My favorite Vonnegut novel remains "Breakfast of Champions." My own novel, "Dreamers at Infinity's Core," was an attempt to mimic the approach of Vonnegut's work and put my own stamp on it. I believe that time has come again. 

I've been listening to the audiobook during my drives to and from work. Read by gifted actor Stanley Tucci, the reading is nothing short of incredible. Unlike Ethan Hawk's ponderous monotone on "Slaughterhouse Five," Tucci understands how Vonnegut's prose should be read. Somewhere in all that brilliance, I heard the basis for a novel I have wanted to write for several years. I didn't know it until recently, but I have grown tired of treading the same familiar ground. I want to write a novel that is about something, not just reacting to it. I want the idea to be the thing, not the plot device to propel characters from scene to scene. I want dialogue to be simple but resonant, meaningful. 

Most of all, I want to write about what's going on in my head before it takes me over. And yes, I mentioned the insanity of January 6th because it will be one of two framing devices for this novel. The other is the Mayan calendar. I already know the title and it isn't going to change:

2012
2021

It's time to make Vonnegut proud~

Writing for the Interwebs: The Perfect Way to Watch your Work Disappear Forever

 Readers of this blog know I have published both fiction and non-fiction, much of the latter online. There is an accepted axiom in today's culture that "the internet is forever" but that's only true if some third party decides to take a screenshot of your work. At least, in some cases. Sometimes that person is me, but more often than not, I don't bother and my work vanishes into the ether from whence it came.

I first realized the internet was not forever when a website I'd written dozens of articles for suddenly decided to shut down and gave all of is "content generators" thirty days to grab our shit and go. In the virtual world, that equates to finding ways to screenshot all of your work before it is unceremoniously wiped from all existence.

That's not to say that print is forever, but I've reached the conclusion that there is more of a likelihood that some physical copy of one's work will still be out there somewhere. 

What prompted this, you ask? Lately I've been listening to an audiobook about Robin Williams' life and tragic demise. When he died, I was writing for the now defunct The Movie Network, whose editors encouraged every single writer to flood them with Williams articles. It was that rare moment when repetition was desired and most of us rose to the challenge. And it was a challenge.

Having anticipated that every other writer working for the site would come up with some "What Robin Williams meant to me" article, I decided to watch the movie everyone was relating to his apparent suicide, "Father of the Year." I used my review of the film (Spoiler alert: I thought it was brilliant!) as a way of talking about my own father, whose adoration of Williams had been a strong influence on my childhood. I realized rather quickly that losing Robin Williams felt like losing my dad all over again, a mixed, jumbled torrent of conflicting emotions and uncertainties once more manifesting themselves in my mind. I was older now and better equipped to handle it, but it was no less significant.

I poured everything I had into that piece and while I was paid for it, I wrote it because I had no choice. These were thoughts and feelings I had to express or risk going mad(der). I considered it one of the better things I wrote for them, and I wrote over 200 articles for them in a six month period. Don't worry. I was well-compensated. I know you were worried. But more importantly, I was pleased enough with my body of work with them, the film reviews in particular, to guide readers to them even after several of us were unceremoniously and without warning, no longer needed.

The articles remained up for years and I suppose I gave into a false sense of eternity. How easily that sense is dispelled, however, for it is gone, gone, gone. Not just the article, mind you. The website itself. Gone as if it has never existed. I don't even have an original copy of the review; my fault entirely. I am often rather lazy when it comes to my non-fiction. 

My fiction has fared better in the longevity department, but it was particularly painful when the entire website that supported one of my high water marks in the writing world vanished seemingly forever. Voluted Tales, which published six issues of my beloved "The Darkness Internal" is, alas, no more. Most of the issues featured the works of other authors but I wrote an editorial for every issue. I also conducted all of the author interviews...HEY! More lost non-fiction! See how that works?

It hurts to know so much of my work will never be read again. That doesn't mean I won't continue to have stuff published online, however. There really isn't much of a choice to be had these days, but I will hopefully be a bit smarter about preserving my work in the future.

To Every Story its Time

 It happens every time.

I hit a period of non-stop creativity where I crank out several stories at once, and then it comes to a screeching halt. Somewhere in that process, I start submitting my work to various publishers, sometimes scoring an acceptance or two early on and then...nuthin'. 

And that's okay. It stopped bothering me a while ago. My original strategy involved descending into self-loathing, rushing headlong into impostor syndrome and, when those failed, rewriting older stories until I got my mojo back. Speaking of older stories, I have a few I have been trying to get published over the years. One such work, titled, "The Gipper Memorandum," sat in my files since 2012, occasionally rearing its head whenever I felt a publisher might be interested in publishing it. 

Lately, my run of luck has been of the sucking variety. Rejections didn't exactly flood in but they definitely trickled water onto my forehead with each disappointing email. Reasons ranged from the generic "not for us" to the "man, that's good writing! Sorry, no" variety. At least one came with compliments for "parts" of the story, concluding with the painful "it's too preachy" opinion.

So, when I opened my email this morning and saw two emails from publishers to whom I'd sent stories, I assumed they too would be negative responses. The first one turned out to be simply a confirmation of receipt. The second one was an acceptance of a story that was written in 2012. 

I never lost faith in "The Gipper Memorandum" but I did reach the conclusion that it was probably a story for a short fiction collection. A so-called "Added treat" in the form of an unpublished story. But then some big shot editor had to go and accept it and ruin the surprise for everybody! 

I am, of course, beyond pleased to see one of my older stories finally get picked up. If anybodsy takes anything away from my post, make it this: Don't just leave those stories and novels in your desk drawers and on your hard drives. Assuming you tried to get them published, try again and again. Sometimes it's all about timing and, in my case, waiting until there's a fascist lunatic in charge of a country that should know better. 

I will post more anthology info for "After the Kool Aid is Gone" once it becomes known~

Getting Over the Need to Please Fanboys in Genre Writing:

 

While the assertions by many genre fiction fans that literary fiction is dead or dying are ridiculous, the fact that genre fiction has attained market dominance is most certainly not.  In fact, a 2014 report issued by the German Book Office (GBO) New York ranked fiction and “Juveniles” in its top two for 2012 and 2013, adding that, “Fiction and Juvenile genres continue to dominate the market, accounting for over 27 percent of new titles and editions in 2013.” That trend has shown no signs of slowing down either, especially considering the enormous popularity of fantasy-based television programming and pop culture monoliths such as the San Diego ComicCon.

  With the popularity of genre fiction has also come the inevitable feeling of exaggerated importance on the part of those who feel responsible for its market dominance; fanboys and fangirls.  In case you don’t know what those terms mean, the Oxford dictionary defines “fanboy” as an informal derogatory regarding, “A male fan, especially one who is obsessive about movies, comic books, or science fiction.”  The definition is incomplete, however, as its compilers overlook the genres of horror and fantasy.

With apologies to Persian Poet Muslih-ud-Din, I lamented that I was a fanboy until I started using social networking.  Yes, I’m a fan of all the genres mentioned above. Yes, I have definite and sometimes emphatic opinions about how others present my favorite characters and storylines.  However, as a writer who prefers to dwell in his own fictional universe, I am forced to bring my adoration to a screeching halt several feet from the border of irrationality so many fanboys (and girls) embrace as their Information Age right.

Simply put, there are some real nutters out there and they’ve got major buying power!

           Let’s be clear: There’s nothing wrong with feeling a sense of ownership when it comes to a series of books and its characters. One thing literary fiction readers will never understand is the sense of community and we’re-in-this-together mentality of genre fiction.  For many years, anything aside from straight-forward fiction was relegated to second-class status, with a smattering of works somehow rising “above” their perceived lower caste.  Deceased authors of speculative fiction often found themselves being “rediscovered” by those of a more literary bent, their work now available in the fiction category. As an author of genre work, I get all that. I really do.  But that doesn’t excuse the behavior so prevalent on message boards and social network sites.

            A great-fanged beast has been uncaged thanks to the perceived “power” on loan from the Web gods, and it is hell-bent on devouring anything before it that dares not agree with its views.  For those of us who seldom agree with them but still like to think of ourselves as fans, that’s rather disheartening.

            We might be a minority—although I suspect we’re actually a silent, cowed majority— but there are those of us who enjoy a good genre film or book and don’t feel the need to run around in costumes or play roleplaying games.  Some of us see it as fun or even enlightening entertainment designed for social commentary as well as thrills, still holding out hope that the stories being told can help humanity grow and learn from its mistakes as well as its accomplishments.  Pleasant diversions aside, the inmates are not merely running the asylum; they’re also running the town outside its walls.

            So, what does all this mean for those of us toiling away to supposedly make a difference and, in our lofty inner worlds, keep things elevated?

            The first and most important thing is to not allow any of that to sway us from our chosen paths.  Much has been made in the creative fields of not “selling out,” and while it’s a cliché, it would be a disservice to writers everywhere to deny its inherent value as a sentiment.  The very fact that you are contemplating the consequences of doing it means there’s some level of integrity others might not share. It also means you should stick to your guns and follow your heart and several other horribly unoriginal sayings I refuse to employ in this sentence.

            The fanboy might seem loyal and committed, but he is often fickle and on the cusp of turning his back.  Last year’s hot premise is this year’s mocked dying fad.  Remember those sparkly vampires?  How many imitators made a significant impact on the publishing industry?

            It simply cannot be said often enough that a writer’s time is better spent developing her own ideas rather than trying to create the next pop culture event based on what’s already popular.  Don’t worry about pleasing the fanboys; if what you’re doing is something they can claim they were into before it was cool, they will find you.

            Remember: They should be following you, not the other way around.

 

Authors Daring to have Opinions: The Scourge of Complacency

This just in: A successful author made comments about a controversial topic that didn't line up with many of their fans' expectations! It's never happened before. Human beings always performs exactly the way we expect and never disappoint us. This is especially true of famous people, whose only function and role is to please us and validate whatever we believe. At least, that's how the Fates intended it.

In grown-up reality, however, there are occasional aberrations that result in some uppity creative type going against the grain. Obviously it's a terrible thing. After all, where would we be if so-called thinkers such as Gore Vidal, James Baldwin, Margaret Atwood and Harlan Ellison had had opinions and thoughts of their own? They were wise enough to know better and conducted themselves like proper extensions of their readers' wills and desires. I shudder to think of a mouthy Harlan Ellison or a scathing Vidal. What about a Baldwin or Atwood who actually decided to shine a light on the inequities of society? Yikes!

If writing is exclusively for comfort zones and turn-off-your-brains entertainment, and it is, then obviously the writer's thoughts are, too.

Sadly, this particular author forgot their station in life as "the entertainment" and shared opinions that upset tons of readers to the point where they began  feeling traumatized. Their childhoods had been ruined, you see. This author's books were a way of life for them, as evidenced by their shared desire to reenact them, dress like the characters, and make obnoxious references to them as if everyone knew what the hell they were talking about. This presumptuous author ruined all that with comments that forced these readers to re-examine the very foundation of their fandom. And then, the inevitable calls for censorship started.

I too was brainwashed at one time into thinking the free expression of ideas was a positive. I readily embraced those insipid words sung by Andy Partridge of XTC:

I believe the printed word is more than sacred
Beyond the gauge of good or bad
The human right to let your soul fly free and naked
Above the violence of the fearful and sad

What ridiculous tripe. Everybody knows words are supposed to comfort us, make us feel good about ourselves and never, ever, laugh at us when they see us naked. And because I now understand an opinion-free life is a life lived well, the very notion of someone discussing issues I am passionate about in any way that isn't how I like to hear them discussed makes me projectile vomit like a malfunctioning lawn sprinkler.

In addition to my more enlightened understanding regarding opinions, I have also come around to understanding that anything I object to on philosophical grounds deserves swift and merciless action. For famous authors, that can only mean one thing. Boycotting. Censure is the key to silencing those who drain the precious fluids from our sacred cows and nothing hurts them more than encouraging a total halt to all purchasing of books, movies and anything else the author has created. That'll learn 'em to mess with us morally superior types.

But, wait. There's more.

You might think it's only philosophically and ethically consistent if the aforementioned censorship occurs by completely cutting off all connection to the author's material, no matter how meaningful or impactful it was for you. Maybe you've even let Big Fiction convince you that it's unethical to still embroil yourself in the fandom of an author you now find repulsive. Don't listen to that nonsense. Listen instead to the group that says it's okay to enjoy the work as long as you never pay for it. And it's even more better-er if you take that person's work for your own and rewrite it to better match your sensibilities. It doesn't matter if the author is the only reason for you being able to do that. They shouldn't have opined. It's not hypocritical! Shut up! It is not!

No, you're acting like a child! You! 

Is there a spot, or a room of some kind where I can go inside and feel safe from all these contrary ideas? While there, I will work on my magnum opus, a novel that doesn't offend anyone, never makes the reader think or question anything, and agrees with whoever is reading it at the time. And if I fail, have no fear. You can feel justified in taking my hard work, changing it to something else, and never paying me a dime.

Just like Buddha...

And probably Jesus.