HOW TO BE AN AUTHOR

Roger Zelazny, ghost here.

You scoff.  Be my guest ...

it makes it so much easier for us.

There is more to reality than you are capable of comprehending ...

after all, you are but flesh.

In like manner, there is more to becoming an Author than being a mere Writer.

 You and the rest of mankind, are quite sure what is possible and what is impossible.

In the daylight.

 When the night descends, the stride of your thoughts is not quite so confident.

Not so Roland.

He is much like an animal. I do not mean that as an insult.

He takes what comes at face value, not forcing it to fit into any preconceived notions Man teaches as Science.

He deals with what comes without protesting that it cannot be, only seeing what is and adapting.

Perhaps that is why we ghosts are drawn to him. In him is that quality that Stubbs expressed in MOBY DICK:

“I know not what all may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”

Not that he is overly optimistic about the world around him.

 

Despite being part Lakota Sioux, he still reads the Bible by his bedside. He often quotes:

“They sleep not, except that they have done mischief;
And their sleep is taken away unless they cause
Some to fall.

For they eat the bread of wickedness
And drink the wine of violence.”

That is Proverbs 4:16-17 for those of you interested in such things.

In life I was not.

I thought the love of God was like the light burning from the stars:

cold and distant.

Now, that I am a ghost …. but no.

There are secrets the dead may not share with the living.

But the secrets on how to write well … they I can share with you.

Oh, you are wondering who Roger Zelazny is.

Don’t be embarrassed. In life I wondered the same thing.

Once the name, Roger Zelazny, drew crowds.

I made somewhat of a splash in Science Fiction in the sixties,

 

endured and evolved in the seventies and eighties.

 

 I went the way of all flesh mid-way through the nineties in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

And Roland mourned me as a distant older brother gone over the crest of the hill before him, leaving him cold and alone.

Oh, and I inspired him to take up the pen and follow my steps into weaving tales in the genre I call Science Fantasy.

That I sparked the idea in him to be a writer drew me to him.

It was his gentle, quiet, amused nature that has made me stay.

 

  He looks on all the awkwardness of life with a sly smile that says, “You expected water to run uphill?”

Another more important question:

What makes one tale live, vibrant and riveting, and another merely flat, lifeless words on paper?

Not that any of us have a sure idea, although the ghost of Hemingway is glaring at me.

 

But we had a close enough glimpse of the answer to make a living at what we loved to do:

 Write.

What is the answer?

A joyous cry: “Come see what I found!”

If you can bring anew the childlike sense of wonder and awe to your readers that the poisons of living have drained from them,

 

 you will have a loyal following that will not quit.

What words will do that?

Certainly not the same sing-song repeat and rinse of someone else’s bestseller.

The words must tilt the reader’s expectations on its ear. Did you notice I said reader?

Not readers.

You are talking to only one at the campfire of their imagination and curiosity. If you think of your audience as readers, you will talk AT them not TO them.

The author/reader relationship is intimate: friend to friend. “Look at this, man!”

One friend sharing with another something fantastic and wondrous:

The meaning of life in the skating sparks of the sun along the uneven facets of a piece of rock candy …

or striking fire down the razored spirals of a unicorn’s tusk.

If you are drawn to write, you do not need to be told the basics. You already have absorbed them from the masters:

Stirring plots, memorable characters, and absorbing ideas.

You must tap the humanity of the situations, of the people struggling against the tide of events.

Remember this is the Microwave Culture.

Your prose must be lean and spare, yet sing with the poetry of mystery and suspense. How do you do that?

Mind your surroundings.

Nothing is ever wasted to a real writer. Circumstances suggest. Events coalesce.

 

The story will begin to flow like a shadow along the floor of your unconscious.

Once you have seen their shapes, the stories will exist as ghosts for you until you have pinned them to the paper.

 

Perhaps that is why there are so many ghosts of writers in the Shadowlands.

We made our living from ghosts, so reciprocity demands its due.

Sometimes you will have to post a Help Wanted Ad in your unconscious to apply for positions in the story and events that have called out to you.

Do not worry. Within the hour, your unconscious mind will have them lining up for you to consider.

Read your work aloud.

Hear the clumsy prose misstep that jars your ears? A sentence is too long? Make them two. A word unneeded? Remove it.

 

 Sand your prose as a sculptor would his carving.

Give your characters life by giving them a new take on what it means to be human, to be fully alive.

 

Most people you pass on the streets are sleepwalking from long years of debt and unfulfilled passion.

Give them hope that there is more out there, that each corner could reveal the start of an adventure that might shorten their lives but awaken their souls.

Do that and you will become more than a writer. You will become an author.
***

CALL ME KAI-YOTE

Coyote here.

You say that in two sounds
not three, two-leggeds. 

Surprised to see me here? 

Buddha on a pogo-stick! 

But Roland sure has been grim these past two days.  And I do not do grim!

Time for me to liven things up as only Coyote can.

You say you don't believe in me?  Wonderful! 

When that good-looking hombre saddles up beside you tomorrow night in your favorite bar, you may sing a different tune in the morning.

But you'll be smiling. 

Don't go glaring at me like that, Alice.  I am always true to my nature ...

except when I'm not.

You wonder how I know Victor's ghoul friend? 

Well, now, there are a pack of tales how that came about.  You can find one in THE THREE SPIRIT KNIGHT:

http://www.amazon.com/THE-THREE-SPIRIT-KNIGHT-ebook/dp/B00AD94EQE/ref=pd_sim_kstore_3

{Cover courtesy Leonora Roy}

Let me tell you another one.  I'll even call it "ANOTHER ONE":

One morning in a Time that could have been but wasn't, yet might still be, Coyote paddled his canoe furiously down the River Lethe.

He glanced cautiously over his shoulder many times. At the shore a blonde ghoul, yes, children, ghoul, called out, "Oh, sir! We are being chased!"

Coyote snorted, "Me, too, ghoul. Every legend for himself I say."

The young gypsy beside the ghoul laughed, tossing a ball bearing up in the air. "I say that you would hate a hole in your canoe."

Coyote smiled wide with all his sharp teeth, "I like you."

Coyote looked at the ghoul skeptically. "Will you make a meal of me if I let you in?"

The gypsy laughed, "She already had her fill of finger sandwiches ... Trojan fingers."

Coyote winked at her. "I begin to like you, too, The Wentworth."

The ghoul gasped, "You know me?"

Coyote laughed as he pulled up to the shore, "I always know what I need to ... unless I don't."

A splash of water, a swirl of skirt, and a leap of legs later, and the gypsy and the ghoul sat behind Coyote.

"Oh, you are naked!" squealed the ghoul.

Coyote nodded happily, "Under my fur I surely am."

The gypsy grunted, "You've lost one of your tails, too."

The ghoul frowned, "What do you mean 'one,' Victor?"

The gypsy laughed, "Well, Alice, he is sitting on one tail but the bushy one seems to have slipped its moorings."

Coyote sighed, "Don't remind me."

The ghoul named Alice grew sad. "How did that happen?"

Coyote laughed bitterly. "There I was fighting a river monster when the most beautiful fox woman strolled on the shore with her canoe to stare at my wonderfulness."

The gypsy named Victor arched an eyebrow. "That's what you call it, huh?"

Alice slapped his arm and said, "Do go on, sir."

"Well," said Coyote, "the monster must have never seen a naked fox woman before and bellowed, 'Another one!'"

Coyote smiled at the memory. "I took the opportunity to drive my spear into his heart."

He shook his furry head. "I turned to the fox woman and said, 'Thank you for the distraction, Another One.'"

Coyote snorted, "She told me her name was not 'Another One' but Inari and took my lovely tail."

Coyote chuckled, "So I took her canoe and came away with wisdom as well."

"What wisdom, sir?" asked the ghoul named Alice.

Coyote turned and winked at her. "The problem for us two-leggeds is that too often we let monsters tell us who we are."

10 WAYS TO GET NOTICED AS A BLOGGER

Ten years ago, it was easy to stand out as a blogger simply because the number of blogs in any niche was limited.

Today, this is certainly not the case.

BUT YOU CAN GET NOTICED. HERE'S HOW:

1.) Write great headlines

There’s no faster way to catch the attention of people in your niche than an intriguing headline. But you have to play fair and have your content match the eye-grabbing headline.

The title needs to have keywords that will be noticed by the search engines but it needs to also entice the readers to go to the site to read it.

Weak –

Do You Need an Editor for your Book? (it has a keyword but no call to action)

Good –

The Top 10 Reasons You Should Get Your Book Edited.

2. ) Be controversial

People love posts with strong opinions. But beware: titles like I EAT KITTEN BRAINS will draw traffic and comments ... and really trollish remarks.

The post “Why 150 Followers Is All You Really Need” from Srini Rao is old,

but a good example of constructive controversy. 

Writing this post, Srini had to have known that some people wouldn’t like it. Most Twitter tips are about how to get more followers. 

But within the post, he used examples to back up his opinion, and the post was about starting a conversation about why we care so much about quantity and ignore quality.

3.) Create other forms of content, rather than just blog posts

You really can build an audience from scratch if you’re everywhere doing lots of different things at once.

eBooks, audiobooks, guest posts, eZines, anthologies, pod casts, trailers, and speaking engagements.

4.) Be the first to cover a news topic

This might seem impossible, but if you’re diligent about staying on top of what’s going on in your niche, you can often beat other bloggers to the story.

Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and get some relevant quotes from valuable sources.

Old school reporting is something other bloggers might be too lazy to do – they’ll just link to you instead.

5.) Do something wacky and different

Why should someone want to read the same-old same-old?

It is why I have the ghosts of famous writers and historical personages drop in for a chat on my blog. It fits in with the haunted jazz club, Meilori's, that figures large in most of my novels.

It's not something you see on any other blog, and it ties in with my other protagonists and storylines.

6.) Fill a gap

Don’t just start another social media blog. Find your unique spin — something no one else is doing.

And if you can, be funny/humorous about it. You don't have to be a stand-up comedian --

just a little funny will seem hilarious compared with most of the somber stuff out there. :-)

7.) Participate in blog hops

These are similar to link parties and specifically set up to help you find new blogs to follow (and hopefully have others find your blog too).

Go to Google, write in Blog Hops, and get started.

8.) . Write guest posts on other blogs

Individually, guest posts aren’t a big deal, but if you start posting dozens of them across a single niche, people start to recognize your name,

which means they’ll be more likely to check our your blog.

9.) Comment on other blogs consistently

One comment isn’t going to get you much traffic,

but if you become part of a community, others who are fans of the blog will start to recognize your name.

10.) Mention other bloggers

If you can’t interview others, at least mention them on your blog, and don’t be afraid to let them know when they’ve been mentioned.

Alex Cavanaugh is great at this and at having guest-posters and letting his blog be a spotlight for other writers.

I've written entire posts that sprang from a blogger comment to another post and linked their blog in my post.

LET ME SAY A GOOD WORD FOR SUICIDE

 

Ghost of Hemingway here.

 

I noticed yesterday as I read Roland's computer journal

 

he wrote of suicide.

I have a good word to say for suicide --

 

Three actually

 

I committed suicide at the age of sixty-one.

If you are considering suicide ...


PAUSE.

 

REFLECT.

 

RECONSIDER.


Most gut-wrenching problems you encounter will thankfully be short-term ...

 

although the darkness they give birth to seems to threaten to last forever.

 

Do not choose a solution for them that is
long term and permanent.


The good thing about suicide is that you can always do it tomorrow.

The overlooked thing about suicide is that it is infectious.


There have been five suicides in the Hemingway family over four generations --

my father, Clarence;

my siblings Ursula, Leicester ... myself;

saddest of all, my granddaughter Margaux.


The generation skipped was not. Not really:


My youngest son, Gregory, died in 2001 as a transsexual named Gloria, of causes that make a mockery of the term "natural."


I recall the time that I, in one of my arm-around-shoulder moods,

congratulated him for his fine attempt at a short story, which Greg had stolen word for word from Turgenev --

one of the masters I prided myself on knowing.


Yes, I knew he had done it.

But I was trying to ... to build a bridge I had torn down with my own actions and words.


One moment cast a shadow, one long enough for Greg to write that he was glad that I was dead so
"I couldn't disappoint Papa any more."

The moment came on Greg's last visit just after the death of Greg's mother, Pauline.

She died suddenly, about the time Greg had gotten into trouble
for taking drugs.
I was raw with the loss.

His visit to my home in Cuba went well for a time only because I kept biting my tongue.

Greg confided his plans for medical school.
If only he had kept his mouth shut after that,
but no,
he always had to speak that one word too many.


He spoke of his drug incident.

"It wasn't so bad, really, Papa," he said.

"No? Well, it killed Mother," I said.

He left. I never saw him again.

Anger.
Depression.

Those are the monsters you have to kill,
not some mindless elephant or lion.

I remember those heads of tigers and lions
I kept on my wall.
I can still see in my mind
the Marlins mounted next to them.

Why?

I told reporters because they reminded me of their fierce beauty.

A lie.

I thought my mother beautiful.

 

I kept photographs of her.


I felt a man when I looked at the evidence of my skill, my bravery.

Bravery?

If they held rifles that could shoot back,
then I would have been brave.



Tame the anger, the depression in your own soul.
You will bag the biggest, deadliest game in the world.

That is how you prove your worth ...

and save those around you from the poison you would otherwise feed into their souls.

{The photo of Hemingway is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed.}
 

FREE!

http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/

 



.

                                                                  

Here is my 303 word entry, FREE

The fireworks were spectacular.

That was my word for the day. Spectacular. I had another word picked for tonight.

Free.

Mama told me sitting on this sil was dangerous. I could fall off and kill myself. That was funny and sad at the same time.

Funny in that my window being so high above the other apartment buildings made for a …

spectacular view of these fiery (that had been last night’s word) comets going off so bright in the darkness.

Sad in that there were worse things than dying. I flinched as I heard Mama’s boyfriend yell louder just beyond my door where Mama stood.

Yeah, there was living.

At first, she just cried when Dr. Doom, as I called her boyfriend, started … visiting my room late at night.

When I started to walk funny, she seemed to find courage from somewhere and tried to stop him.

Not that it worked. He was bigger and meaner than Mama.

Oooh!

That was a big cloud of fireworks. It seemed to just spread out across the whole dark night …

like the fear in my chest was spreading as I heard Dr. Doom yell even louder.

I studied the fireworks leaping and flaring like some ballet of fiery angels. I jerked as I heard Mama yelp and hit the floor hard.

The exploding stars of green, red, and gold seemed to call out to me.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw her boyfriend lumber into the room like some mean bear.

I smiled and sighed. Time for my word of the night. I tumbled off the sil into the darkness.

I spread my arms wide as if I were flying.

The wind caressed my hair, my face. I closed my eyes and smiled bigger.

I was free. Free! Fre ….

**

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

"My country is at present spoiled by prosperity, stupid with the lust of gain, soiled by crime in its willing perpetuation of slavery, shamed by an unjust war,

noble sentiment much forgotten even by individuals, the aims of politicians selfish or petty, the literature frivolous and venal.

She is not dead, but in my time she sleepeth, and the spirits of our fathers flame no more, but lies hid beneath the ashes.

It will not be so long; bodies cannot live when the soul gets too overgrown with gluttony and falsehood."
—the American writer-reformer Margaret Fuller, in a letter written April 19, 1848. (She is also a continuing heroine in many of my novels.)




In November of 1959, another author, John Steinbeck, wrote a letter to his friend, Adlai Stevenson:


New York
1959
Guy Fawkes Day

Dear Adlai,

Back from Camelot, and, reading the papers, not at all sure it was wise. Two first impressions.

First, a creeping, all pervading nerve-gas of immorality which starts in the nursery and does not stop before it reaches the highest offices both corporate and governmental.

Two, a nervous restlessness, a hunger, a thirst, a yearning for something unknown—perhaps morality.

Then there's the violence, cruelty and hypocrisy symptomatic of a people which has too much, and last, the surly ill-temper which only shows up in humans when they are frightened.

Adlai, do you remember two kinds of Christmases?

There is one kind in a house where there is little and a present represents not only love but sacrifice. The one single package is opened with a kind of slow wonder, almost reverence.

Once I gave my youngest boy, who loves all living things, a dwarf, peach-faced parrot for Christmas. He removed the paper and then retreated a little shyly and looked at the little bird for a long time.

And finally he said in a whisper, "Now who would have ever thought that I would have a peach-faced parrot?"

Then there is the other kind of Christmas with present piled high, the gifts of guilty parents as bribes because they have nothing else to give. The wrappings are ripped off and the presents thrown down and at the end the child says—"Is that all?"

Well, it seems to me that America now is like that second kind of Christmas. Having too many THINGS they spend their hours and money on the couch searching for a soul. A strange species we are.

We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.

Mainly, Adlai, I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. I do not think it can survive on this basis and unless some kind of catastrophe strikes us, we are lost.

But by our very attitudes we are drawing catastrophe to ourselves. What we have beaten in nature, we cannot conquer in ourselves.

Someone has to reinspect our system and that soon.

We can't expect to raise our children to be good and honorable men when the city, the state, the government, the corporations all offer higher rewards for chicanery and deceit than probity and truth.

On all levels it is rigged, Adlai. Maybe nothing can be done about it, but I am stupid enough and naively hopeful enough to want to try. How about you?

Yours,

John

How would you respond to Steinbeck if you were Adlai? 

If you were just you? 

Is  there an answer?

Or is it just the nature of Man?

WE ARE BUT FLAMES

 

Flames appear to be objects ... but they are instead a process.

   As are we ourselves.  We appear to be permanent, but we are in flux constantly.

Have you seen MIDNIGHT IN PARIS?

 

The Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, and the other lost generation in Paris lived in the moment as if the moment would never end. 

All moments do.  That is why we are a process not objects.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story collection ironically titled,Taps at Reveille, 

the last of his books to appear before his death in 1940, was published on this day in 1935.

His New York Times obituary notice used it to book-end what was described as a short, sad writing life.

Fitzgerald described himself as “a cracked plate” — emotionally and professionally deserving to be shelved, though not discarded.

Hemingway viewed Fitzgerald’s comments as sentimental, self-absorbed and in the worst style of giving up.

(Another irony that followed the Lost Generation.)

Unwilling to let his former friend have his self-images:

the cracked plate, or the Taps at Reveille soldier who would trumpet his own interment.

Hemingway published “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” a few months later. It presents Fitzgerald as the hunter-writer who has lost his talent for the kill.

Bet you didn't know that fact about Hemingway's short story, did you?

Fitzgerald and Hemingway first met in April 1925.

At the time, Hemingway, who had been working as a journalist, had only published a handful of stories and poems, a total of eighty-eight pages.

 Fitzgerald on the other hand was the author of three published novels, two short story collections and countless individual stories.

The meeting between the writers led to a tumultuous friendship often characterized by insecurity and jealousy – a friendship that would affect not only the two men, but their writing as well.

Fitzgerald and Hemingway were close during those first years of friendship. As Hemingway’s literary career continued to prosper,

he became increasingly resentful of those peers who had originally helped to propel his star:

Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and especially Fitzgerald took the brunt of Hemingway’s cutting words.

While Fitzgerald was there for Hemingway when he needed support, Hemingway did not return the favor.

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.

We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

                           - Albert Schweitzer

 

What people are you thankful for in your life?

 

What places, moments, and life stage?

 

Have you taken time to give thanks to those people, to look beneath the surface to see if they stand in need?