The Confabulator Cafe

Blog

  • My Mistakes

    I bang my head against the fuselage as I board the plane, reminding me that I am probably making a mistake.

    “Oh, didn’t see that comin’, did ya?” says a short, pudgy flight attendant. She laughs. Her permed red hair jiggles. Her chubby cheeks squeeze her eyes closed. She looks like a less-charming Edie McClurg, the secretary from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I caddied for Edie once.

    I grin and don’t say anything. If there is one thing I’ve learned in my twenty years of Hollywood, it’s that no one wants to hear it unless you are famous. I’m no one. I work my way towards my seat, clutching my leather journal, the only thing I am taking onto the plane. The overhead bins are too small for standard carry-on baggage. In a stroke of airline industry genius, they slapped a carry-on sticker on the side, and then checked it with the rest of my luggage.

    My seat looks out the window, over the wing. I have barely sat down when I am introduced to my neighbor, a man of roughly three hundred pounds whose ass oozes over the seat. His love handles engulf the armrests, slowly devouring them like The Blob. I wedge my hand into God knows what fold, searching for the other end of my seat belt. Where is Steve McQueen when you need him? Steve shook my hand once. I told him I hoped I was half as successful as he was. He said, “Kid, I hope you are half as successful as me, too.” (more…)

  • Exhausted Beauty

    From sunup to sundown her schedule was packed. Lessons, tea with simpering ladies, gentleman callers, luncheon, prayer, followed by a light dinner and hours of primping and prepping for whichever soiree she was to attend that night. She could not recall the last time she slept the night through. It had to have been before she was presented at court. Princess Aurora, the crown princess.

    She was sick of it all. The dances, the ladies, the teas, the gentlemen, the late nights.

    In her youth, she heard tales of princesses who cast off their duties and went on adventures. It sounded so grand to her back then. For weeks she had pestered the fencing master to instruct her. Eventually he caved and the next day she could barely move her arms they were so sore.

    No, a life of adventure was not for her. Rather, she longed for a night of slumber. (more…)

  • The Ship

    The kid reminded me of myself, so long ago. The way he leaned against the railing was the way I leaned against the railing, back when leaning against things was something done out of convenience instead of necessity. His eyes moved quick over the pods, trying to count them all, to take it all in, just like I did when I first woke up.

    “How many are there?” he asked. It was my first question too.

    “In this room, sixty five thousand, five hundred and thirty six.” I knew he wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t believe it at first either, until I had counted them, adding my mark to each pod in order to keep track of them. My mark, added to the hundreds that already decorated each pod.

    The expected second question came. “How many rooms?”
    (more…)

  • Quote Me On That

    “Quotes are nothing but inspiration for the uninspired.” – Richard Kemph, writer and retired British military Commander.

    I love quotes. If you have followed this site from the beginning, you might remember that my posts always began with a quote. I would find some insightful nugget that illustrated my point and tag it to the top of the page. There is something spectacular about a good quote. They seem to transcend time and genre.

    That being said, you might be surprised that I don’t keep track of them. I don’t write down lines that struck me as interesting. I don’t note interesting quotes I find. I enjoy them for the minutes, and then I kick them loose. If I am looking for a quote on a specific topic, I use it and send it on its way. When reading, I rarely underline or make notes unless I will be doing literary criticism on that particular work.

    Quotes might be useful, but in the hierarchy of creative inspiration, they rank pretty low. They are just sort of a fun afterthought, like the mint at the bottom of the Sonic bag. It’s like finding a penny on the ground. Its a nice surprise, but it has to be pretty shiny for me to pick up.

    The way I see it, I absorb everything I read on either a conscious or subconscious level. Whether I actively remember it or not, it is drifting around my head, adding to the creative mix, waiting for its moment. For example, I recently read Cover by Jack Ketchum. I adore Jack Ketchum’s work. His stories are haunting, but quite honestly I couldn’t remember a single phrase from the story. I remembered the book. I remembered a strong emotional connection. I didn’t remember a single line of actual writing.

    Part of that is Ketchum’s writing style. He never gets in the way of his characters, letting them take the stage while never drawing attention to himself. It’s a spectacular talent, and there are lots of writers who don’t have it. You are sucked into the story to such a depth that it stops being sentences on paper. Ketchum is capable of good one-liners. Looking up his quotes, you have such lines as “Black coffee’s a lot like whiskey, you know? All devil and no trimmin’s. Always liked my sins pure and take it as it comes” (from Off Season). Or, “As though all the world were a bad joke and she was the only one around who knew the punchline” (from The Girl Next Door, along with its haunting opening line “You think you know about pain?”)

    When I have a truly good connection to a book, I don’t have the time to write down an interesting quote, anymore than the guy wearing the clown-wig and foam hands in the endzone has time to write down Tom Brady’s yards per attempt. I have to get to the next page, and anything that slows me down is my enemy.

    I write the same way that I read, at a breakneck pace, as if typing under a million words a minute will let the demons catch me. I write with emotion-filled desperation. I don’t worry about being clever. I leave that for rewrites. Quotes, while fun, are just a small part of my emotional gasoline. I wander into the fumes, strike a match, and just hope make it out alive.

     

  • So Not Worried About This

    The question before me this week is about the future of publishing, and honestly, I couldn’t care less about the future of publishing [0].

    People are worried about the effects of Internet-mediated business cycle disruption. The thing about disruptive technologies is that they’re disruptive— they shake things up, move them about, force them to do the hokey-pokey when they’d really rather not dance. The people most likely to be hurt are those who are most invested in the old ways of doing things. They’ve built their business model on the tried and true and will not be moved, in the hope that past performance is a predictor of future success and all that. Above all, they want stability, predictability, and a steadily increasing cash flow.

    I am old enough to remember when the Internet was being hailed as the great bypasser of traditional gatekeepers (in this case, the publishers), giving artists the opportunity to market directly to the public. And to a certain extent, that happens quite a bit. You don’t have to get hired by a major metropolitan newspaper to get your opinions on the issues of the day in front of readers anymore— you just have to start a blog. You can turn your Nanowrimo novel into a .pdf or .mobi file and distribute it basically for free, and maybe even earn a few bucks in the process.

    But here’s the thing. Bypassing the gatekeepers— becoming your own publisher— has been happening for centuries. All you needed was access to a printing press/mimeograph/photocopier. You could create newsletters/fanzines/chapbooks to your heart’s content, in small press runs, at very low cost. And you could even make a few bucks selling them at the comic book shop/convention/paranoid conspiracy gun show. People still do that today. If you wanted a little more polish, you could hire or barter for editing and layout work, and pay for a hardbound vanity press edition. These days you set up a CafePress store or similar, and you won’t even have to clean out enough room in your garage to store boxes of books or haul them around in your trunk.

    What the publisher provides isn’t the physical (or these days, electronic) object. They don’t just stand between author and reader, collecting tolls. Publishers are middlemen, yes, but value-added middlemen. An author signs a contract (after reading it very carefully first, natch) that provides not only an audience for his work, but also quality control and marketing. The reader picks up the book expecting a certain baseline quality of story, grammar, and presentation. Furthermore, the publisher’s brand helps the reader find a book they’re likely to enjoy even if they’re not familiar with the author.

    That’s what a brand is, you see. A guarantee of a certain quality of a product line. You wouldn’t expect Proctor and Gamble, manufacturer of household cleaning supplies, to build a decent car, and you wouldn’t expect Ford Motor Company to know from a good horror story. So if you want a book about exploding spaceships or elves in the urban jungle, you’d buy something from Baen. If you want a steamy but traditional romance, Harlequin or Avon. And when you need to fall asleep easily with no nasty side effects, pick up something from Oxford University Press.

    There’s only one thing that matters, which is that writers want to make stories, and readers want to read stories, and somehow they’ll figure the rest of it out. Publishers of today don’t look a lot like publishers of 100 years ago, and certainly won’t look anything like publishers 100 years hence. I am fairly certain, though, that there will be some kind of middleman who helps the writer and reader find one another. Today it’s a publisher. Tomorrow it might be an expert system.

    [0] My opinion is privileged by the fact that I have no current intention of ever dipping my toe into the business end of literature, and especially not to earn a living at it. My fiction writing is a hobby and an exploration of art and craft. My nonfiction writing earns me a modest salary. My reading is wide-ranging and multi-sourced.

  • Without a Notebook

    Some people have notebooks they fill with quotes, ones from celebrities, political figures, other writers, even their moms. I’m not one of those people. While I might be momentarily inspired by something I read or hear, it is not lasting. Going back to the same words of encouragement do nothing for me.

    I generally find inspiration from new situations and new experiences. Or barring that from favorite books. A notebook filled with “you can do it” only makes me feel worse when I continuously fail. (more…)

  • TAG

    EXHIBIT A. Transcription of Subject’s Yellow Post-It Notes

    Dear Tag,

    I bought a ficus. I thought it might cheer things up around here. Please remember to water it. I cleaned up the spilled beer in the refrigerator. Please be more careful. It got on the strawberries.

     

    Theodore,

    The ficus is dead. Not sure what happened, but that thing is shit brown and crispy. I puked behind the couch. Couldn’t make it to the bathroom. I must be coming down with something. We’re out of beer.

    (more…)

  • On the Proper Treatment of Plucky Girl Sidekicks

    Susie Safflower surreptitiously tested the ropes tying her to the chair. They seemed a little looser on the left. She’s have to keep that in mind.

    “Mwuaha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I, the Dark Nemesis, have you completely in my power!”

    Susie’s bosom heaved with agitation. A comely sweat bespangled her brow. “What… what do you intend to do with me?” she cried.

    “Why, I shall use you for my pleasure— as bait in my trap for Captain Awesome!” Dark Nemesis cackled again.

    “Oh!” Susie breathed. “You horrible, horrible villain! You would never harm a helpless woman!”
    “Well, of course not,” Dark Nemesis said in a more normal tone of voice. “I was raised never to hit girls. Mom always wanted me to be a gentleman, and she was right. Manners are so important, don’t you think?”

    Well, yes,” Susie agreed. “You do have lovely manners.”

    “Thank you, my dear. One does so hate to make a poor first impression.”

    “Why, only last week when I was held captive by the Avenger of Doom…”

    (more…)

  • At the Edge

    The edge of the cliff stared back at me, daring me. Just three short steps would bring me to it. A fourth would send me careening over the edge. “Jump wide. You don’t want to hit the side of the cliff on the way down.” The advice reverberated in my mind. Jump wide. Cautiously I crept up to the ledge and stared down.

    It was farther than I thought it would be. There were jagged outcroppings that I was sure to crash into.

    I didn’t want to reach the bottom broken and bloody.

    I should have brought somebody with me. Somebody to pressure me into going through with it.

    This was the last thing left.

    (more…)

  • First-person, Past Tense: Playing to My Strengths

    I am a slave to first-person point of view.

    As I’ve said before, whenever I write a story, I want to connect with the reader. I like the storyteller approach, and I want the audience to feel like I’m talking directly to them, or at least give the illusion that my main character is.

    For me, first-person point of view is the ideal vehicle to accomplish this. First-person is a “warmer” viewpoint than third-person in that it provides direct access to a character’s thoughts and feelings. It makes it easier to sympathize with a protagonist if a reader is experiencing his or her trials and tribulations in real time. (As much as reader time is real time.)

    I can, and have, written in third-person, but when I do, I am very aware of an increased distance between myself and the story. I’m not as in tune with my characters, and the feelings and reactions I write in third-person never seem quite as authentic as they do when I’m tooling around in a first-person protagonist’s head.

    (more…)