Somethings of Interest

I’ve been a little absent online these days.  I pop up for a few things. But I’ve been busy with family things and life things and writerly things, but I wish I was doing more of the latter than I am.  I’m still working on the balance.  I pulled back on my writing because there were problems on the homefront.  Kids who needed mom to not only be physically present, but mentally too and the house which had gone through a period of months of neglect (more due to illness and being too tired to get to it) was becoming a source of contention around here.

The good news is I think I’m a bit more balanced now.  And we’re all happier.  I have my kids started back down a path that is good for them and me and the house now looks like it should be lived in and not just existed in.

As an aside, Dean Wesley Smith spent the last ten days ghost writing a novel and let everyone in for a peek.  He shows how life isn’t about one thing.  He’s a professional writer, but he teaches, edits, publishes, comes up with new ideas and acts on them. And he naps with a cat and sits around and watches bad tv too.  It’s not about being myopic and thinking in terms of all or nothing. It’s about doing the things in your life that mean the most to you.  Its about returning to the work the means the most.  On a conscious level committing to the return even when you momentarily walk away.

The first day is here  (I’ll let your capable minds find the rest of the days).  The best parts about these posts are the questions and comments at the end so don’t skimp and just read the posts (there is a lot so pace yourself – you don’t have to read it all in one sitting).  The blog entries and the comments take on the creative/creator myths and knocks them down nicely one by one.

I am very grateful for Dean’s transparency and letting us peek at his days because  I’m not someone who can be told and get it (I’m probably just too stubborn sometimes) — I have to be shown for my brain to say ‘ahhh- right now — got it’ .  Honestly I’ve done what he does, I just forgot I used to do it.  I did it and it wasn’t very showy and I wrote a lot, but then I forgot the process.  Simple.

I also wanted to give you a link to a blog that I find very helpful.  The Camp Creek blog was originally aimed at homeschoolers, but has evolved and expanded to everyone who is a self-directed learner and even that is a little misleading of a description.  It is useful for anyone who is creating their life around an idea that you can prioritize and even make money from something you love to do and which the path may be something each person has to find for themselves.  But it is not a blog that inspires you to death, but leaves you empty handed — you know the type where they give you speeches and ‘rah, rah you’re wonderful and unique’ ‘go for the gold’ stuff.  It’s solid information that you can use every day stuff and things to think about stuff.

As caveat I want to say  I’m not really big into self-help books or blogs.  When I was young my older sister used to devour self-help books and go to seminars spending hundreds (maybe thousands) of dollars  and hours of time and she never seemed to get further along.  In fact I thought she was fine and more productive before she started with all that stuff.  And then I had kids and started with my first ‘mommy help’ book — you know the ‘oh, wow I’m pregnant now show me what to do book’ and that lead to a multiple year jaunt of books and hours of time wasted on these books, blogs, and message boards about this and other topics of information aimed at reinforcing the idea that a person can’t figure out life on their own without the help of a good book/blog telling them what to do.

I no longer read those books or blogs and I almost never do message boards.  I read only things that deal with the function aspect of doing work when I read blogs and I only read the ones that give solid information in a non-demeaning manner.  The reason I like The Camp Creek Blog is it gives a lot of useful information, but doesn’t digress into the mindless campy phrases of ‘do more to get more’ and ‘work smarter not harder’.  It takes on the idea that a person who wants to get more from their life comes as a full and complete person who just needs a little bit more focus on certain areas of their life.  Who needs skills along with the passion.  But always the emphasis is on ‘what are you doing’.  Anyone who is building their life around their passions knows it’s not about the reading of these passions and finding inspiration -  it is living it and being in that moment.  Even crappy tv  and catnapping with a cat can add to a life full of doing things you love.  It’s about mindfully returning to the work (even when the parts of the work aren’t fun all the time).

And that dear folks is the end of my soap box.

I hope you’ve had a great week.  I hope the next week gives you lots of happy hours doing work you love.

Peace.

P.S.  If you are a writer and like to watch writers write Brandon Sanderson is letting you do just that right here.  (I am trying to find the first entry in his blog that explains what he’s writing, but he has no archive on his blog and as far as I can see you have to hit the calendar dates individually to find what is written there and I do not have that kind of time. Sorry.  But I think the entries are self-explanatory.)

I will say I just finished reading Sanderson’s Hugo nominated novella The Emperor’s Soul and I enjoyed this book a lot.  It is the first thing I’ve read by him — he tends to write very long series and it seemed a little daunting jumping into them, but the novella was a great introduction to his world and writing.  I will definitely plan on reading more by him.

Ok, now I’m really done.

Wednesday Book Bomb to help David Farland

One of the great things about the writing/reading community is the way it pulls together when one of our own needs it.

David Farland’s 16 year old son, Ben, was severely injured during a long-boarding accident. He’s had brain surgery and now lies in a coma. Basically the whole thing is just painful for the whole family. And while we can pray (please do!) and commiserate one thing that would be appreciated by David and his family is financial relief. They have no insurance and the bills could easily amount in the millions.

Tomorrow or today depending on when you get this article David is having a big Book Bomb where if you follow the links a percentage of the money from David’s books Nightingale
and Million Dollar Outlines with go toward’s Ben’s hospital and rehabilitation bills.
I am going to cut and paste the whole email with the details laid out so I don’t accidentally get anything wrong. In the email is a link to a webpage devoted to Ben Wolverton and there you will find a link to a fund if you want to give money directly.

Thank you for the outpouring of support yesterday, especially to those who spread (and will spread) the word about the Book Bomb through social media and on their blogs. I have a few update for you all.

We now have a website dedicated to Ben, thanks to James Duckett, who put it together. The site has updates about Ben’s status, links to the donation page, and talks about the book bomb. The address is http://www.helpwolverton.com/.

For tomorrow, you should know that anything purchased through these Amazon links for Nightingale(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006P7SEBY/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il?ie=UTF8&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=B006P7SEBY&link_code=as3&tag=davidfarnet-20) and Million Dollar Outlines (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B9JYJ6W/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il?ie=UTF8&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=B00B9JYJ6W&link_code=as3&tag=davidfarnet-20) will help Dave. He gets a small percentage of anything purchased through those links. So, if you want to buy several other books or products tomorrow, with or without Nightingale and Million Dollar Outlines, please do. Those who are doing blog posts, please update your Amazon links to the two provided here. I sent most of you the regular links.

Finally, don’t forget the book bomb tomorrow! This event can really help out Ben and Dave, but only if we follow through with it. We need to work together if we want to make this successful. So, I challenge each of you to try to think of one more person or outlet that you can tell about the book bomb. Today, I’m going to put it in our local newspaper.

Don’t forget you can “attend” the book bomb on facebook here

Links, Links, Links – Oh the Joy!

I’ve come across a bunch of really funny and thought provoking book related videos and links that I thought I’d pass on.

First, if you think bad book covers are the invention of newbie indie authors well think again. I give you 20 embarrassingly Bad Book Covers for Classic Novels.  My favorites are The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (perhaps they wanted to get move boys reading the book?) and Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz (who knew there were fighter jets in Oz?).

Paper is Not Dead!  A very funny video which speaks for itself about the questionable move to a paperless society and I’ll leave it at that.

And finally, the importance of Romance Novels in the History of women’s liberation (see the video in the article).  I’m sending you over to the whole link at Geekmom because it took forever to find this link in their archive and two it’s an interesting site if you’ve never been there and three the whole article was interesting and had great links.

And that’s it for now.  I hope you’re having a great day and enjoy the holiday weekend!

Peace.

Does Neil Gaiman Unstuff His Closets?

Yesterday afternoon a friend of mine invited me up to see her bedroom closet.  She had just finished organizing it and was rightfully very proud of her achievement.  She (who also has four children) and I often commiserate on the challenges of keeping a household with six people in it organized and aesthetically beautiful (in truth, most days I’m happy if I achieved functional and ‘it’s clean!’).

When I returned home I went upstairs to my own bedroom closet prepared to tackle the beast, yet again.  I’ve been planning to organize my closet for a few months and, in preparation, have given trash bags filled with outgrown or seldom worn clothing to Good Will, but the closet defies the minimalist feeling that I hope for.  The upper shelves groan with personal mementos and things I think I’ll need at some later date; and the floor is a maze of things we’ll need in the next four months, but can’t use right now.  After a couple of minutes of being at a loss for a solution to this mess my stomach was in knots and I had to back away.  The beast won again.

As a way to sooth my anxious mind I decided to visit Neil Gaiman’s Journal.  I find his journal very relaxing.  It’s probably the way he speaks/writes in such a calm and assured voice and the pictures he puts up are neat and labeled and he explains himself so there is little doubt about what he means to say and his thoughts always seem so, well, hopeful.

At some point while reading/watching his Blackberry patroned project:  A Calendar of Tales and admiring all the lovely places he’s traveled and the beautiful book-lined, wood-trimmed rooms I wondered… does Neil Gaiman ever have to sit down and sort and purge his bedroom closet?  Or, rather, closets since he has more than one house.

I know he has at least one personal assistant, so I imagine most of his life’s organizing can be done with this assistant’s help; but bedroom closets are usually full of personal stuffs.  Not the kind of things other people, other than yourself and your mate, could un-stuff.

This brought me to thinking what I knew about his personal style.   I know Neil Gaiman only wears black clothes which personally I think is a brilliant idea, as if you travel a lot and have multiple closets it would save time mixing and matching your wardrobe and you wouldn’t have to pack much in your carry-on case knowing you’d eventually reach a destination with another closet full of clothes that match the clothes in your carry-on case.  Sheer genius.

But still, he has lots and lots of fans who seem determined to share the out pourings of their creative life with him and even if (and that is a big ‘if’) all this creative outpouring is loved and welcomed it has to add up to many, many closets full of stuff.

But he doesn’t seem like the kind of fellow who is running from over-stuffed closets.  He delves in the moment of life.  He uses the words ‘glorious‘ ‘beautiful‘ ‘imaginative‘ ‘artistic‘ even ‘peaceful’ and many other words to describe his days that suggests over stuffed closets are far from his concern.  This is a man who has many ongoing projects, but each one he somehow manages to give his full attention, and, as if that weren’t enough, he applies his high standard of art as a way of life.

Art as a way of life.  I don’t know if he’s expressly stated this idea, but it’s hard to miss the statement if you read his journal.  It’s suggested and hinted in every paragraph.  Not that there is only art –there are things like compassion and love and goodness there too, which, maybe, if you think about it, is a type of heart art.

So all of this is a boiling down of my thoughts on my life, and in turn, makes me wonder if my overstuffed closet should be a concern at all.  I mean, yes, I can’t have things falling down on me when I reach for a shirt and pants every day and the slight tilt my one shelf has taken on is going to have to be addressed before the whole shelf tumbles down on me.  But,  beyond my personal safety, shouldn’t life be more than unstuffing a closet and feeling knotted up inside if it isn’t done.

Or… maybe… if I’m going to clean my closet I should look at it like it’s a chance to push for the words ‘glorious‘ ‘beautiful‘ ‘imaginative‘ ‘artistic‘ and so many other words and ideas that are just beyond ‘organized’ and ‘clean’ and ‘neat’.  It’s a moment and a place to focus.  To make my life art.

One thing I know for sure, if Neil Gaiman ever did clean out his closets,  they’d be something to see.

Pen Names Schmem-names

I’ve written here at this blog under the pen name Josephine Wade for a couple of years now.  My intention when I first started writing here was to establish a place where people knew me and I could publish under the same name with some (perhaps minute) name recognition.  The problem is the name now feels too generic and part of me a writer speaking as a writer to other writers and not specific to any genre that I write.

As a result of this I don’t really want to publish anything under this name because I’m uncomfortable with my big mouth sometimes.  I know I lack the proper neutrality when dealing with readers. I had hoped to keep the Wade name open to a YA audience since I think they are the most forgiving of an opinionated author, but after careful consideration I’ve changed my mind.  Perhaps my views would not bother a lot of readers who want to get to know ‘the real’ author behind the words, but I’m almost certain it would alienate other readers who want to get to know the characters in their favorite novels more and have the author just shut up already.  It is a bit of a balance as an artist to be personable without being intrusive.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with pen names.  On the one hand it allows anonymity and a mental shelter from family, friends, and my own personal hangups that derail my writing.   However, it can also feel like pulling a fast one on the people who read my novels.  I wouldn’t want anyone to feel that I was purposely trying to be someone I’m not.

But the truth is the name on the cover doesn’t let you reference an author, but more accurately it lets you locate your favorite characters, the imaginary world the author created, and a style of writing that you associate with that name. This is the consistency readers expect when they look for the name on a book and as an author I hope to provide.

I’ll be honest I glance at the author bio of every book I read and even if it just says the author lives in Timbuktu with their spouse and cats I feel a sense of grounding, like they’re out there somewhere specific doing this work.  As a reader I don’t need much more than that (other than knowing when their next book will be out).

But, but, but…I can hear some people citing authors like Stephen King and James Patterson.  And it is true they have a huge fan base that allows them to write whatever they want under one name.  The problem with this is anyone who tried one Stephen King novel and didn’t like it will assume everything he writes is the same.  So if you’re not a Stephen King fan because you associate his name with horror fiction you’re probably missing his fantasy/paranormal novels and a bunch of books that fall into other genres.

I know that in the past (and perhaps in the future too) Stephen King has played around with pen names, but publishers and rabid enthusiastic fans always blow his cover and link his name to the pen name despite his best efforts.  That is the downside (if there is possibly ever a downside to a large devoted fan base) to fame.

And lets face it King and Patterson spent decades building their reader fan base and between their intentions, hard work, and perhaps luck it all came together.  I agree it’s not impossible to be them one day, but most writers aren’t and will never be them.

I think the best way to write is to keep genres separate with different pen names and if you become a big name then maybe you can let your fans know you write under other names.

However, this doesn’t always work.  I still think Anne Rice shot herself in the foot when she exposed her erotica pen name A. N. Roquelaure.  One, because despite the fact that her Vampire Chronicles had sex scenes in them her vampire series catered to a hard edged fan base who praised her scenes of death and gore more than explicit romantic romps.   And two, the erotica books just weren’t written as well as her vampire series.  It’s hard to get past this.  And three, she came out with her erotic pen name when erotic writers were (and to some degree still are) considered tainted even for a writer who writes to the edge like Rice does.

So, these are my reasons for putting my writing out there under other pen names and maybe one day I’ll let you all in on the names.  But today is not that day and for now my Josephine Wade name will be devoted to a writer writing to writers being her opinionated self and chronicling her journey here on this blog.

Happy writing!

Celebrating the End of the World

Supposedly the ancient Mayans prophesied that we’d be meeting our demise this Friday.  I’m dubious, but you never know.

So in celebration of our last days on earth I’m offering a free story — How I Became A Zombie Hunter.  It can be found for a limited time on my new Stories tab when you visit my website.  It’s a funny story, kind of romantic, mostly tongue-in-cheek and I thought rather appropriate for an upcoming apocalypse.

I hope you enjoy it.  Happy End of the World and Happy Holidays!  I expect to see you all next year if we make past the weekend.

Peace and Joy!

Inspiration and Creation

It has been awhile since I’ve caught up here.  The writing has been going ok.  I had a bit of a writer’s block/glitch for about a week or so, but it passed and things are going well again.

Earlier this week I wrote a short story that I really love.  Sometimes I finish stories and I’m like ‘that’s nice’.  This story I thought was fun and I was happy with it when I finished the last draft.  I hope to have it up by the end of November.  It’s short (2400 wds.)  so I’ll pair it with something else.  I’ll talk about it more at a later date.

Along with my normal things I’ve been streaming a bunch of documentaries on Netflix.  Inspiration is how I kill writer’s block.  Watching creative and intelligent humans doing work they are passionate about always brings out my own need to create.

The first documentary I watched was Indie Game: The Movie.  I talked a little about that here.  After watching these men work on code for hour after hour every day for years I was feeling ok with my own trivial problems with my book.

The second documentary I watched was Between the Folds.  In fact I just finished watching this amazing feat of human ingenuity and I had to come here and encourage as many people as possible to watch it.  It is about origami, but it goes so far beyond just simple paper shapes you learned as a child (or not if you were like me).  It’s math and aesthetics and engineering and the whole world folded into one (pun intended).

So there you go.  Two things to watch when you’re feeling stuck as a human being and to make you believe that humans (including yourself ) can dream up and achieve wonderful things.

Now go create!