Author Interview — Donald J. Bingle

Today I launch a series of interviews with authors whose stories appear in The Gallery of Curiosities magazine, issue #3. With me today is Donald J. Bingle.

Donald J. Bingle

Donald J. Bingle is the author of Frame Shop, a mystery thriller set in a suburban writers’ group, Net Impact and Wet Work, spy thrillers which incorporate real-world conspiracy theories, GREENSWORD, a dark comedy about global warming, and Forced Conversion, a military science fiction novel set in the near future. Co-author of The Love-Haight Case Files, a paranormal legal thriller about lawyers protecting the rights of supernatural creatures in a magic-filled San Francisco. Edited the ghost anthology, Familiar Spirits. Also author of a variety of short fiction in the science fiction, fantasy, thriller, horror, mystery, steampunk, romance, and comedy genres, including stories in the Dragonlance and Transformers universes and in a variety of DAW themed anthologies.

Now, here’s the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?

Donald J. Bingle: I was a tournament roleplaying gamer (the world’s top-ranked classic tournament player from 1985 to 2000) and started writing tournament scenarios for others, then adventures and source materials for RPG publishers. Many of those editors also edited short fiction, so from there I branched out into short stories, including tie-in fiction for Dragonlance, BattleTech, and Transformers. Screenplays and novels were the next steps.

P.S.: Your website’s bio states you’ve written science fiction, fantasy, thriller, horror, mystery, steampunk, romance, comedy, and memoirs. Out of all those, which is your favorite genre?

D.J.B.: On the novel side, almost everything I’ve written is a thriller of one stripe or another. Forced Conversion (near future military scifi thriller); Net Impact and Wet Work (spy thrillers); GREENSWORD (darkly comedic eco-thriller); Frame Shop (murder mystery thriller); The Love-Haight Case Files (urban fantasy legal thriller); ghostwritten novel I can’t talk about (political-medical thriller). So I guess that says something. On the short side, I tend more toward scifi and horror than fantasy these days—maybe because much of my stuff is rather dark.

P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?

D.J.B.: Replay by Ken Grimwood (my favorite time travel book); Dream Park by Niven, Barnes, and Pournelle (scifi, mystery, gaming; fantasy, and history all in one package); Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer (thoughtful scifi); The Dragonlance Chronicles by Weis and Hickman (epic fantasy done right).

P.S.: Your website identifies you as a “Writer on Demand.” Please explain what you mean by that.

D.J.B.: Because some editors from my days writing game products and stories knew that I could write fairly quickly to specifications (topic, tone, wordcount), I kind of ended up being the fallback guy for Techno Books, which packaged a lot of the themed anthologies for DAW. I wasn’t famous enough to get invited to most of those anthologies, but when the editor would come up short because someone missed a deadline or everyone wrote to the short end of the assigned range, I would get calls/emails asking me to write a story in a few days to help fill the anthology. The genre depended entirely on what the anthology was about, so I ended up doing fantasy, scifi, horror, steampunk, even comedic romance. And, of course, I ended up writing all sorts of stories I never would have written without that impetus.

The Gallery of Curiosities, Issue #3

P.S.: Your story “Gentlemanly Horrors of Mine Alone” appears in The Gallery of Curiosities issue #3. Please tell us about the story and what inspired you to write the tale.

D.J.B.: I came to write the tale because Mike Stackpole had a chain story project on his website. Each story was a fellow at an Old English Style Men’s Club regaling fellow members with his latest adventure. Having lived in the foothills of Colorado for a while and being familiar with various monsters from games like Chill, putting together a tale about a monster in Colorado was a natural fit. Of course, in order for my story to be different from all the others, I gave it a twist by making the adventure a disaster rather than a triumph and the protagonist less than a hero in his own eyes.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

D.J.B.: Selling what I write is the hardest part, which includes finding a publisher for books and stories, and getting people to read what I have published. When I was writing stories on short notice for DAW, I didn’t worry much about rejection (if the story was good, it would get published) and the anthology would be distributed to every Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Waldenbooks in the country. But, now, having had books sit at publishers for periods well in excess of a year before getting any response and having to find anthologies with the right topic, tone, and wordcount requirements for my various spec stories is tedious. I spend far more time trying to place a story, than it takes to write it in the first place.

The easiest part is coming up with ideas—I have plenty of book and story ideas I will never get around to penning. Of course, most writers do, which is why people who suggest “letting” the writer write up their nifty idea and split the proceeds 50/50 are such an aggravation.

P.S.: Many of your stories seem to be reactions against tales of extraordinary heroes. Your protagonists tend to be ordinary, average people. Is that intentional? Why do you prefer such characters?

D.J.B.: There’s nothing particularly interesting to me about superpowered, extraordinary people doing great things, but for a regular guy to do what needs to be done despite the fact he may not have the skill or ability to accomplish his goal (and is therefore risking all) is heroic, or at least brave. I hesitate at the word “heroic” because some of my protagonists are simply not good guys, which I think is a nice change of pace and more realistic.

P.S.: As the author of five books and more than fifty shorter tales, are there two or three that you’d recommend to new readers who want to get to know your style?

D.J.B.: I think my spy novel series, Net Impact and Wet Work, gives a good overview of my writing. There’s action, marital strife, bizarre conspiracies, and odd bits of information all rolled into one tale. If readers want an overview of my short stories, I’ve taken many of them and re-released them in Kindle collections of 3 to 5 stories, grouped by genre. So I’ve got Tales of Gamers and Gaming; Tales of Humorous Horror; Tales Out of Time; Grim, Fair e-Tales; Tales of an Altered Past Powered by Romance, Horror, and Steam; Not-So-Heroic Fantasy; and Shadow Realities. See my website for more detail.

P.S.: In your latest novel, Wet Work, you return to a character featured in an earlier novel, the spy Dick Thornby. Please paint a word picture of this character for us.

D.J.B.: Dick is a middle-aged, stocky, ex-Army, ex-cop with a wife and a kid and a mortgage. Everyone thinks he works as a waste-water treatment consultant, but he’s actually a spy. He does what needs to be done, but he doesn’t necessarily enjoy many aspects of his job. He’s practical, rather than idealistic, but understands it is people like him who stand between happiness and despair for an unknowing populace.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

D.J.B.: Another ghostwriting project is probably my next novel, so can’t really talk about that. On the story side, I’ve got a notion about a quantum entanglement tale that is gestating.

P.S.: I have to ask. What’s this about being the Keeper of the World’s Largest Kazoo?

D.J.B.: In high school a friend and I started a kazoo band, The Greater Naperville Area All Kazoo Klan Band, as a lark and it grew to about thirty strong. We performed at freshman orientation, marched in local parades, and elected a Kazoo Queen. When I went to orientation at college (The University of Chicago), there was a sign up at the Student Activities Office seeking (mostly jokingly, I think) a Keeper for the World’s Largest Kazoo. You see, when the U of C was still in the Big Ten (Michigan State came in when we left), it had Big Bertha, the World’s Largest Drum, now owned by the University of Texas. When football returned to the U of C, a group of students drove to Texas and stole Big Bertha, driving out onto the field at an early game (not at half-time, just when they happened to arrive being pursued by the Chicago cops). This group, part of the Students for Violent Non-Action (yes, I got that right) decided that if Chicago was going to have football, they needed to have the World’s Largest something, so they built the world’s largest kazoo. They also had fezes made up for those parading it about at games. All that was a few years before me, so they were all gone and the Student Activities Office was pretty surprised when I applied to be the new Keeper and listed GNAMMAKB as relevant work experience. The Fez Faction appeared at sparsely attended football games, carried Big Ed about, and  played Ode to Joy whenever the team got a first down (which was not often; my sophomore year the team scored 14 points—seven in the first game and seven in the last), but we did get news coverage from The Chicago Tribune and Sports Illustrated.

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Donald J. Bingle: Join a writers’ group. Your best friend, spouse, or mother is not going to give you honest, useful criticism. They likely don’t have the writerly experience or knowledge to be helpful in any case. Also, start your writing with short stories—you can learn a lot and try out a lot of different techniques, perspectives, and styles. Submit what you write to anthologies and magazines—it will give you exposure to the real world of writing, editing, rejection, and lousy pay. Don’t write for free (except for charity); that way lies madness.

 

Thank you, Donald. My readers can check out Donald J. Bingle’s writing at his website, on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and Amazon.

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 23, 2018Permalink

Your Own Steam Elephant

The Gallery of Curiosities, issue #3, Summer 2018

I’m delighted The Gallery of Curiosities has chosen to reprint my story, “The Steam Elephant” in their Summer 2018 Issue (#3). It gave me a chance to re-read the story, and recall the fun I had writing it.

Verne’s steam elephant on its way through India

“The Steam Elephant” is my sequel to Jules Verne’s novel The Steam House. In Verne’s tale,  a British inventor constructed a steam-powered mechanical elephant (and two wheeled carriages towed behind it) on commission from an Indian rajah. This rajah died before taking possession, so ownership remained with the inventor. He took a group of British friends, a Frenchman, and several servants, on a series of adventures in the wilds of India.

My steampunk sequel picks up eleven years later. Although the original steam elephant met its end in Verne’s novel, the engineer constructed a second one in my tale. He modeled this new elephant after the African species. The group of friends gathered again, this time to go lion hunting in Africa, but found themselves drawn into the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879.

Verne’s story predated automobiles and appeared long before Recreational Vehicle motorhomes, when people only knew about steam locomotives on rails. I’m sure it fascinated his readers to imagine taking their home with them while travelling. Today, millions of people do just that…but they’re restricted to travelling on roads. Verne’s elephant walked anywhere, even through shallow rivers.

Star Wars’ All Terrain Armored Transport (AT-AT)

As an engineer, I loved the idea of a quadrapod, animatronic, bio-inspired walking vehicle powered by steam. This lay well beyond the technology of the Nineteenth Century, and we’re only at the early stages of such mechanisms today. That’s why the AT-AT ground assault combat vehicles of Star Wars seem so cool. By the way, the AT-AT designers also drew inspiration from a pachyderm.

Verne described the elephant as being a ‘traction engine,’ a steam engine that pulls loads on roads or smooth ground. This term doesn’t find much use today, since internal combustion gasoline engines supplanted steam for tractors and other off-road vehicles.

Still, imagine owning such an elephant. Within its iron flanks, there’d be the water reservoir, fuel storage, firebox, boiler, and cylinders common to locomotives. Also, you’d find the massive gears and linkages necessary to move the four giant legs in a stable pattern.

Seated in your well insulated howdah on top, you’d rotate the trunk down to pump in water from a river. Then you’d swivel the trunk up, start the engine, sound a blast from its trumpeting whistle, and watch steam and smoke belch from the trunk. When you pushed a lever, your elephant would plod forward on its ponderous legs over any type of flat ground or shallow water. Roads? Where we’re clomping, we don’t need roads.

Perhaps after ten minutes of sweating through that, you’d retreat to one of the towed carriages and let someone else drive the elephant while you sipped wine and played whist.

I’ll take two of those, please. In a way, I did. I wrote about one in another story, “Rallying Cry.”

Too bad you can’t buy your own steam-powered, mechanical elephant vehicle. You could try to build one for several thousand dollars. Or, the next best thing, you could lay down just $3.00 and get a copy of The Gallery of Curiosities magazine, issue #3, and read “The Steam Elephant” by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 22, 2018Permalink

Write Like Mozart Composed

No way, you’re thinking. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a genius, a child prodigy, a composer whose fame will endure forever. There’s no way you could write fiction one eighth as well as he composed music.

Mozart

Maybe not, but I’m suggesting you could aim for that end, strive to emulate his method. To the extent you can do that, you might well end up writing fiction beyond your current abilities.

How did Mozart compose music? He said, “I write music as a sow piddles,” which speaks to how naturally it was for him, but gives no hint of method. There is evidence he used sketches and did his main composing at a keyboard, but it’s also clear he had an amazing memory.

A scene from the 1984 movie Amadeus provides a hint of how he might have composed. I know it’s fiction, a movie, but it’s based on reality. I’ve long admired the scene; you can see it on YouTube, though you should watch the whole film.

In that scene, Mozart is gravely ill, bedridden, too weak to write. With the assistance of rival composer Antonio Salieri, he’s trying to compose the Confutatis movement of the Requiem in D minor. While Mozart describes, and sings, the various parts, Salieri scribbles as fast as he can. Repeatedly, Mozart asks, “Have you got it?” and Salieri keeps saying, “You’re going too fast.” In the background, the audience hears an orchestra and choir performing the fast-developing piece.

Mozart seems to be conveying a piece already fully formed in his mind. His task seems not to create or invent, but to capture and document. Speed is of the essence to him, not because he will forget any part of the piece, but because his health is failing and he’s running out of time.

One could surmise his entire composing career might have gone at a breakneck pace, even during his healthy times. He only lived to age thirty five, and it seems as if he were born with a century of music in his mind, but permitted only a third of that time to document it for others.

Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine if that were also true for you. What would it be like to have short stories, novels, and novellas already finished in your mind, every word clear and instantly retrievable? You don’t face a quality problem, for all those tales are perfect in structure, irresistible to readers. Nor do you have to struggle to invent characters, plots, or settings, let alone agonize over word choices or sentence formations. That’s all done.

Your only difficulty is writing them all down. You only need one draft—no editing—but there are too many stories. You have three lifetime’s worth of tales to scribble, but your hands and fingers will only last a single lifetime.

That was an enjoyable daydream, wasn’t it? However, you’re no Mozart, and neither am I. We toil away on draft after draft. The stories in our minds are but half-glimpsed, ghostly figments of perfect tales, and our attempts to recreate them in text are pitifully botched versions of those images. Our lifetimes of writing are spent slowly learning and honing the aspects Mozart found trivial.

At least we can envision what it might be like to be Mozart. If we can envision that, we can strive toward it, work to approach closer to it. It seems to me there are three aspects of Mozart’s abilities to work on: (1) attaining complete works in your mind, (2) ensuring those visions are in final form, and (3) conveying the vision to text rapidly.

Here are some exercises to develop each aspect:

  • 1A. Do as much story planning as you can—setting details, character traits and appearances, major plot points—before writing anything down.
  • 1B. Get the next sentence fully formed in your minds, and memorize it, before writing it down.
  • 2A. Practice editing a sentence at a time in your mind, trying various word substitutions, word orders, and structures, before writing the sentence down.
  • 2B. Work on limiting the number of drafts you go through before declaring a story done.
  • 3A. Participate in NANOWRIMO, and write a novel of at least 50,000 words during only the month of November.
  • 3B. Try writing software such as Write or Die or Flowstate, word processors that penalize you for getting distracted while writing.

I’m not guaranteeing these exercises will enable you to produce stories on par with Mozart’s music. Still, what if they made you half as good? Even a quarter as good? Writing stories one eighth as good as Mozart’s musical pieces is a lofty goal for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 15, 2018Permalink

About All That Money…

You’ve decided to become a best-selling author, and you’re wondering when the millions of dollars will start flowing into your account. Will it be all at once, before you’ve written Chapter One, or a few million at a time over the weeks that follow? It’s important because you’re itching to buy that limo and mansion right now.

The author in his vault

If I were you, I’d hold off on purchasing the car and house, at least until you’re done reading this blog post. Let’s discuss the methods by which publishers pay authors.

Flat Fee

As Chuck Sambuchino discusses, this is when the publisher pays a fee to the author up front. It’s more common with short stories than with novels. The author gets that amount regardless of how well or poorly the book sells. It’s the simplest payment method, but it entails some risk for the publisher. If an anthology publisher pays a flat fee for each story and the book doesn’t sell enough copies to cover those fees, the publisher loses money.

Royalties

These are the opposite of the flat fee method; the publisher pays royalties based on how well the book sells. The contract will specify a royalty in terms of a percentage of each book’s price. These payments arrive periodically, often quarterly or semiannually.

You might be wondering about that term ‘royalties.’ According to Jean Murray, it dates from the Middle Ages when the King owned all land in his realm. If you wanted to mine for gold or silver, you had to pay the King for the right to dig these precious metals from his royal ground. They started calling that payment a ‘royalty’—a payment made to the gold’s true owner for the right to mine it. In essence, it’s the same thing today. You’re the king; the story is your gold; and the publisher is paying you a royalty for the right to ‘mine’ it.

Amazon Kindle Royalties

In 2015, Amazon introduced an interesting royalty calculation method for their Kindle Unlimited subscription service. Rather than making royalty payments on a percentage of book sales, they base payments on how many pages the purchasers read. Although controversial at first, there’s been some run time on this now and I think authors are getting used to it. It incentivizes authors to write books readers will read to the end.

Advance

This is short for ‘advance against royalties.’ The publisher ‘advances’ you a fixed amount up front, before the book starts selling. According to Morris Rosenthal, the purpose of the advance is to support you (the author) financially until your books starts selling. It’s not a flat fee, though; it comes out of royalties you haven’t earned yet.

Let’s say your contract specifies royalties of 15% on a book selling for $10. That means you’ll get $1.50 for each book sold. If the publisher gives you a $1500 advance, then for the first 1000 copies sold, you’ll get no royalties since the publisher advanced you that money already. Starting with the 1001st copy, you’ll start earning royalties.

As discussed by Valerie Peterson in this post, when the publisher sells that 1000th copy of the book (in my example), it is said to have “earned out.” That’s a happy time for both you and the publisher. Up until then, the publisher took a risk of having paid you an excessive advance. After that point, you’ll start earning royalties on every book sold.

A post by Tom Chmielewski mentions how some publishers have started paying the advance in installments. They might pay one-third when you sign the contract, one-third when they accept the book, and one-third when they publish the book. Or they might pay half at signing and half at acceptance.

 

I congratulate you on your decision to become a best-selling author, but I still suggest you put off those stretch limo and island mansion plans, at least until the first payment lands in your account. Disclaimer: I’m not a financial advisor; I’m just—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 8, 2018Permalink

What? My Books are Half Price?

The folks at Smashwords are nice, but they’ve gone too far now. They’ve priced my entire What Man Hath Wrought series at half price for the entire month of July.

I’ve checked, and it’s true. You can get After the Martians, Ripper’s Ring, Time’s Deformèd Hand, The Cometeers, To Be First and Wheels of Heaven, Rallying Cry and Last Vessel of Atlantis, A Tale More True, Against All Gods, Leonardo’s Lion, and Alexander’s Odyssey for a measly $2 each.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, there’s more. You can grab The Six Hundred Dollar Man, A Steampunk Carol, Within Victorian Mists, and The Wind-Sphere Ship for just $1.50 each.

 

 

 

 

Wait a minute [grabs calculator], that means you can get the entire collection (all 14 books—that’s 16 stories) for $26. I guess my financial misfortune is your summer reading opportunity.

This time, there’s no need for coupon numbers or passwords or promo codes. None of that. Just go to Smashwords and you’ll see the slashed-in-half prices are already marked. Simply click on my books and load ‘em in your shopping cart.

The What Man Hath Wrought series features relatable characters grappling with new technology in a historical setting. These alternate history stories explore what might have been. They’ll make you think about how you struggle with new gadgets today.

The Smashwords ½-price sale runs through July 31, but you know what a procrastinator you are. You’d better buy the books now before you’re caught up in summer’s many distractions.

What an inexpensive way to immerse yourself in the remarkable and adventurous world of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 1, 2018Permalink

Bending Heinlein’s Rules

You submitted your story to a market and the editor rejected it. Should you edit the story before submitting it elsewhere? Some say yes and others say no. Let’s examine both schools of thought to see what’s best for you.

Last week I blogged about whether to write many stories fast, or take the time to perfect fewer stories. That prompted a Facebook discussion with a fellow author who makes quick edits to every rejected story before submitting to other markets. He said he sees flaws to fix each time.

At a critique group meeting this week, another fellow author asked, “After how many rejections should you consider editing a story?” I said, “I’ve heard of stories getting upwards of 70 rejections before getting accepted, so ask me again after you hit 70 rejections.” Here’s a fun list of well-known books that many editors rejected before acceptance occurred. Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance took the prize at 121 rejections.

Another fellow critique group member said she has edited stories after rejections, but only to fit the rules of a particular anthology she’s aiming for.

My glib response at the critique group meeting stemmed from my understanding of the Rules for Writing Fiction, developed by author Robert A. Heinlein.

Of interest, Heinlein and I graduated from the same institution, a few years apart. Both of us ended up writing fiction. There, any similarities end, I’m sorry to say. I still aspire to attain a fraction of his writing skill.

I’ve blogged about Heinlein’s Rules before, but I’ll list them again here:

  1. You must write.
  2. You must finish what you write.
  3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
  4. You must put the work on the market.
  5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

I interpret Rules 2, 3, and 4 to mean you finish a story to some level of satisfaction, submit it to a market, and upon rejection, immediately submit it to another market (without editing), and repeat. If an editor says she’ll accept it with some rewrites you find acceptable, then and only then do you edit the story.

Others interpret RAH’s Rules differently. Robert C. Worstell says Heinlein’s Rule 3 discusses rewriting, which is different from (and more extensive than) editing. In other words, he believes minor editing doesn’t violate Heinlein’s Rules at all.

Let’s summarize the thinking behind both schools of thought:

  • The Always-Edit School. Don’t keep throwing a bad story at different markets; you’re wasting your time. What if your story is just a few edits away from being great? It doesn’t take that much time to re-read a story and correct the errors you see before sending it out again. As your writing matures, you’re improving your older stories with each edit session.
  • The Never-Edit School. Have some pride and faith in your stories. Time spent re-editing old stories is time not spent on your current Work in Progress (WIP). All that editing is slowing you down. What if your edits are making the story worse?

Which school of thought should you join? I offer the following questions to answer as you make your choice:

  1. Can you spare the time to re-read that story and edit it?
  2. Have you received rejection letters with suggestions for improvements (admittedly rare these days) and do those suggestions make sense?
  3. Are you sending the story to an anthology, and will it require editing to meet the antho’s submission guidelines?
  4. Has the story received more than X rejections, (where X can be 20, 30, or any value you choose) and you’re running out of pro and semi-pro markets to submit to?

The more of these questions get a ‘yes’ answer, the more you should consider re-reading and editing the story before you send it out again.

I don’t take this bending of RAH’s Rules lightly. After all, he’s Heinlein, and I’m just—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 1, 2018Permalink

Write More or Write Better?

Choose one: you could write the most novels ever by a single author, none of them great; or you can write only one, but it’s the best novel ever. Most of us would choose to write one standout novel.

It’s not a realistic choice, though, in guiding how you should write. A novel doesn’t get to become a classic until after its publication, and often not until after the author is dead. In other words, at the time you’re writing it, you don’t know whether your novel will stand the test of time.

But we do face the real problem of deciding whether to spend our limited time being prolific (writing a lot), or polishing a small number of stories.

We need to manage what I call our 1/E Ratio. The ‘1’ is the time we spend writing first drafts, and the ‘E’ is the time we spend editing those drafts.

At one extreme, 1/E could be very small. In this case, you might spend twenty years polishing a novel, editing and re-editing draft after draft. Your final product might be very good and might become a classic, but you couldn’t repeat your success too many times.

Or your 1/E could be very large, nearly infinite. You could spend all your time writing first drafts and never editing them. Just self-publish them immediately. You’d be very prolific, limited only by the number of story ideas you have and your available time.

Writers at both extremes seem to have solid rationale:

  • For Writer One, a small 1/E ratio is best. She seeks top quality with small quantity. After all, editors always say they want your best work. Writer One finds her story improving with each draft, greatly increasing its chances of entertaining more readers. Few people remember the most prolific authors, she says, but everyone can name some great ones.
  • Writer Two keeps his 1/E ratio large and goes for maximum output. He claims he’s honing his craft with every novel, and believes it’s still possible that one of his many books will strike the right chord with readers. In fact, by writing so many books, Writer Two thinks he’s maximizing his chances of being successful.

Remember, 1/E is a ratio, and there’s a wide spectrum between near-zero and near-infinity. You don’t have to choose one of those extremes.

In my analysis so far, I’m ignoring some factors that come into play when selecting how to spend your writing time. Some authors write for their own enjoyment, and aren’t aiming for high quality prose. Others don’t generate enough story ideas to write more than a few books, so their time is best spent editing the few stories they can write.

Your situation will be specific to you and will be constrained by your talents, your preferences, your end goals, etc. I have some general advice to offer, though:

  1. If you’ve been polishing and editing the same novel for over a decade and it’s never quite good enough, try dialing your 1/E ratio a little higher on the scale. Declare that novel done, send it out, and start writing another.
  2. If you’ve written a fair number of stories that just aren’t selling, try nudging the pointer toward a slightly smaller 1/E value. Spend more time editing each of your stories before sending them out.

Helping you adjust your 1/E ratio for optimum performance is all part of the free service provided by your writing mechanic—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 24, 2018Permalink

Trademark Cock-up

You may not think much about trademark law, but people who own trademarks think a lot about the words you write and the images you post. Allow me to introduce the following recent cases as evidence:

In the first case, following an outcry on social media, Nike apologized and cancelled a planned fashion collection that would have featured the logo.

In the second case, the blogger wrote a respectful (and hilarious) letter to the restaurant chain. Olive Garden decided to take no further legal action and sent Mr. Malone a $50 gift card.

The third case (now termed Cockygate) has created pandemonium in the romance novel industry and is all over social media. After obtaining her trademark, Ms. Hopkins sent cease-and-desist letters to numerous other romance authors who’d used the word ‘cocky’ in their romance novel titles. Initially, Amazon removed those authors’ works from its site, but has since restored them, pending legal resolution. One romance author and retired lawyer filed an appeal with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, challenging the issuance of the trademark. Another author has published an anthology called Cocktales, where all the proceeds will go to authors impacted by Hopkins’ actions, and to the Romance Writers of America advocacy fund.

The fourth case is pending and the USPTO may not grant the “Dragon Slayer” trademark, but the ‘cocky’ case probably inspired that application.

I’m most concerned about the last two cases, since they involve fiction writing. I understand the value of trademarks, and the need to protect them. I assume there is a stringent process the USPTO uses to process applications and grant trademarks, and that it followed the process in the ‘cocky’ case.

It strikes me as odd that one can trademark a single word, even a valid dictionary word, as opposed to one the author made up. If USPTO policies allow that, perhaps it’s time to question those policies.

Further, if an author can obtain a trademark on the use of the word ‘cocky’ in a book title, that may well lead to an open floodgate of similar trademark applications, such as ‘dragon slayer.’

Moreover, as author Steve Brachmann points out in this excellent post, in this age of social media, a strong-handed attempt to enforce your trademark can backfire.

Writers no longer live in separate, isolated bubbles; they communicate freely. If one author receives a cease-and-desist letter, chances are everyone in that author’s circle will soon know. In the ‘cocky’ case, the predominant opinion across social media is running against Ms. Hopkins. We’ll have to wait and see if she prevails in the courts, where law matters more than popular sentiment.

Perhaps it’s time I applied for a trademark on my pseudonym—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 17, 2018Permalink

Author Suicides

Writers, it’s difficult, but we have to talk about this. The recent celebrity suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade have raised awareness of the general suicide problem. However, writers may be particularly at risk.

A study released in March 2017 by the UK’s Office for National Statistics reported a higher risk of suicide “among those working in artistic, literary and media occupations.” [My emphasis added.]

It didn’t take long for me to compile my own partial list of fiction authors who have committed suicide (in order of birth date):

  • Virginia Woolf – (1882-1941, age 59)
  • L.M. Montgomery – (1884-1942, age 67)
  • Ryunosuke Akutagawa – (1892-1927, age 35)
  • Yasunari Kawabata – (1899-1972, age 72)
  • Ernest Hemingway – (1899-1961, age 61)
  • Sándor Márai – (1900-1989, age 88)
  • Karin Boye – (1900 – 1941, age 40)
  • Arthur Koestler – (1905-1983, age 77)
  • Klaus Mann – (1906-1949, age 42)
  • Osamu Dazai (1909-1948, age 38)
  • Primo Levi – (1919-1987, age 67)
  • Walter M. Miller Jr.– (1923-1996, age 72)
  • Yukio Mishima – (1925-1970, age 45)
  • Sylvia Plath – (1932-1963, age 30)
  • Jerzy Kosinski – (1933-1991, age 57)
  • Richard Brautigan (1935-1984, age 49)
  • Hunter S. Thompson – (1937-2005, age 67)
  • John Kennedy Toole – (1937-1969, age 31)
  • Thomas Disch – (1940-2008, age 68)
  • David Foster Wallace – (1962-2008, age 46)
  • Ned Vizzini – (1981-2013, age 32)

For three of these (Kawabata, Mann, and Levi), the suicide explanation remains in doubt. I feel compelled to point out that three other authors on this list (Boye, Miller, and Disch) wrote Science Fiction, my chosen genre.

In reading articles about these authors, it’s significant how many articles mention the word “depression.”

Following any suicide, we naturally seek a reason, an explanation, an answer to “why?” Some authors left notes attempting to rationalize their choice, but often these only leave us with more questions.

It’s probably unfair to generalize about such a personal choice, an option chosen based on necessarily specific reasons. Still, it’s natural to wonder if there are aspects of writing fiction that increase suicide risk. Here are my (unscientific and unsupported) speculations on that:

  • Writing is solitary. Writers tend to be less social and have fewer contacts with friends who might talk them out of suicide.
  • Writers explore their inner feelings, and those of their characters. Such deep introspection can lead to depression and suicide.
  • Writers think more about death and suffering than most people do. All fiction involves conflict, and writers must put their characters through pain, and, in some cases, death.
  • Feedback can depress writers. Authors offer their cherished work to the entre world, and hope for a positive reaction. If the public ignores their stories or reviewers lambast them, authors often take it personally.

If you’re a writer (or anyone) contemplating suicide, please, please, please call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or go to their website.

Perhaps you know a writer (or, again, anyone) who may be at risk of suicide. There’s a Twitter hashtag devoted to this: #BeThe1To. Here are the 5 Action Steps you can take to help your friend:

  1. Ask your friend in a caring way if they feel suicidal;
  2. Do what you can to keep your friend safe;
  3. Listen without judgement and be there for your friend;
  4. Connect your friend to a network of resources and helpful people; and
  5. Follow up with your friend, even after treatment.

Let’s have a world without suicides. That’s the dream of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 10, 2018Permalink

A Writing Fool and his Money

After eleven entries about my cruise to Alaska, I’m returning this blog to topics dealing with the writing scene. Authors often debate the pros and cons of retaining a literary agent. You can add one item to the con list—your agent’s bookkeeper might be embezzling your earnings.

According to a New York Post report, the bookkeeper for a top literary agency has admitted to a charge of wire fraud. The agency alleges the bookkeeper stole at least $3.4M, leaving the company on the verge of bankruptcy. Forensic auditors are combing the agency’s books back to 2001, so that figure could go much higher.

Donadio & Olson is a prestigious company based in New York, boasting an impressive list of clients, including Chuck Palahnuik and McKay Jenkins, and the estates of Mario Puzo, Studs Terkel, and Peter Matthiessen.

How could such a thing happen? Writer and editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a theory, and I suspect she’s right, though I respectfully disagree with some of her remedies.

Ms. Rusch’s blogpost paints a picture of authors who loved to write, and didn’t really care to mess with figures having dollar signs, so they outsourced that job to a literary agent. When some of those authors died, their heirs didn’t want to know details either, and outsourced the financial and contractual stuff to the agent. Workers within the agency, likewise, may not have relished the numerical, pecuniary part of their job, so they contracted that to a bookkeeper.

Then nobody checked up. The authors and heirs trusted the agent; the agent trusted the bookkeeper. Millions of dollars passed through this bookkeeper’s hands, and nobody asked him if he was putting every dollar into the right account. Temptation may have overcome honesty, and years passed.

Then somebody checked up. One author, represented by D&O, asked about a $200,000 advance payment the author expected to receive from a publisher. When the bookkeeper kept putting the author off, the author persisted, then asked several people at D&O. The house of cards began to collapse.

I don’t know if this is what really happened, but it is believable, given the attitudes some authors have about money. If this scenario is true, what lessons should writers draw from this misfortune?

Ms. Rusch’s advice is clear: (1) sever your relationship with your agent and never hire one, and (2) learn the financial and contractual end of the writing business and do it yourself.

While acknowledging her greater knowledge in this area, I believe Ms. Rusch’s recommendations go too far. They strike me as disparaging an entire group of professionals for the actions of a few.

I’d summarize my suggestions as follows: (1) hire an agent if you believe you must, and (2) learn enough of the financial and contracting biz to ask hard questions. More simply: trust, but verify.

If you’re the type of starry-eyed writer who wishes only to frolic in the forest of words, leaving those dreary accounting matters to your (oh, so friendly) agent, be warned: there are wolves in those woods. These wolves smile nicely and talk sweetly, but prey on your intentional ignorance of money.

Remember how the D&O bookkeeper scam got discovered? Out of all their clients, just one persistent author cared enough to check up, to ask the hard questions. That author may have trusted, but went on to verify.

Don’t be the writing fool who’s soon parted from his, or her, money. That’s the advice about agents, and money, from—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 3, 2018Permalink