aurorawatcherak "I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
The medical center held the
priority for fuel, so had lights, kept low to save electricity. The patients
all slept. Shane went into the room where Mike slumbered under a heavy dose of
sedatives. His temperature still ran high. Shane looked at the blood-tinged pus
in the bag hanging beside the bed. The yellow-green color didn’t bode well for
his friend’s survival.
God, we could use your help here.
Where did that come from?
Driving through a mortar barrage, he found a rudimentary belief in the god he’d
so long denied. Shane found it convenient to blame the eternal crap bag for all
the evil in the world, but he didn’t expect him to be a cosmic sugar daddy.
That kind of delusion belonged to people who thought the meddlesome old man in
the long white beard loved them. He
knew if his parents’ god was real,
he’d lose no love on a monster like Shane. God’s love of monsters stood in the
way of Shane even believing in him. Men like King David, with hundreds of
deaths on their hands, didn’t deserve heaven.
I deserve death.
Did Mike? Probably a
card-carrying member of the asshole in arms did, yeah. Did Alicia deserve to be
alone, pregnant and unprotected in a world now spun out of control? All of
morality pivoted there for Shane. He knew he
deserved death by painful torture, but he also knew that would hurt his parents deeply and the knowledge kept his
9mm in its back holster and not in his mouth. He had to do his best to not hurt
himself while they still needed his skills.
You’d think it’s a fairly binary question – creative versus market-oriented — but as is often the case, PJMcLayne has asked a question this week with an answer that is more nuanced.
There are two ways of doing art – and by art, I mean any creative endeavor. One — you can create for your own amazement. I wrote books for my own amusement for decades before I published for an audience. When I was doing that, I could afford to be bold and original, to try out plot lines and narrative techniques without fear that anyone would say, “Well, I’m just going to read another book because this one is … weird … boring … unbelievable … hard to follow ….” You get the picture. I loved what I was writing and I wasn’t concerned what anyone else thought because nobody else was ever going to read it.
The second way to do art is, obviously, for an audience. Writers are no less performance artists than my daughter — a gypsy musician who also dabbles in dance, painting and metal sculptures — not to mention graffiti. For that matter, my mother — a waitress — was a “performance artist”. Her audience consisted of the customers who followed her from cafe to cafe all over town because they appreciated her “art” in serving them. If you want to do art that has an audience, you have to consider what your audience wants.
So, am I original or do I give the audience what they want?
Can’t I do both? Take a pause and think about that. Of course, I can!
Creative on the First Draft
I follow Stephen King and Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to write for my own enjoyment. I don’t consciously start by thinking “what does the market want?” I often read a book (written by another writer) or watch a television story (written by another writer) and think “What if …?” Or maybe it’s a news article that gets my attention, makes me wonder how someone got to the point where they did X. A character will stir in my mind and tell me his/her “what if”. In a way, it’s derivative in that I’m getting ideas from other writers. But my character is original and he tells his own story. He doesn’t inhabit that other writer’s universe. He lives in mine. His actions are motivated by his own personality. As I’ve often said – my characters tell me their stories and I write them down. Without a “living” character in my mind sharing the details of his “life”, there would be very little writing going on. In that way, I am utterly original.
Iconoclast
I’m also not very mainstream — as a person, I’m an iconoclast. How many anarchist-admiring libertarian Southern Baptist evangelical Christian American-Indian-white Alaskans have you encountered in your lifetime? Yeah, I didn’t think so. That’s bound to show up in my writing and it does.
I took up a topic in Transformation Project that you don’t see a lot of novelists tackling outside the zombie apocalypse trope. I have an apocalyptic scenario where government is not the answer — where even the government of the small town at the center of the series can’t save the community. Not going to tell you how I resolve that problem, but I think voluntaryist solutions represent a distinct minority opinion in dealing with large-scale crises. We human beings, particularly of the modern-American type tend to think big government solutions are the only way to solve problems. I disagree because I see the “what if.” In this, I am writing for myself — what I would like to see in some parts of the world if society went seriously off the rails. When I’m writing my first draft, it is all about creativity and what I, the writer, want to put on the page.
Mercenary on Rewrite
That said, I only deserve to get paid for my work if I provide value through that work, which means I do, to a certain extent, need to be aware of what readers are looking for in a novel. What good is it to write a book that nobody else wants to read? Successful writers recognize that the success of their book(s) depends almost entirely on conforming to audience expectations. Being aware of that doesn’t mean you can’t be creative, innovative — original — but, yes, honing my originality so the audience will enjoy the read is paramount for having an audience.
And that’s where rewrite comes in. When I sit down with my gravel-draft (the roughest of the rough draft), some of my main questions are:
Would anyone besides me want to read this story?
What about this section? Yes, I love the dialogue — the back and forth between these two characters is wonderful — from my perspective. So what about everybody’s else’s perspective? Do I really need to describe the Eiffel Tower in all its detail to an audience that can google it and see it for themselves? I can feel the cold Shane is experiencing in this scene, but will someone who has spent their whole life in Texas feel the cold if I don’t describe it?
While I prefer to use proper grammar when I write is my adherence to those rules slowing down the reading? What if I tweaked these past tense sentences to make them more present tense since it’s clear the character is thinking about the past?
Do the details of how the Delaneys are coping with having no running water or electricity really need to consume 20 pages? Doesn’t that constitute an info-dump? Hey, look at that. I wove the entire thing into three sentences scattered through a chapter and I won’t bore my audience!
That’s paring a creative work with audience-aware editing. I remain free to express myself creatively, experiencing Wordworth’s “spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion”, but I don’t let creativity hinder what I deliver to the audience.
And, really, why are independent authors publishing their books on Amazon if not to have people other than their family and friends read the book? I don’t want to disappoint those strangers (especially since they’re willing to pay me money for what they read) and so, I combine creativity with more prosaic skills like editing and market analysis.
Announcing a Book Launch
If you want to see what creativity and rock-solid writing skills produce together, Gathering In (Book 5 of Transformation Project) debuts tomorrow Tuesday, October 22 and is currently on pre-order. You’ll save $1 over its launch price ($2.99) and $2 over its full retail price $3.99). It will also be available in paperback come Tuesday. All earlier books in the series will be on $1.99 sale from launch through Cyber Monday.
Take a walk through America’s “bubble battles” with someone without a dog in the fight.
For a committed democrat, it sure does suck when you lose an election.
You know what I mean?
Nearly half the country refuses to listen to the other half. We think we know what the other side means, but we never venture outside our own bubbles to actually find out.
Libertarian Connor infiltrates both bubbles in a Midwestern town on Election Wednesday 2016 and brings readers along for a wry non-partisan tour of the “Bubble Battles.” He even offers a solution … not that any bubble dwellers will listen.
This novelette is a work of fiction based upon real-life events. Any resemblance to yourself or people you know is purely coincidental.
Stephanie (Stevie) Jorgenson is a detective in Chandler County. Though she comes from a wealthy ranch family, she made her own way in the world and followed her dreams. Keeping Chandler County safe is her top priority. When she meets the handsome security specialist from Bluegrass Security, there is an immediate spark and the two succumb to the attraction, but neither believes anything more should come of it. Life, circumstance and intrigue follow the pair as they are thrown together time after time dealing with some terrible situations in Bourbonville.
I hope you’ll enjoy Missing the Point and the books of my fellow authors in Chandler County.
Tomorrow my book Objects in View launches and to give it a good start, I’ve set up a Thunderclap to tell the world that it’s running free in the world.
A Thunderclap is a system that allows me to borrow your social media network for a second to send out a message that is important to me – that Objects in View is launching. Thunderclap does not keep any of your information, so after the campaign has “clapped” you will not be contacted by anyone.
I’ve participated in about 100 Thunderclap campaigns over the last two years and have had no issues with it. If you’d like to give my campaign a boost, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.
Objects in View launches tomorrow. In its honor, some of my other books will have free days this week. Anyone wanting to pick up a free copy of my latest book to review can drop me a line at lelamarkham@gmail.com with “I’ll read for review” in the subject line and I’ll send you it in the format you request.
I’ve started a Thunderclap to announce the launch of “Objects in View”. Let me borrow your social media for a single pulse on October 4 and help to get out the word for my book. There is no cost to you and Thunderclap keeps no information on you or your accounts. I appreciate the help.
A friend of mine from high school (so, yes, she knows my real name) asked me why I’m writing dystopian fiction when I have this really cool fantasy series that she would prefer I write the next book to.
I could simply point out that my apocalyptic dystopian novel Life As We Knew It sells better than the fantasy, but I guess it goes a little deeper than that shallow capitalistic motive. Dystopian themes have been a part of our popular cultural for a long time. Stories about crumbling governments, pandemics, plagues, and looming apocalypses man made, alien and artificial intelligence, cycle through our collective psyches with startling regularity. George Orwell’s 1984, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Logan’s Run, Blade Runner, or Terminator, Americans seem fixated on the disaster at the end of our current mess. We always have been, but it may be getting worse as our culture and economy seem to be in spasm right now.
End of the world as we know it themes do not all neatly into the category of dystopia, though they share the view of the future as a bleak place. Why are dystopian themes so compelling that we keep returning to them? My friend says she prefers my fantasy series because she just knows it will have a rosy ending. Epic fantasies are somewhat required to have upbeat endings, but I might not be so compliant, but she does have a point. Wouldn’t we rather envision a utopia where the world is lovely, clean and survivable? Yeah, but that wouldn’t be reality.
Utopianism grew out of modernity — the belief that technology and human ingenuity can build a better world. Industrialization led us to believe we could harness the better angels of our nature — conquer disease, aging, poverty, etc. That didn’t last long. Several world wars, genocides, natural disasters, governmental collapses and overthrows, overcrowded jails and over-medicated masses — reality sort of T-boned utopia. Then we looked good and hard at ourselves in the mirror and realized human beings aren’t capable of utopia. God gave us paradise once and we rejected it. Dystopia is our default position.
Yeah, I know, I’m a downer Debbie, but I’m also being realistic about human kind. and I’m drawing that vision from a Biblical worldview Manmade utopia is simply not possible and a dystopian future is far more realistic.
The Bible does not paint a rosy picture for mankind. Jesus warned about natural and cosmological catastrophes, plagues, and times of great deception. John the Apostle gave his own violent account of the end of the age, Scripture makes it clear that things will get worse before they get better. Yeah, we can make peace accords, invent new technology and develop wonderful therapeautic techniques, but Armageddon is still going to happen. Shangri la not found in the Bible. Christians read that our best efforts are going to put us in an arena, pitted against God, nature and, each other. We can try to deny it, but that’s reality.
Why?
Because man is broken and you can’t correct our damage with moral or technological enhancements. We are not inherently good and utopia is not in our future. History and personal experience have repeatedly shown us that, left to our devices, Man fails. Dystopian fictoin is an admission of the basic depravity of mankind. Everything we touch rots and the more we fiddle with it, the faster it decomposes.
So why are we surprised that a society that grew out of a Judeo-Chrisian background is now coming to a creeping realization that we are broken and that things are only going to get worse? We see something in a screw up future that is familiar because we know ourselves and instinctively we know we’re going to blow it all to hell.
The dystopian trend is an affirmation of a Christian worldview which admits that no earthly power can save us from ourselves. In popular culture, dystopia runs over utopia because some truths are obvious, and the depravity of mankind is too obvious not to become the subject of any thinking novelist in reflection of our cultural corruption.
Objects in View continues the story of a small town coping in the aftermath of a nation-wide terrorist attack. Watch for it October 4 and it is on pre-order now.
A Threatening Fragility
For a committed democrat, it sure does suck when you lose an election.
Stephanie (Stevie) Jorgenson is a detective in Chandler County. Though she comes from a wealthy ranch family, she made her own way in the world and followed her dreams. Keeping Chandler County safe is her top priority. When she meets the handsome security specialist from Bluegrass Security, there is an immediate spark and the two succumb to the attraction, but neither believes anything more should come of it. Life, circumstance and intrigue follow the pair as they are thrown together time after time dealing with some terrible situations in Bourbonville.
I’ve participated in about 100 Thunderclap campaigns over the last two years and have had no issues with it. If you’d like to give my campaign a boost, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.
End of the world as we know it themes do not all neatly into the category of dystopia, though they share the view of the future as a bleak place. Why are dystopian themes so compelling that we keep returning to them? My friend says she prefers my fantasy series because she just knows it will have a rosy ending. Epic fantasies are somewhat required to have upbeat endings, but I might not be so compliant, but she does have a point. Wouldn’t we rather envision a utopia where the world is lovely, clean and survivable? Yeah, but that wouldn’t be reality.
So why are we surprised that a society that grew out of a Judeo-Chrisian background is now coming to a creeping realization that we are broken and that things are only going to get worse? We see something in a screw up future that is familiar because we know ourselves and instinctively we know we’re going to blow it all to hell.
aurorawatcherak 