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writing - and being a writer

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Apparently if you are a sci-fantasy writer and wish to make any sort of living, you spend 75% of your life wandering about promoting yourself and your work like crazy. It's the big difference between literary writers and genre writers - I've noticed. The literary writers online - don't do this. They sort of sit on their laurels...and well write, teach courses, go to a few conferences, and that's it.

The genre writers on the other hand, particularly the sci-fantasy ones - seem to travel about the world either on their own dime or someone gives them money (can't quite figure out which - guessing a bit of both or they'd be broke by now, one would suspect because world-wide traveling can't be cheap) jumping from fan convention to fan convention and book signing to book signing, etc. Lord knows when they find time to write admist all this hubbub. Although, considering I find time to write and tell myself stories and blog with a full time 8 hour a day, mentally exhausting job...shouldn't be that much of a surprise. My father wrote a book in airports and at motels while he flew to and from meetings (the original road warrior). He was in and out of airports so much when I was a kid, that the other kids in my neighborhood thought he was a pilot. Which was admittedly easier to wrap one's head around than organizational and compensation consultant, who wrote mysteries in his spare time. Didn't get them published because he sucked at marketing himself. Now self-publishes them.

Been reading my correspondence list - and all the professional writers are blogging long-ass posts from some convention, book signing or awards conference advertising themselves and their work like crazy. The only one I sort of envy is Neil Gaiman who is by far the most successful of the bunch and the most famous. He just won two Shirley Jackson Awards - didn't know there were such things. Rather adore Shirley Jackson, although she rarely won awards and struggled mightily. What is it with the entertainment industry and awards? No one else gets them. People who work long days, sweating in the street fixing a sewage system, or abating asbestos from cables, or ensuring such things get done in a timely manner don't get awards. I'm guessing the reason people in the "entertainment" jobs do - is they are unappreciated or scoffed at, so need to some respect from somewhere - all people need that after-all. Also...it provides the rest of us with a way of choosing amongst the vast majority of content out there. Sure there are critics, but critics as we all know tend to be unreliable. Awards are far more positive any how, and they are based on the opinions of people in the actual field - who do it for a living. Also it's, let's face it, a lot more fun to predict which favorite tv show, book, story or movie is going to win than say which sewage construction worker did the best job. Entertainment takes us out of ourselves and our mundane lives - let's us escape...without nasty side-effects. And we adore those who entertain us - because they provide that means of escape or in some cases they communicate our greatest fears, joys, woes to the universe - connecting us with people we'd never met otherwise, like-minded souls across a vast divide.
So who's to say really which job is the most worthwhile? If any? And the awards are a means of showing some appreciation to those artists who move us the most.

Speaking of nasty ways of escape? Read about a really nasty drug the other day called Bath Salts - which causes severe psychotic episodes. Episodes that remind me a bit of zombies. The people who take these drugs - get high, but also often go violently and scarily insane. And are difficult to sedate or restrain. One woman scratched herself to bits - thinking bugs were crawling under her skin.
She looked like she'd been drug for miles over broken glass. Another woman was so violently deranged, it took six men to restrain her, and nothing worked to sedate her. A man - climbed a pole and threw things at the street. Another man killed his entire family while on it. Talk about your bad acid trip. It's like something out of a horror movie. Britain banned the drug in 2010 or 2009. Now its made it's way to the US and they are having troubles containing it - since it is sold in bath shops and stores as well "bath salts". This is why we can't legalize drugs - some drugs turn people into violent psychopaths right out of a Stephen King horror flick. The fiction writer in me went nuts over this story - I kept playing with ways to turn it into short story or novel.

Okay off to bed. Damn, I can't make it to bed until 11 no matter what I do. Feeling the Wire withdrawl, big time. I'm starting to figure out the narrative tropes that turn me on. The Wire hits so many narrative tropes that turn me on, it's not even funny. And I love, just love to pieces, all the main characters - well with the possible exception of Burrell and Valcheck, who I keep wanting to spork with a spoon. Great rec guys. You were so right about the Wire.

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MDPV, aka "bath salts", is a pretty standard dopaminergic stimulant, not substantially different in effect from cocaine or methamphetamine. It's just marketed differently (so as to be quasi-legal -- although IIRC most states in the US have banned it).

Recreational stimulants are bad news, clearly much worse than pot or acid, but arguably not as bad as alcohol.

So you don't think I'm talking out of my hat, so to speak:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/us/17salts.html

Dr. Jeffrey J. Narmi could not believe what he was seeing this spring in the emergency room at Schuylkill Medical Center in Pottsville, Pa.: people arriving so agitated, violent and psychotic that a small army of medical workers was needed to hold them down.

They had taken new stimulant drugs that people are calling “bath salts,” and sometimes even large doses of sedatives failed to quiet them.

“There were some who were admitted overnight for treatment and subsequently admitted to the psych floor upstairs,” Dr. Narmi said. “These people were completely disconnected from reality and in a very bad place.”

Similar reports are emerging from hospitals around the country, as doctors scramble to figure out the best treatment for people high on bath salts. The drugs started turning up regularly in the United States last year and have proliferated in recent months, alarming doctors, who say they have unusually dangerous and long-lasting effects.

Though they come in powder and crystal form like traditional bath salts — hence their name — they differ in one crucial way: they are used as recreational drugs. People typically snort, inject or smoke them.

Poison control centers around the country received 3,470 calls about bath salts from January through June, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, up from 303 in all of 2010.

“Some of these folks aren’t right for a long time,” said Karen E. Simone, director of the Northern New England Poison Center. “If you gave me a list of drugs that I wouldn’t want to touch, this would be at the top.”

At least 28 states have banned bath salts, which are typically sold for $25 to $50 per 50-milligram packet at convenience stores and head shops under names like Aura, Ivory Wave, Loco-Motion and Vanilla Sky. Most of the bans are in the South and the Midwest, where the drugs have grown quickly in popularity. But states like Maine, New Jersey and New York have also outlawed them after seeing evidence that their use was spreading.

The cases are jarring and similar to those involving PCP in the 1970s. Some of the recent incidents include a man in Indiana who climbed a roadside flagpole and jumped into traffic, a man in Pennsylvania who broke into a monastery and stabbed a priest, and a woman in West Virginia who scratched herself “to pieces” over several days because she thought there was something under her skin.

Alcohol is a depressant not a stimulant - so has different results and rarely results in the type of behavior described above.

Granted everyone's body is different. But PCPs' and amphetamines and mephatamines are dangerous due a tendency to result in increased "anxiety" and "paranoia" in the user. Also instant death.
PCP's and LSD ("acid") and "escatasy" are far more dangerous than alcohol because they are considered mind-altering drugs. LSD was originally used by psychologists in the military to alter mental patterns of people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder during the Vietnam War (see Timothy Leary, et al.)

Crack, cocaine, and heroine are far more addictive than alcole and require increased quantities to establish the high. They also seriously effect the chemistry of the brain and neurological system.

Alchol - which admittedly has dangerous components if done in excess, is not as addictive. The vast majority can drink a glass of wine or even get shit-faced without ripping myself to shreds. Or having delusions. Since it is a depressant not a stimulant - it rarely results in the type of behavior described above - if it did, it would be outlawed.

Clearly I can't spell or need to learn to proofread.
Sorry for all of the typos.

Oops, last line should be "Saying that LSD is more dangerous than alcohol is frankly nuts."

HUH???? Please clarify, I don't understand. Which line? Where? And do you have anything supporting your opinion???

Yeah, I remember the PCP scare. That was insanely exaggerated, too. Every time a new drug comes along, the media hype it as the Worst Thing Ever. It's a peculiar species of moral panic. People like bad news, and publishers like to sell papers. PCP is bad stuff (and from personal experience, not fun at all -- I have no idea why anyone uses it) but not much worse than other dissociatives like ketamine or DXM. General rule of thumb: if a news story about drugs says nothing about pharmacology or statistical data but only cites anecdotes, it's bullshit.

LSD is an exceptionally safe drug by any measure. It has no known LD50, hence overdosing on LSD is effectively impossible, and it does not impair judgment or motor control even to the extent that alcohol does. There are no known long-term negative effects associated with its use, other than a disorder called HPPD (hallucinogen persisting perceptual disorder), which affects a tiny number of users -- probably less than 1% -- and is not fatal.

Alcohol is responsible for 79,000 deaths annually in the United States alone, according to the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/). That is several times more than all other recreational drugs combined. While comparisons of which drug is "more addictive" are difficult to make with certainty -- since it's hard to get accurate data on the number of addicts vs. number of users for illegal drugs -- there is no doubt that alcohol is highly addictive. It is also neurotoxic, severely impairs judgment, promotes aggression, and has numerous long-term negative health effects. If we had to pick only one drug to zap out of existence, from a public health perspective the choice would be very obvious.

Saying that alcohol is more dangerous than LSD is frankly nuts.

I've no time for Valchek, but I kind of like Burrell, have to admit.

Hee. Interestingly enough - it was the actor who portrayed Valcheck that the writers/producers decided to submit for an emmy based on his ability to play that character.

Agree - prefer Burrell to Valcheck, although I admittedly found Valcheck to be hilarious in S2. S2 was by far the funniest season.

Well I thought that most authors do book tours (signing at bookstores) which are paid for by the publishers to help get reviews in local papers (big cities of course).... assuming that they have a publisher who budgets money for promotion of the book.

I know that some of the people who are 'guests' at comic con have their expenses all paid for by the publisher or movie and/or TV studio....
but some are on their own.
Someone like Terry Moore, who writes and draws his own work and is distributed by a small independent publisher, is at comic con on his own dime... but at least the expenses are all tax deductible, and I think his fan base is big enough so he can profit by being there.

Actually, more than critical reviews or awards, I'm influenced to read a book or watch a show because of people like you who write about the things they love online!

Well I thought that most authors do book tours (signing at bookstores) which are paid for by the publishers to help get reviews in local papers (big cities of course).... assuming that they have a publisher who budgets money for promotion of the book.

Depends. Genre writers do it more because of the competition and the fact that their publisher won't market their book. They have to do it.
This is true of all genre, including mysteries and romances. The field is packed and you have to do something to make yourself look interesting.

Literary novelists - tend to do it more by word of mouth. They'll do some book signings, but not many and usually attend conferences or teach. They rely heavily on book reviews and critical reviews.

Most novelists traveling about - pay for it themselves. Which is why I haven't gotten published - I don't have time for all the marketing and promoting.

It's possible more literary writers do it than I'm aware of, I just rarely see them.

Actually, more than critical reviews or awards, I'm influenced to read a book or watch a show because of people like you who write about the things they love online!

Hee. Me too. I learn about books, tv shows, and films from people online or people in my family or offline friends who rec them to me. I checked out The Wire not because the critics adored it, I ignore them, but because people on my correspondence list told me about it and included videos promoting it. Same is true about films - I went to X=Men First Class because my flist loved it. Critics? Bah.

"Critics? Bah."
LOL
Yeah, I'm amazed sometimes at how clueless a reviewer (hired by a respected magazine or news paper) can be... it is like they don't even understand what they are reviewing....
The example of Good Omens getting panned by the New York Times Book Review because the book reminded the reviewer of how angry he was w/his British ex-wife and her relatives is a particularly mind boggling one (and of course the book went to number one anyway, but too late to benefit the authors because the publisher had dropped their book!). Neil & Terry went into a lot of detail about that, because they are still bitter about all those sales for which they got no money. It is tough being a writer, even when you get published you can get screwed.

Tis life though. Being screwed, I mean. All professions have that problem in one way or the other.

The problem with the artist professions or entertainer professions is you spend 75% of your time doing nothing but promoting your work and yourself. Most professions? You spend 20% of your time doing that. I suck at self-promotion and marketing - which is why I'm not published even though I've written two, make that three...books.
Only one worth getting published in my opinion.

Remember an art teacher telling me once how it sucked that the bad artists were excellent at marketing themselves and got sold, while many great artists couldn't figure out how to market themselves at all.

In fact it's very rare for publishers to pay for tours these days, and they never pay for cons. If you're a guest of honor the con pays for you, and in some other circumstances. But publishers tend to foot the bill only for very big names.

I've been noticing this. It is in some respects what is scaring me off of trying to get my own novel published - which does not fit into any clear genre category - the closest might be urban edgy contemporary or post-modern noir, but I don't even think that works. And I do not have the time to do the promotional stuff.

My father who was a Road Warrior for 30 years, upon retirement and finally getting around to writing again and self-publishing, has neither the energy nor the physical stamina to do the traveling about again. (Bad back and he is 75). A friend of his - who started out - self-publishing, then finally got a publisher, St. Marks Press, is a mystery novelist. She's been touring the country - book store to book store, book signing to book signing, all paid out of her own pocket. Even with the publisher. She barely makes a dime off of her work. It's painful.

But like all jobs - there's always a frustrating down side.

Yeah, this is basically the way of it--add in that everyone assumes your publisher is paying for it so you obviously can pick up the tab at any dinner and you have extra fun.

I was lucky in that my publisher paid for this tour. But it's my 10th book and the only one with serious money and steam behind it. A coincidence it's my biggest success? No. But you have to pound the pavement either way. It's not optional anymore.

Doesn't surprise me. Publishers were pinching pennies back in the 1990s, when I jumped into the sub-rights field. Remember being told that they were cutting way back on personnel and on what they'd finance. More and more of the heavy lifting was being placed in the writer's hands. Unless of course - the book was a guaranteed best-seller, then they'd put all of their marketing weight behind it.

(This may explain why I want to rip books like the Twilight series to shreds, because I know how much money the publishing industry threw at that series, money that they took away from far better written YA novels...such as Kristin Cashore's Graceling, which I just finished. But I also know from my various discussions with trade publishing editors and agents - Meyer's Twilight series is their bread and butter. They'd be out of business without it and nothing would get published.)

I remember the story about The Horse Whisperer - picked up at a rights convention - based solely on the first five chapters. It's a cinderella tale. First novel. But for every one of those..there
are people like Kathy Wall - a mystery writer, paying her own way or a James Yaffe, another mystery writer/and television scribe (who I know no one has ever heard of) doing the same thing. I remember Yaffe telling me once - only write if you have the drive, and have something to say - don't do it for fame or fortune, both are unlikely to come your way.

But most writers pound the pavement. I know Stephen King, John Grisham, JK Rowling, and George RR Martin all did. As did Jim Butcher. The lucky ones - get a best-seller. Most, pray for one, much like my co-workers pray to win the lottery - better odds winning the lottery.

It does depend a lot upon who you are and who you know...
Back in 2006 Warren Ellis said he was going to have to cancel his comic con appearance because he couldn't find a hotel he could afford...
he posted bitterly about it on his blog, and Joss posted back kidding around, but Joss also made some calls (at the time Joss was writing for Marvel as well as Dark Horse, and probably knew some people at networks and movie studios too) and got him a room.
It is a fun read:
http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=1848
it is possible that Joss gave up his own room and decided to just from home for one long day in San Diego... I don't know.

I was just in Chicago yesterday to meet Jim Butcher ... and he affirmed that his publisher arranged the signing (and that he couldn't wait for the tour to be over with so he could get home), but clearly he has become a bigger name these days.

Yeah, Warren Ellis and Jim Butcher are huge names--we're not really talking about superstars, who always get good treatment.

oh I was showing that Warren Ellis is NOT a superstar (he only got good treatment when Joss got it for him, he was paying his own way and was going to have to cancel).

and I was expressing surprise that Butcher evidently is a superstar... I hadn't thought he was. I'm glad he is.

Almost all my travel this year has been on someone else's dime. Else I'd be in the poorhouse. But it's a terrible irony that as you become more successful (and need help less) publishers and cons start paying for more and more of your expenses. It's unavoidable, really, but when you need the help most you're least likely to get it.

I think this is really interesting though--book tours are still more common for realist writers, but we have the con circuit and they don't. I don't know. It's beyond exhausting--I can't even begin to describe what it takes out of you to do long bouts of appearances and PR, but complaining sounds shitty, because hey, you have a book, and are able to promote.

I think this is really interesting though--book tours are still more common for realist writers, but we have the con circuit and they don't.

Actually, now that I think about it...the realist writers do sort of have a con circuit - it's just vastly different. It's more a "writer's conference" type of thing. Where they go and teach amateur writers how to publish or sell their book. I met Harry Mark Petrakis (http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4658/Petrakis-Harry-Mark.html) at one of them - he was the featured speaker. It was a community college Writer's Fair/Convention that I attended as a teenager. They host a lot of summer writer's workshops, writer's conferences, and go to a lot of book fairs - like Frankfurt and NY Book Fair, and Brooklyn Book Fair. The big Brooklyn Book Fair in the fall - gets a ton of them. Also the New Yorker hosts a bunch of readings and writer seminars - with presentations by various "realist" writers.

So they have them, but they are harder to get, I would expect, and maybe not as much fun?

It's beyond exhausting--I can't even begin to describe what it takes out of you to do long bouts of appearances and PR

I think the promotional stuff would kill me. I hate traveling. Tend to be a somewhat anxious person regarding logistics. And hate public speaking.
It's what scares me off of the whole getting published thing. Writing the story, crafting it, editing it, fine-tuning it? No problem. Love that. Selling, marketing, and promoting it? Big Problem!

My guess is a lot of people online feel much the same way...which is why there are so many fanfic writers. They can share their stories with millions, get great feedback and applause, but not have to do the hard and often exhausting leg work of selling it.

Well...or the hard work of creating their own characters and worlds. Don't forget the fan in fanfic.

And many of those book fairs are industry things, like Frankfurt, where they are not there to make fans of their work. Not that realist authors have fandoms the way we do--sometimes I think the tenacity of fandom is the only thing keeping books going.

Oh I agree. So much of genre fiction is based on nitch fandoms. I remember a writer telling me a while back that sci-fantasy and romance publishing imprints were hunting fanfic writers with a large online fan base to write original fiction - thinking they could translate that online fan base into an actual readership. And it makes sense. The internet has to a degree made publishing genre fiction a bit easier or at the very least less confined to the *cough*male*cough market. (thank god).

Writing books that don't fit into a nitch genre can be harder to sell. One woman on my flist - a very good writer, who was also a fanfic writer, is trying to be a literary novelist or realist novelist. She's published one book so far, and has been working on a second. But is struggling. Quite a few realist writers tend to be teachers, journalists, or columnists/book review critics. OR they have a patron who is helping them or a grant (lots of grants).

Then again, I've been told it is easier to sell a book without placing it in a specific genre. And I've counted the number of publishers who will not accept genre fiction. (Or tried to count them - they outnumber the ones that do by a large margin). Let's face it genre is frowned upon in the mainstream publishing community, always has been.

And it is true - creating a world is not an easy thing. Sci-Fantasy is harder to write than other genres - because you need to build a believable world with believable rules and believable characters as well as do everything else. Unlike a mystery novel, a science-fiction mystery novel has to juggle the world-building along with the mystery plot and the characters.

But is it really "hard work"? I don't know. Always found it to be sort of fun myself. ;-)

I, um, am going to have to say it's hard work, yes.

And while it's looked down on, with a few superstar exceptions, it pays better, sells more, and more writers can live off of genre fiction. It's a trade off.

I've been doing ok writing hard to define books that don't fit in any genre--but I'm an anomaly, and I know that. It's always hard, all of it, like any job, but unlike a 9-5, the work never ends. You're never off the clock, always working, wither on PR or creativity.

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