(no subject)

[shadowkat]

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.

Comments

[doublemeat.livejournal.com]

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.

[shapinglight]

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

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

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!

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

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.