From Un-me To Real Me: How Losing My Job Gave Me My Spark Back

Part 6

If you're just tuning in, I've been recounting how I got started with writing novels at the age of 14, developed a love of horror movies, lost my spark when author Stephenie Meyer ruined my life, and ended up where I am today.

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I always tell people, "If you want to get good at writing, go work for a newspaper."

Nothing will help you write faster, better, and conquer writer's block more quickly than having to write an 800 word story twenty minutes before deadline.

I know this from experience. I did it for five years.

Journalism was a good day job for me, but, as you may recall from my last entry, that was only until Stephenie Meyer, author of those soul-destroying Twilight books, crippled my interest in writing. Once that was dead, so was my passion for journalism.

So I moved into pagination, editing, and graphic design. My work caught the attention of a local marketing company that eventually hired me to be a full time graphic artist at their small publishing house. For years I designed book covers, illustrations, graphics, websites, business cards, digital books, book trailers, bookmarks, and much, much more. In fact I still work for them on a case-by-case basis today.

An itty-bitty sampling of my work.

Seeing the world of publishing from the inside out was a unique experience. I began to see just what kinds of difficulties publishers faced, how it has become a challenge for them to make a book successful, and how risky it is to spend months—maybe even years—preparing to launch a new author's work.

I also realized just how hard it was for an author to make a living writing books. Most of our authors went nowhere. Most of them suffered from what I perceive to be the biggest misconception among writers today—being a successful writer isn't about creating good writing, it's about marketing. There are tons of great writers out there, but few of them will ever be successful because they don't know how to market.

Our writers promised us all sorts of things.

"I have a huge email list that I'm going to use to promote the book."

"I've got thousands of fans on Twitter and Facebook, and I'm going to market to them!"

"I'm going to travel around to bookstores and libraries with my book."

"I'll use my professional speaking platform to spread the word about my book."

But few of them actually followed through. Once the book came out, the excuses started tumbling in.

"I'm just too busy right now."

"My speaking engagements are not really for my book."

"My email list is technically for my company, not myself."

"I didn't really have a good marketing plan."

"I don't know what to do!"

So the little marketing/publishing company that I worked for found itself losing lots of money. They couldn't afford to keep me on staff, but they didn't want to let me go either. They decided to cut my hours to part time while they reevaluated their business in hopes of hiring me back again if/when things picked up.

And then I found myself with about 20 extra hours a week on my hands. I spent some of it investing in some projects around the house that needed tending, and I did eventually get a part time job driving package trucks for UPS to help make ends meet.

But the real kick in the brain pan came when I got an unexpected check from Amazon.

Remember those two books I co-authored with my friend Mitch?

Well, after our publishing company failed to uphold their end of our contract, we asked for our books back. They begrudgingly agreed. Then, in an attempt to please our minuscule number of fans, we re-published the books on our own. (I had spent enough years designing books that setting them up was a breeze.) And the ebooks sold like hot cakes!

And that check from Amazon? It was almost enough to pay the mortgage that month. Wowzers!

I used to think there was no money in writing novels, but I was wrong. There was money to be had, but the method of getting it had changed.

My muse was coming alive again.

To be continued...

From Un-me To Real Me: How Stephenie Meyer Killed My Muse

Part Five

I've been reflecting on my journey as a writer, what drew me into the world of writing and shaped my style, and how my muse came to a sudden and depressing end...

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For fourteen years I had been obsessed with writing. I had written about nine books, two of which had been published and a third had just spent three years in limbo with a publisher that didn't fulfill its end of the bargain. My co-author and I were at odds, and my "writing career" was not what I had hoped it would be.

I was discouraged, depressed, dissatisfied, and done.

Along came Stephenie Meyer in 2007 with a teen vampire novel called Twilight. For reasons I have never been able to figure out her books took the world by storm. When the movies began to hit in 2008, Meyer made millions off her three novels and four films over the next five years.

Here's the thing that pisses me off about Stephenie Meyer: her books were horribly written; the characters were boring, unrealistic, and one-dimensional; the pace of the story was dreadfully slow (she routinely violates the "show don't tell" rule of storytelling); the plot was thin and unoriginal, and YET teenagers devoured these books like candy.

I agree with author Stephen King, who, in an interview with USA Weekend, said, "Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."

DISCLAIMER: If you're a fan of Twilight, I apologize. It is not the intention of this article to demean fans of the franchise. I'm a huge fan of the 1987 Dolph Lundgren film Masters of the Universe. It was a truly bad film, but there's something about it that awakens the kid in me and I simply love it. So if Twilight is your thing, I understand, but that doesn't change the fact that "Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn."

The Great Satan of Literature?

Before you ask, yes, I read the first book in her series, Twilight. I had to see for myself what all the fuss was about. I plowed through it in an afternoon, speed-reading through her horrendous over-use of adverbs, the atrocious dialogue, and her repetitive descriptions of the oh-so-hot male characters. I could spend hours picking apart Meyer's inability to structure a story, design characters of any depth, craft an intriguing romance, or write an action scene—and I have... all over the internet in fact.

Here's the thing...

I remember back in 1998 when Director Michael Bay released Armageddon, People magazine published a story on why some big-shots in Hollywood viewed Michael Bay as "the great satan of movies." Their point was simple: Michael Bay's over-stylized and empty-headed approach to filmmaking was devaluing the craft.

Michael Bay says, "Talk to the hand!"
as he walks to the bank.

I'm calling out Stephenie Meyer—though I am hardly the first to do so—to say that she's doing the same thing to the craft of writing, her and the slew of copycats and wannabes she inspired—yes, I'm thinking about you E.L. James.

Do I think my writing is superior? Absolutely! And I can point to a hundred other indie authors whose work is superior to mine who are worth all the books sales Meyer got and much more.

Here was Stephenie Meyer, a middle-aged soccer mom with no previous interest in writing, churning out the most basic, badly written, adjective-stuffed melodramatic teenage drivel and making millions, and yet thousands of other writers, myself included, with much better ideas and years of practice couldn't get a single publisher to take a chance on us.

The Real Problem

But Meyer's success put a big spotlight on the real problem—big publishers.

I began to realize that publishers aren't seeking quality work anymore. They're looking to fill a predetermined novel mold established by a marketing team to guarantee major sales. They don't care about content or genre or how good or bad an author is at their craft. They know the market and they want content to fill what the market wants as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Author Alan Moore said in November, 2015, “Publishing today is a complete mess. I know brilliant authors who can’t get their books published." He went on to explain that the reason is because publishing houses are afraid of taking risks on fiction. Moore’s solution? “Publish yourself. Don’t rely upon other people.” (Alan Moore Advises New Writers to Self-Publish Because Big Publishers Suck.)

Big publishers just want to meet the market demands and make as much money as they can in the process.

This is a major shift from just a few decades ago when publishing companies were all about discovering the next great American novel, which is a shame, really. The literacy level in America has been dropping for years. The LA Times, The Huffington Post, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and many other publications have been spotlighting this problem for the last ten years. Whether work like Meyer's is a contributing factor or just a sign of the problem is open for debate, but either way she, along with the companies that publish her, is not helping.

I suppose the fault is more than just bad authors and lazy publishers too. With the rise of self-publishing and digital books, combined with the increasing cost of paper and printing, publishers started realizing that the old way of doing things was no longer working. Editors no longer had the time to sift through stacks of manuscripts to determine which novel was most worthy of publication. The digital age was booming fast, more and more people were writing books, and publishers had to act as quickly as possible to keep money flowing in.

And they've been making bad decisions ever since.

So after reading Twilight and seeing first hand the kind of awful literature the market was willing to settle for, and after I had begun to get a glimpse of what the world of publishing was becoming, I decided I was done.

And my muse died.

To be continued...

From Un-Me To Real Me: Giving Up On My Dreams

Part 4

I've been reflecting on my journey as a writer, how psychological horror movies began influencing my style, pushing me beyond boundaries that my co-author wasn't comfortable with.

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A QUICK RECAP

After my first fantasy novel had been published when I was 17, my friend Mitch came to me with an idea for another fantasy novel. He knew he wasn't the strongest writer, but he had great ideas. So together we spent several years crafting a trilogy and book one was published in 2004.

OK, MOVING ON...

The publishing company we were signed with was a small outfit based in Virginia. They were putting out quality work, but they had limited resources.

They also strung us along and screwed us over, but I'll get to that.

When my co-author and I submitted a sequel to them for publication in 2010 they seemed more than excited about its quality and content. We signed a contract that stated the book had to be published within two years or we, the authors, would have the right to shop it to other publishers.

Honestly, I don't know what happened. Maybe this small little publishing company bit off more than it could chew. Maybe sales of all its books were so bad that it started to go under. Maybe the personal problems assailing the executive editor were bogging things down. All I know is that two years came and went and our sequel still wasn't published.

I had sort of given up on it anyway. My co-author and I had reached some disagreements about the resolution of the third book in our trilogy and we couldn't settle on an ending.

A few character sketches I did for our book series.

A pensive old codger.

A dark warrior anti-hero sorta guy.

The bad guy... in case you couldn't guess.

So what happened?

I'm glad you asked!

When Mitch brought me his outline for the first book in our series he literally had a beginning and an ending, but no idea on how to get there.

So I did the writing. We'd meet, discuss our ideas, flesh out the story, and then I'd go home and write some chapters. A week or two later we'd meet and discuss what I'd written. And back and fourth we went until the manuscript was finished.

From my point of view I was the one who was living and breathing these characters. I was the one who was getting inside their heads and trying to figure out what they were thinking and what was motivating them. Mitch knew them very well also, just not as good as I did. I'll understand if I sound like I'm high atop a horse here, but both Mitch and I knew this was the case.

Now there comes a point with every book that I write where the characters start speaking to me. (Check out What My Non-Writing Friends Will Never Understand About Me if you're curious about how insane I am.) It usually happens if I've scripted something that goes against the grain of the character. I'll feel the character in my head saying, "No, this isn't what I want to do." And if I allow it the character takes my story in new directions far more interesting than anything I had conceived.

Mitch didn't understand this. So when one of our characters started speaking to me, telling me how he wanted the story to go, Mitch wasn't in agreement with the changes.

In fact, he had his own idea for a complete rewrite. He wanted to start the book over from scratch! Years of work and he wanted to start over.

I said, "No, thank you. I want to be done with this series. In fact, I want to be done with writing. We're barely breaking even on our book sales. The time and effort isn't worth it. There's no money in writing. I want to be done. I want out. We can finish what we started, but no WAY are we starting over."

And that little impasse is what pushed me into giving up on writing.

I admit, I was a bit depressed. There was other life stuff going on at the time that was stressing me out, but I think my interests were changing also. I thought my creative life was headed in a different direction.

And, honestly, it was time to go get a real job. I was an adult now and I needed money.

But my depression was about to reach new lows thanks to a little push from Stephanie Meyer, author of Twilight.

To be continued...




PS. Think it's time to give up on your dream of writing? Maybe it is. Read, Six Signs It's Time To Give Up On Writing, by Chuck Wendig, or here's a more palatable post, Signs It’s Time to Give Up on Your Dream of Being a Writer.

From Un-Me To Real Me: What I Learned From Horror Movies

Part 3

I've been reflecting on my journey as a writer, how psychological horror movies began influencing my style, pushing me beyond boundaries that my co-author wasn't comfortable with.

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I was 15 years old when I saw the movie Se7en, with Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Spacey as a sadistic serial killer who technically didn't kill anyone.

The weird thing about Se7en is that it didn't scare me. It disturbed me. For weeks after seeing it I couldn't get it out of my mind. It was disgusting, but it was brilliant. It was horrifying, but it was beautiful. It was directed with perfection, but it looked utterly sickening.

Other horror movies that had a similar impact on me around that age included The Silence of the Lambs, Misery, Stir of Echoes, and In The Mouth of Madness.

Let me be clear on this one point—these movies didn't scare me. Very little scared me, in fact. My father taught me a lot about movies and prosthetics and fake blood, so my reaction to scary monsters wasn't to hide under the covers, but rather with wide-eyed fascination exclaim, "Whoa, what excellent make-up!"

But there was something about these psychological horror movies that stuck in my mind.  I couldn't figure out why I was so captivated by these stories and yet sickened at the same time.

It hit me in two parts.

First, I realized that these horror films were rising above the once popular slasher genre of the 80s by delving into something deeper—the human psyche. To me monsters like Chucky, Dracula, and werewolves, were nothing compared to the evil tendencies that lived inside people.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I found that the movies that disturbed me the deepest taught me the most. Because after being so unsettled by something I felt compelled to figure it out. For example, after being traumatized by Se7en I dove into the Bible to learn about the Seven Deadly Sins (which are not the same ones used in the movie, by the way). I started reading books about serial killers and studied criminal psychology in college. I loved plunging the depths of human nature, the supernatural, and nightmares.

The movies that shook me up were the movies that got me thinking, got me learning, got me reading, got my creative juices flowing.

I don't know why I wasn't motivated by green fields with butterflies and rainbows. *shrugs* Whatever. We can't all be Lucy Maud Montgomery.

I believe there's a lot of truth in some of those scientific studies linking horror movies to depression, anger, and temperament. (What's Going On In Your Body When You Watch A Horror Movie, 5 Scientific Ways Watching Movies Effects You). Horror movies don't have the same impact on everyone, so take that with a grain of salt, but I don't think my binge watching horror movies was all that healthy for me at the time. Plus, there was other life stuff going on that was weighing me down and making me depressed.

And then the Un-me started to UNravel.

To be continued...

What My Non-Writing Friends Will Never Understand About Me

A character sketch of Lia Falls.

When I create a fictional character they come alive inside my head. Sometimes they're so vivid they start to... um...

...spmarm hmn sbt.

What?

Kombna ksi tish.

Can you speak up, please?

THEY SPEAK TO ME, DAMN IT! All right. I know. I'm weird. But it's true. I hear them in my head, and sometimes I talk back. I don't allow these conversations to take place in public because I'd rather not be introduced to tall men in white coats, a padded cell, and certain types of medication. So I'll carry on in private, thank you.

Maybe it is kind of crazy to have fictional characters speaking to you. Maybe it's like a multiple personality disorder. I don't really know.

All I know is that after I've imagined a character, after my conscious brain and my subconscious brain have come to a deep understanding of who the character is, I start to feel them like the memory of an old friend.

When I think of my friend Zack back in Vermont—big, tall, masculine, but with a little boy face and a teddy bear's demeanor—I can imagine him in any situation and know how he would react. A movie quote is never far from his brain. When he sticks his hands in his front pockets his thumbs always hang out. He's got a kind heart and a gentle nature. If someone picked a fist fight with him he would try to talk his way out of it first, though I've no doubt he could lay a guy on the floor with a single blow if he wanted to. Zack is built like a grassy hillside—he may look soft on the surface, but he's a rock underneath.

Because I know Zack so well, my imagination can predict his actions. If I were to try and write a story involving him, my will would not determine his behavior. His would. I might be able to steer his actions, but his character is still going to drive his narrative.

I've had stories take drastic turns as the result of a fictional character becoming so real to me that I feel them saying, "You're writing me all wrong. I would never do that. I would do this!" And the more I listen to them and follow their character the more awesome things happen.

In Children of the Falls this happens most frequently with the character of Lia. She was the first character who really came alive to me. Right off the bat I felt like I knew who she was. All I do is set her on her course and push her around with plots and tragedies, but I never need to script her response. It's probably why I enjoy writing her so much—I'm never sure what she's going to do.

I've tried explaining this to some of my non-writing friends and they just nod their heads with a somewhat vacant smile on their faces like a person opening a Christmas gift they really don't like. "Oh, slippers. That's... nice."

So if you're reading this and you totally understand it, that means two things. 1. You're crazy like me, and 2. I like you already. Aloha! Let's be friends :-)

From Un-Me To Real Me: Writing For My Mother

Part 2

My first novel made it to print shortly before my eighteenth birthday. Being a teenager with a book to his credit makes one really cool really fast. My friends started looking up to me in a different way, even some adults were giving me that silent nod of approval.

The local paper did a write up about me and published an extremely unflattering photo. All my relatives bought copies of the book and...

Well, that was about it.

I was still in high school. I barely knew anything about writing books, let alone marketing one. I tried to get bookstores and libraries to let me come do signings and readings, but most didn't return my calls and the rest didn't really believe that I had actually published a book. One store owner I spoke to on the phone laughed at me. I can't really blame him. I didn't know what I was doing.

It was no big loss actually. The book was awful. My best friend at the time, Mitch, told me that the story was great, but the writing was terrible.

Ahhh, honesty.

So I returned to my first love—art.

My mind was still stuck in the gutter of fantasy.

A demon/orc/monster/thing. I'm not sure
what I was thinking when I drew this. lol!

In my last year of high school I attended some writing workshops, seminars, and retreats, anything that was free that I could get my hands on. I started studying dialogue and watching more movies that were known for their depth and quality of storytelling—The Godfather, Braveheart, The Matrix, Toy Story, Reservoir Dogs... oh, and lots of horror movies.

"Wait. Horror movies with quality storytelling? You're joking, right Craig?"

It may sound strange, but the 80s and early 90s were the golden age of horror films where Hollywood did some if its best storytelling. Evil was evil back then, and horror movies depicted mankind's fight against it in a great number of ways. Sure, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the Thirteenth get sidelined as being mere slasher flicks, but watch Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and tell me there aren't some amazing universal truths and life parallels in there.

Freddy doesn't think you're ready for prime time.

Freddy, Jason, Michael Meyers. They scared the bejeebers out of me, but they also helped develop my fascination with all things disturbing, which began to play into my style of storytelling.

But that didn't make my mother happy.

I remember trying to write a comic book about a trio of men who are captured, tortured, and then rebuilt into these mutant/cybernetic superheroes. The opening graphics showed them getting diced up by a bunch of robots with saw blades and machine parts.

My mother saw it and freaked out.

At the time, her approval meant a lot to me, so my fantasy writing was very watered down. I was writing what I thought my audience would tolerate—but in my mind my audience was my mother. If she approved of it I could publish it.

Jason Voorhees thinks you should write more horror.

Eventually that same friend who told me that my first novel sucked, Mitch, came to me with an idea for a book of his own. He needed help writing it because English wasn't his strongest subject. We ended up collaborating on three books, two of which were published with slightly greater success than my first minor efforts.

Still, I wasn't pushing the boundaries with my imagination like I wanted to. I wanted my medieval fantasy stuff to be more... mediEVIL. The middle ages were bleak. People were tortured in horrific ways. Children were slaughtered or died of terribly maladies. Women were raped and forced to be slaves. I wanted my stories to reflect that period and incorporate some of the horror elements I was psychologically drawn to, but Mitch wanted to keep our stories watered down. Considering our family-oriented audience at the time, he was probably right, but I was ready to start tackling more mature subject matter.

Because, frankly, horror movies had taught me one very important lesson...

To be continued...