Painting With Light

When Did You Start to Write Stories?

April 3, 2016

kid writing
When You Feel the Urge to Write … You Write.

I’ve been thinking about all the wannabe authors out there. I don’t know why. I suppose it’s because I’m in the same boat with them. I write because I feel the urge to put my stories down for others to read. It’s something I have to do.

Have to.

Even though I occasionally wonder if I’m relevant.

I often hear young people talking about what cool new music they’ve been listening to and, if they bother to ask me about it, all I can think of is stuff from the 60’s. Some of them might even laugh at some of the songs I mention.

Nobody seems very interested in my opinions about the sorry state of music these days which, I suppose, is the way it should be. I had my turn, with my father not liking all that yeah, yeah shit I listened to.

Except …

Music isn’t just for the young. I noticed a few months ago that SiriusXM Radio quit their 40’s channel (it actually went away in 2014), which would have been a great shock to my mother … if she knew anything at all about XM Radio.

She would have missed the music, if she had subscribed to the station. That, alas, was never going to happen. Her shock would have come because she distinctly remembers radio coming through the airwaves for free. Why would she ever want to pay for it?

Is it really the same thinking to wonder why my sons (or most anyone else in their generation) wouldn’t want to listen to The Last Train to Clarksville, by the Monkees? It was a really big song in 1965, and I still know all the words.

Am I going to wake up some morning to discover SiriusXM Radio has discontinued their 60’s channel … because there aren’t enough subscribers in that age group anymore?

I suppose it’s inevitable.

That was the same year I wrote my first serious short story (I was a little older than the kid in the picture). Most of the magazines I sold a few shorts to over the years don’t even exist any more.

I didn’t really sit down to write fiction full-time, however, until I left the nine-to-five grind in the first quarter of 2008.

My first novel (published in 2012) was set in the 60s.

It was something I knew about, which was a very good reason to write about it … but just because I lived through it doesn’t mean it’s the only thing I can write.

The same should be true for you.

Personal experience shouldn’t be something limiting, despite the phrase write what you know. I’ve also written short stories dealing with Alzheimer’s, the war in Iraq, quantum physics and a meeting with the devil … none of which I’ve been directly involved in.

I can, however, read … and I do a lot of it.

That’s the key. Read. Read a lot. Read everything you can get your hands on. And, if you want to write … write. The stories will come.

I can’t vouch for how good they’ll be. You’ll have to take responsibility for that. But I promise you … if you sit down and do the work … they will come.

My latest, BLOOD LAKE, will be out this summer. Look for it.

**********

My books have all garnered some terrific reviews, and you can see the ones I have available by using the Amazon link below.

You’re invited to visit my web site, BROKEN GLASS, or
like my Book of Face page. You can find me on Goodreads, or follow
some of my shorter ramblings on The Twitter.

Tags: award-winning writing, indie writers, self-publishing, storytelling
Posted in Independent Publishing, Storytelling | Leave a Comment »

Why Do I Write?

March 14, 2016

once-upon-a-time-719174_1920

American author Joyce Carol Oates has a Detroit background, just like me, which is what first drew me to find out about her work. Unlike me, she has taught at Princeton University since 1978.

Although I don’t consider her one of my favorite authors, the critics seem to love her. She’s won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, two O. Henry Awards and the National Humanities Medal.

Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), Blonde (2000), and short story collections The Wheel of Love and Other Stories (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Impressive, to say the least.

Still, she once said about the act of writing: “Given that it provokes such misery, why do I do it?”

For her, the answer is obvious. Because she’s good at it.

Writers Write
In the Renaissance, poets claimed they wrote for posterity … to be “immortal.” In religious communities, the creation of any art was for the glory of God.

In a capitalist society, one is likely to claim that he writes for the same purpose that everyone else does who produces a product in that society … for money.

But it’s rare that a literary writer can say he writes for money with a straight face, since the payment for prose fiction for most authors (I’m obviously not including the literary ATM machines like Stephen King), if broken down into an hourly wage, would be in the modest range of the US minimum wage of the 1950s.

To someone like me, who has written most of his adult life with varying degrees of enjoyment (or misery), writing is therefore sometimes a conscious variant of an unconscious activity, like dreaming.

So Why Do We Dream?
No one seems to really know, just as no one seems to really know why we, as a species, crave stories. My experience of writing is invariably a blend of the “inspired” and plodding execution.

Don’t get the wrong idea … I’m not one of those “tortured souls” running around looking for his muse. I have literally dozens of stories chasing themselves through my head on any given day. I’m actually working on three of them right now.

Sometimes I feel frustrated, like I won’t have time to write them all down. I get disappointed with myself at times, too … such as right now, as I look toward the rapidly approaching publishing deadline I set for myself and realize I’m behind schedule.

However, I tend to believe it will come out well … eventually.

Readers Favorite (and Other) Reviews
I have a target date of June 1 to finish (and publish) my next book, Blood Lake, in order to get it reviewed in time for entry into the Readers Favorite annual contest.

Good reviews please me (and I suppose they help to sell books), but they’re nothing like meeting readers who tell me they were moved or provoked by one of my books.

That happened to me recently, in church of all places. A woman sitting in the pew in front of me turned around and asked me “Are you an author?” The question surprised me since, as far as I knew, I’d never met her before. I answered yes.

Then she really surprised me. “Did you write Reichold Street?”

At first I thought someone I knew had put her up to it. But it turned out she’d taken my book out of the local library and enjoyed it so much she went out and bought her own copy. “I just had to have it,” she said. I was stunned and thought, what a rare privilege.

It reminded me again why I write (no, not for attention and universal acclaim … it’s far simpler than that).

I’m a much happier person when I’m writing. There’s a place in my head I go when I write that is rich and unexpected … and scary sometimes … but never dull. I initially went there after I sold my first short story, at seventeen. The payment was small but the adrenaline rush was incredible.

All of this excitement, just for writing? I thought. Wow!

These days, maybe because I can access that place in my head quite easily, writing feels like something I simply couldn’t live without.

It’s a joyous thing. I love having readers, like that lady in church. It was a nice event in my life, but I long ago realized … even though Gentle Reader, I want to bring you along, too … the person I’m really always writing for … is me.

Rochester Writer’s Spring Conference
As I streak to the finish line on my next book, I’m also looking forward to another Rochester Writer’s Conference. This one takes place again at Oakland University on April 23, 2016. It’s a good event, and I’ve never failed to come away with something valuable.

If you’re in the area, and have the time, I highly recommend it.

Five Quotes on Writing Worth Remembering
“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
~ Louis L’Amour

“You fail only if you stop writing.”
~ Ray Bradbury

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
~ Robert Frost

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
~ Stephen King

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
~ Anton Chekhov

**********

My books have all garnered some terrific reviews, and you can see the ones I have available by using the Amazon link below.

You’re invited to visit my web site, BROKEN GLASS, or
like my Book of Face page. You can find me on Goodreads, or follow
some of my shorter ramblings on The Twitter.

Tags: self-publishing, storytelling
Posted in Storytelling, Writing Conferences | 5 Comments »

How Fast is Fast?

February 24, 2016

long-exposure-lights

I passed an interesting milestone recently, and it’s made me do some serious thinking.

The milestone?

The thirty-ninth anniversary of my twenty-ninth birthday.

If you’re young enough to wonder what that means (or why I would use that phrase to describe my age) … well … the 1960s was the decade of my “coming of age.”

Those of you who are close to my age should certainly remember one of the prevailing mantras of the time …

“Don’t trust anybody over thirty.”

For those of you too young to have heard it … in my day, in the age of Selective Service numbers and the military draft for the Vietnam War debacle, every teenager and early twenty-something knew it.

When I turned thirty I started using the phrase to represent my birthday, in a silly attempt to forestall time.

But this year may have been the last time I ever do that. Saying it that way sounds a whole lot older than just saying my age.

For my latest “anniversary” one of my sons sent me a nice hardcover edition of Stephen King’s excellent treatise ON WRITING and, although I’ve read my dog-eared paperback version of it many times, I sat right down and read it again.

It’s that good.

When writers are told “write what you know” … the best way to do that is exactly the way Stephen King mentions – as broadly and inclusively as possible. I’ve always tried to do that.

Take my first novel, REICHOLD STREET. I grew up in the Vietnam era, so I know a lot of the sentiment of the time. The story made readers feel the things I was talking about, and won a Readers Favorite Gold Medal.

The ghost I talked about in my short story, “Forgiven” didn’t really exist … at least I don’t think so. I’ve never seen it, anyway. But it didn’t stop me from writing about it.

I’ve never seen the devil, either, but I wrote about an encounter with the Beast in my short story, “The Devil and Charlie Barrow.”

Likewise, I’ve never met a talking rock, but I wrote about one in my flash fiction story, “Conversation With a Lonely Island God.”

Those short stories must have struck a chord, because the collection that contains them, ZEBULON, was a 2013 Readers Favorite Silver Medal Winner.

I’m trying to do it again in my new book, BLOOD LAKE, due out early this summer. It’s a historical fantasy/horror story based around a real event from the early nineteenth century … the forced migration of the Cherokee Nation … known as The Trail of Tears.

I wasn’t around in 1838 (although there have been some days in the dead of winter lately when I feel like I could be that old). I was never forced at gunpoint from my home either, but I can write about it because I can understand hardship and fear.

I’m still writing what I know, because I can also read, learn and use my imagination to apply facts to new storytelling.

That’s what I hope you’re doing in your writing, too.

Now, about that “thinking” I said I was doing …

Writing can be hard work. It can take a lot of time. I don’t want to miss out on family and friends … and I won’t.

But passing the thirty-ninth anniversary of my twenty-ninth birthday makes me wonder if I have enough time to tell all the stories that are still in my head.

I’m obviously going to have to write faster.

**********

My books have all garnered some terrific reviews, and you can see the ones I have available by using the Amazon link below.

You’re invited to visit my web site, BROKEN GLASS, or
like my Book of Face page. You can find me on Goodreads, or follow
some of my shorter ramblings on The Twitter.