Tag: Books

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Our Brains and Why All Empires Fall

One of the strangest turns in the news came this week when an alarming and easily predicted future became mundane history. Trump posted, “Long live the King.” That wasn’t surprising. However, some of his cult members backed him by celebrating. “Trump is king!” Many of these same folks post 1776 in their social media bios. Knuckleheaded knuckledraggers may know their country’s history. It seems they’ve abandoned the values they claimed they most cherished. Monarchy is back, baby! Get used to it!

Reminds one of the so-called evangelicals who, last year, decided to let go the gentler teachings of Christ. Jesus was “too woke” for our troubled times, apparently. They still call themselves Christian, just meaner and in a roid rage, I guess.

What feeds this nonsense? Bias.

There are many types of cognitive bias that affect us. There is hindsight bias, loss aversion bias, the gambler’s fallacy, and the beastly Dunning-Kruger effect. The D-K effect plus confirmation bias is a lethal combination, dangerous to civilization. Those are the better-known afflictions. I have a couple of favorites that may not be on your radar:

Survivor Bias

Survivor bias goes like this: “We live in a land of opportunity! I make a lot of money, so why can’t everybody else?”

This bias plays into the myth of the self-made individual. It ignores a plethora of historical, systemic, and personal variables. This bias turns the principle of fair financial compensation into a cruel game of keep-away. When interviewed, successful people often extol the virtue of hard work. Only a few self-aware ones say, “I worked hard, but I got incredibly lucky! I made it, but I’m not altogether sure how, but I know I’m an outlier.” It’s much more tempting to believe “I built X and now own a couple of yachts because I’m a genius.”

Lots of people work hard and are never adequately compensated. If success were so easily replicable, more people would attain it. For instance, if you’re a nepobaby who won the genetic lottery, the path to stardom is paved with pillows. Nobody who catches those breaks talks about that. When asked the secret to their success, I’ve heard actors say, “I know my lines and I show up on time.” Learning a script can be difficult, but showing up on time? You mean like every other employee on the planet? That’s blind privilege talking, you handsome dunce. That’s survivor bias.

Survivor bias doesn’t come up first as one of the more lethal societal ills, but it is dangerous. It feeds a delusion that’s used as a cudgel on the oppressed and unfortunate. If the poor deserve to be poor, you only care if you’re poor. Not much room for kindness and mercy there, huh? Survivor bias makes its believer a terrible person and everyone else worse off.

Normalcy Bias

An author friend messaged me to ask, since I write apocalyptic novels, does our current political situation feel like I’m living in one of my books? I’ve written about the many ways empires fall. My back catalog includes zombies, vampires, AI domination, killer robots, alien invasion, meteors, climate crises, disease, nuclear conflagration, mass poverty, and famine. Lots of fun to explore in fiction, right? What’s unfolding now, though? I couldn’t write it because so much of it sounds outlandish, too dumb, and replete with hissy fits. Nuclear stockpile inspectors and warhead assembly experts getting fired en masse sounds too silly, doesn’t it? That happened. Then somebody said, “Oopsy! Get them back! Where are their email addresses? What do you mean you deleted their email addresses?”

The doomsday clock is now 89 seconds to midnight. The world is teetering toward all your worst nightmares. Still, we carry on, believing that cooler heads will prevail. That, my friends, is normalcy bias.

The courts decided they couldn’t allow a presidential candidate to go to jail for even one day for his crimes. He should have been confined for contempt and endangering officers of the court, at the very least. Didn’t happen. Couldn’t happen. That was normalcy bias at its dark and dirty work. You’ve always been told no one is above the law. Obviously not so.

The objection always comes to changing circumstances: “X can’t happen because it’s never happened before. It would be unprecedented!”

This is a recurring theme in my fiction (and my answer to this complaint):

Everything is unprecedented until it’s not.

Normalcy bias keeps you dangerously comfortable. It assures you that the health insurance you have relied on will always be there for you. Why? Because it always has been. To lose it would be unprecedented! (See above.)

Normalcy bias kept endangered people from fleeing Germany before World War II broke out. Normalcy bias assures people that all their investments are safe until the stock market collapses. Normalcy bias made Canadians, Mexicans, and all NATO allies feel that the United States government would be their friend. The news reveals the truth: People have friends. Governments have interests.

Human behavior, mental illness, and neurobiology are interests I try to monetize by writing novels with flawed characters. Sometimes, they suffer mental health issues like mine (anxiety, for one instance). Other times, they use their knowledge to manipulate others. It’s fun in fiction. When cognitive biases dominate our media intake and the political sphere, ignorant people transform into monsters and innocent people suffer and die. Our biases make us more vulnerable to personal and systemic failure. Ignorance can be cured easily, but stupid is much more complicated.

Biases kill.

(On the other hand, when I meet with literary agents in April, I’ll pull from my bag of tricks in the pitch meetings to sell my next book, but that’s another post. Villainous laughter: Mwah-ha-ha-ha!)

In the meantime, have you read All Empires Fall yet?

Why all Empires Fall
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Commonly Misused Words

The misuse of words grinds my gears. I have a short list of the worst offenders I’ve heard recently.

  1. “An exuberant amount of money.” No, it’s an exorbitant amount of money.
  2. “Pundint.” You mean to say, pundit, no second n.
  3. Erudite sounds like it looks: Air-oo-dite. It’s not “aeriodite.”
  4. You don’t “flaunt the law.” You flout it.
  5. Library has an r in it. Not “Lie-berry.”
  6. Elon Musk AKA Phony Stark, is not an inventor. He’s an investor who considers you not at all. (That’s not altogether fair. He thinks a lot of you are parasites.)

    Which misused words irk you?
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Not Every Vanity Publisher is Out to Scam You

Some people will not like this post, but I’m going to be real with you. Not all “vanity” publishers are con artists. Many writers call it evil to publish novice authors for money. They’re speaking from a privilege that doesn’t always address reality. If you reject nuance, this post won’t be for you.

We’ve all heard Harlan Ellison’s rule, “The money flows to the author.” It’s a solid principle in traditional and independent publishing. However, not everyone is playing the same game. That brush is painting a broad red stripe across innocent people who are trying to help the helpless. For flailing writers, paying to publish does make sense sometimes.

To find out if something on offer is a scam, I suggest consulting Writer Beware. It’s an excellent resource to identify dishonest actors across the publishing industry. I’m not talking about scams today, though. I’m talking about getting books to market that would never see the light of day otherwise.

See It from the Novice’s Point of View

On this subject, veteran writers are often eager to jump in with condemnations. Anything that smacks of pay-to-publish or so-called “ego publishing” offends them. “If it wouldn’t see the light of day otherwise, it should stay in the dark! Don’t publish!”

Would you say that to my dearly departed father and father-in-law? They published their autobiographies in their twilight years. They weren’t vying for the New York Times bestseller list. They looked back on their lives and wanted to leave a record behind for their families. True, they could have tried going through a local printer. That would have been more expensive than publishing a “real book” through Amazon. They got a kick out of seeing their memoirs on Amazon.

For my father-in-law, this project was particularly important. His childhood experience as a Japanese Canadian imprisoned by his own government during WWII spoke to his community. As his memory failed, his little memoir became dogeared. He went through it again and again, and would sometimes exclaim, “I know this story!” He passed away last year, but his memories are preserved. That memoir is still a comfort to our family.

Addressing The War on Fun


Let’s clear up one common objection immediately. There’s no such thing as “cluttering up” the digital marketplace if that’s your worry. There are a zillion blogs on Earth, but no one labels them clutter that gets in the way of discovering something more meritorious. Amazon is, first and foremost, a search engine. You won’t find these books unless you search for them hard, and that’s on you. Books that don’t sell are relegated to niches deep in the archive. You won’t see them, so no harm, no foul.

This is rarely a service I’ve provided to authors of multiple books. No one knows which book will take off and be a hit, but this kind of work is almost always a one-off. One IP ended up becoming a documentary and a movie, but that’s very rare. The author was new to book publishing, but he could write well and had unusual experiences to share.

Gatekeepers cry, “Learn the ropes! Take courses! You can do it all yourself! Learn how to do it like I did!” My dads didn’t have that kind of time. They had a lot of abilities in their fields of interest, but knew nothing about how to get what they’d written between covers.

I helped out my family for free, but I’ve been paid for it by others. I never called myself a vanity publisher, but that’s pretty much what it amounted to in most cases. I provided services to novice authors who were clueless about the book business. Most had neither the time nor inclination to make a career out of writing. It was for personal satisfaction. Publishing a book was a bucket list item to show off to their friends. For some, it was a business card to complement their business ventures and establish their expertise in the eyes of customers.

(Note: Everyone I worked with kept all their rights, no matter how much work I did. If you’re considering paying someone to guide you through the publishing process, hold on to your rights in the agreement. It will cost you more, but in the end, your name is on the cover.)

What does a Publishing Rabbi or a Book Shepherd do exactly?


I called it book consulting and project management. My services included educating novices about the publishing process, working with editors and graphic designers on the author’s behalf, and providing advice on covers, metadata, blurbs, and marketing. I’ve helped polish manuscripts for publication, sometimes ghostwriting. In other cases, my “edit” was really a rewrite to make a manuscript more salable, more organized, or more coherent. It was a lot of work that often took time away from my creations, so yes, without shame, I got paid for it.

Not everyone wants to write for a living. Not everyone can. That doesn’t necessarily mean they shouldn’t have a book with their name on it. It might be for their bookshelf and theirs alone. That’s okay. It’s not a scam if it’s what they always wanted to fulfill their heart’s desire.

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I’ll Never Be John Grisham

Until recently, I’d never read any John Grisham. He’s an incredibly successful novelist. He has entertained millions of readers and apparently has a net worth north of $400 million! Impressive. I’ll never have anywhere near that tier of success for one very important reason (at least it’s important to me).

Ken Follett’s cover quote is that John Grisham is “The best thriller writer alive.”

My incurable folly

I was on my way to Cuba. I needed something to take my mind off defying God by cramming myself into a flying death tube just to see palm trees. She Who Must Be Obeyed handed me Camino Island for the journey. This novelist is probably old news to you, but an unread book is always new to the uninitiated.

The story held a few surprises up front. I liked the heist very much. I love heist capers, and this was a clever one that made sense. I did have a quibble immediately after the first scene concluded, though. The cops arrive, scoop up a few drops of blood, and have the name of one of the perpetrators immediately. DNA analysis doesn’t work that quickly. That’s some CSI nonsense., but readers who value narrative speed over verisimilitude (and plenty do) won’t mind.

Fun note: I recently learned the most accurate forensic science show was Quincy M.E. It would be out of date now, but I was impressed the show didn’t use fake props. They bought real medical equipment and their forensic scientist actually had a role on the show.

I see the value and appreciate the lure of Grisham’s prose. It’s so straightforward, it makes for a fast read. I get it. The sentence structures are so simple to swallow: NOUN + VERB + OBJECT. Repeat. It’s as easy as an elementary school textbook. See Dick run.

A smarter writer would emulate the master’s success. I’m not a smarter writer. What I missed was interiority.

“Interiority is a writing technique that explores a character’s inner life, including their thoughts, feelings, and actions. It’s a way to show readers how a character processes information and makes sense of the world around them.” ~ according to the internet.

I read a good chunk of Camino Island, and not once did I get a glimpse inside a character’s head. The danger of overusing omniscience is the writer ends up telling instead of showing. Any writing teacher advises, “Show, don’t tell.” We don’t write, “She was nervous.” We write, “Betsy’s hands shook. Her heart raced and she could not slow her breathing.”

I’m all for showing, not telling. However, I love to explore motivations. My characters struggle to make sense of their worlds. I’m struggling with that all the time, too. So, I’m committed to failure in that I can’t emulate John Grisham’s style. Good for him, probably bad for me. He’s not wrong. We’re just different.

On the other hand, I visited a little specialty bookstore yesterday. They had a very small general fiction section, but it was well curated. I was pleased to find that I’d read many of the novels on their shelves. It gave me confidence that I’d find more great books to my taste there. Many other novelists have had success using techniques that explore characters’ inner worlds. Few novelists ever touch the heights of Grisham’s financial success and vast fan base, but I still believe there’s room for me on the Reader Ship. I might have to settle for cargo class, but I’m on the same boat.

I’ll never be John Grisham, but I have an excellent shot at being Robert Chazz Chute.

Not a single “he thought” or “she thought in italics here.” Alas.

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Energize Your Writing Life with Attack Mode

Years ago, I went to a one-man show put on by director Kevin Smith. Between the jokes, he talked about taking advantage of opportunities and making good things happen. One key takeaway was the Wayne Gretzky quote: “Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” That advice proved timely. It coincided with meeting a harbinger of the future at a writing conference in 2010. The experience set me on the path to founding Ex Parte Press.

That harbinger? She was the first person I’d met who read ebooks exclusively. It was a glimpse of the imminent future. A new market had opened and was rapidly expanding. Growing pains and a gold rush lay dead ahead. I’d written a lot, and now I had a place to put it. Mostly, that meant Amazon.

That writing conference took place in Victoria, BC. The outlier was one of the conference organizers. She introduced me as “Roger” as I was about to perform a reading of a short story. I made a joke of it, beginning with, “You got my name wrong, but by the end of this story, you’ll know who I am and remember it!” Sure, I flirted with being obnoxious, but I was confident in my material. I didn’t just read that story about a fight with my dad over money. I attacked it. The reading was very well-received.

It was fun to meet other writers, pick up some tips, and even make a few allies. The thing I enjoy most about writing conferences is how energizing they are. In April, I’m headed to Toronto for a Writing Day Workshop. There will be lectures and discussions and wonky stuff about the book business. I will meet with four agents that day, and I am so excited.

ATTACK MODE: ACTIVATED

If you are curious about attending a conference, here’s the link.

If you need more motivation, here’s a link to their success stories.

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Why Become a Hybrid Author?

I spent the last couple of mornings working on a short story for a big writing contest. Between editing the new novel and beginning work on the sequel, I have found renewed purpose in my writing. After a fallow period, I’m in a creative frenzy again. The days fly by, and I’m always surprised how late it is when I come up for air. I’m having a great time here at Ex Parte Press world headquarters, but maybe it’s time for a change.

Then

I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read or write. I always wanted to be a writer. I thought journalism was the way in and wrote for magazines and newspapers. By the time I finished journalism school, I’d become disillusioned with the newspaper business. I wanted something more creative. I freelanced for magazines and wrote a regular column. Speech writing was rewarding, but there wasn’t enough of it. I won a bunch of writing contests, but mostly, I wrote for myself. Often creating worlds long into the night, I immersed myself in the work. More compulsion than plan, I just had to write. There was no goal other than the work itself. Always focused on composing the next shiny word bauble, I did not submit anything to publishers or agents.

Why did I hold myself back? A character flaw. I haven’t had a boss since 1991. I always eschewed team sports. Even the word “submission” connotes many agents’ and publishers’ relationship with their stables of ink-stained wretches. “Spec” is another clue to the hierarchy. Working on spec, you are a speck. In short, I have a history of being a control freak. On the other hand, I’ve worked collaboratively multiple times and enjoyed it, so maybe I’ve grown.

Ancient History

After graduating from the Banff Publishing Workshop boot camp, I moved from the East Coast to Toronto and found myself in the publishing industry. I toiled in production, editorial, sales, and marketing. My exposure to the industry played a big part in how I felt about the establishment. I sat in meetings where authors, the backbone of the business, were openly disparaged. The choices of what was bought and sold often held a distasteful element of caprice and snobbery.

I entered the arena with such romantic ideas about publishing. I left with a greater understanding of the world. This is true everywhere, no matter the industry: Some firms court and hire geniuses, but every staff has a knob (sometimes several more than few). It’s not easy finding a good match with an agent or a publisher. And yet, here I am, contemplating the possibilities in earnest.

Why so cautious, though? The simple answer is plenty of authors have horror stories about their agents and publishers. For instance, back in the early days of Twitter, some agents used the medium to show their asses. These self-proclaimed sharks made fun of pitches they deemed unworthy. Whether it was foolishness, fatigue, or hubris, some made sweeping generalizations about what books were “acceptable.” Not just to their taste, mind you! Just, in their eyes, bad and wrong. “No characters with synesthesia! No divorced dads writing about being divorced dads!”

I understand agents’ need to curate, even discourage, the incoming avalanche over the transom, but the offenders’ tone was offensive. (Full disclosure: I’m not a divorced dad, but I did write a main character on the spectrum who also experienced synesthesia. It’s my most successful series.)

Now

Someone asked me what changed my mind about jumping back in the traditional publishers’ end of the pool. The reasons are multi-factorial, but here’s a peek inside the nutshell:

  • Political forces have changed. That affects my chances of getting read. Many are already boycotting Amazon. As the next four years progress, I expect more readers will opt to buy from other legacy publishing platforms. I’ve done well by Amazon in the past, but the Amazon gold rush has been over for years. It’s time to seriously explore ways to expand my readership.
  • I haven’t enjoyed the marketing end of the business. My experiments with going wide to other e-publishing platforms have consistently failed. Amazon marketed me best. They simply proved themselves better at selling my genres. It’s time to give going wide another try, but this time, I mean really wide. Bookstores, book fairs, book clubs. I’ll show up to the opening of an envelope if it means I get a chance to interact with readers and plug my book.
  • Like Batman, it would be nice to have some backup, so I’m looking for a solid partner, a Robin, if you will. I want more heft behind my next marketing push. Before someone chimes in, I know! I know! Most publishers offer very little marketing support. For sound financial and logistical reasons, even if you get hyped, it doesn’t last long. Most marketing still depends on the author. I have no illusions about that, but I’m also willing to do more on the marketing side than I have in the past.
  • The high commercial potential of my latest novel makes a big difference here. I find myself with an up-scale thriller that isn’t bogged down with the drawbacks of my usual genre choices. With an intellectual property that is easier to sell to a broader audience, it’s a good time to jump.
  • My wife had a health scare recently. We’re dealing with that, and it’s going well, but going hybrid makes more sense from a time management perspective. Despite my independent leanings, I’ve never really been a one-man band. I have great resources among my friends: my editor, Gari Strawn, my prime beta reader, Russ, my graphics people, and many supportive readers. The term self-publishing is a misnomer. I’ve never published alone. However, partnering with the right agent and publishing firm would spread some of the responsibilities around.
  • Perhaps most important of all my considerations, going hybrid now makes more sense because I have recently developed a shortlist of likely agents. My strategy is not to blanket the planet with pitches. I’m aiming at particular targets. If it doesn’t work out with literary agents whom I consider the A-Team, I’ll go it on my own as I have since 2010.
  • I’ve written a bunch of good to great to excellent novels. Don’t believe it? Just ask me. The writing quality is there. The visibility is not. I’ve long felt my literary stock is undervalued. By opening myself to options and trying something different, my work might finally get noticed.

    That’s my why of becoming a hybrid author. Now, to work on the how.
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The Secret to Superhuman Creativity

Alison Bechdel breaks molds, and I’m here for it. When most people think of graphic novels, The Killing Joke or Watchmen often spring to mind first. Those were epic milestones of a young medium, but this cartoonist takes her creativity beyond old expectations. This is a compelling autobiography told through drawings and sharp observations.

The Secret to Superhuman Strength isn’t about making oneself invulnerable. Bechdel’s quest for health through exercise spans decades, but it’s really about confronting mortality. With humor, honesty, and, most of all, vulnerability, she chronicles her career struggles, personal failings, and a holistic view of her journey. Nothing is off-limits in this auto-biography of an artist pursuing a unique life and achieving success in an underappreciated medium. (Warning: distrust success. From her experience, it looks as exhausting as it is exhilarating, and, of course, it’s fleeting. That artistic struggle doesn’t end.)

If you aren’t already familiar with this celebrated American cartoonist, you’ve probably heard of the Bechdel test. She says now that the test began as a joke, but it spurred serious discussion. Raising awareness of the representation of women, the test is whether at least two female characters in a fictional narrative have a conversation about something other than a man. That’s all I knew of Alison Bechdel before I found The Secret to Superhuman Strength.

Full of wit and wisdom, Bechdel explores her history and those of other artists. For instance, in testing her appetite for self-destruction, she explores how Jack Kerouac’s life ended. Observing her growth through the decades is fascinating as she deals with love, loss, self-doubt, loneliness, and heartbreak. If you’re older, you’ll enjoy the little nostalgic details that cue where she sits in time and place. Her life experience might turn you on to therapy, reading more, daring more, and living more fully.

From skiing to yoga, cycling, karate, and running, Bechdel seems up for anything to make herself stronger. That’s not necessarily where this journey leads. Her quest for athletic excellence and health drew me in. It was her contemplation of Buddhism that gives readers some solace as we shiver in the cold shadow of existential dread.

What is the secret to superhuman creativity?

People talk about talent, but many may not realize how hard the talented have to work. From my own experience and what I glean from Alison Bechdel’s book, the true answer is vulnerability plus attention to detail.

What you call oversharing, I call the muse. Endemic is about a lonely, neurodivergent woman seeking safety and independence amid a plague. My novels are frequently about flawed protagonists searching for revenge and escape. That’s all me in there somewhere, confessing my sins, imagining clever vengeance, and exposing my not-so-secret resentments.

I resonated thoroughly with Alison Bechdel. Her struggle is a struggle we all share. How do we find our way? How can we live longer, better, and more authentically in a world that often values that quest? I admit I’m still struggling with the way-to-die part of the equation. Reading this graphic novel made me feel a little more comfortable with the relentless passage of time, the scary present, and the dark future.

She has other works. Here’s her website. Click here to check it out.