Who Watches The Watchmen?

Ben wrote about the announcement that DC is going forward with an ambitious slate of prequels to Watchmen.  Alan Moore and fandom at large collectively dug graves just so they could spin in them.  Like Ben, I've thought about it quite a bit and here's my thoughts.

First things first: it's a money grab.  The scale of the project speaks to that.  The reason it's happening now, and not a few years ago when the movie hit and something like this would have made sense (from a purely marketing point of view) is that the comic book industry has reached its financial and creative end.  A great deal was made of DC's decision just a few months ago to completely scrap its line and relaunch with a digital slate; the underlying thinking there was that the print aspect of the comics industry is in free fall.  Print in general is, and comic books are not the only victims.

I see Before Watchmen as a last ditch attempt to both breathe life into and draw life from the creative apex of an essential American art form.

That's entirely separate from whether it's a good idea or not.  We'll have to wait and see, but I don't believe there is anything to be achieved via this world or those characters that hasn't been already.  Watchmen speaks to such a specific moment - the kill shot death of the form's innocence about itself - that to go back on it now says all you need to know about the form's artistic vitality.

I don't believe though that DC, or the creators involved, have no right to do this.  Contract issues aside (Alan Moore's suffrage here has had generational benefits for those who came later), DC owns the characters and is free to do as they wish.  Alan Moore has made a living in recent years off his co-opting of existing characters in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the Watchmen began life as characters from Charlton Comics).  Though the characters of LoEG exist in the public domain, it's important to consider that most of the reaction I have seen from fans in general centers on Alan Moore's relationship to the characters more in spirit than in anything proprietary.  It could be said Moore is violating his own argument in what he does with other people's characters.

Someday, regardless of whether he wants them to or not, people will freely make use of the Watchmen as they see fit.  That they will doesn't diminish the characters or one of the great works of art of the 20th century; it only elevates it.

The (Rules) of Writing

The first rule of writing is there are no rules of writing. 

That's clever, but not exactly true.  The word I probably hear the most from other writers is 'rules.'  It's also the most political aspect of writing as well; usually the subject falls along one of three lines:

1. There are no rules.
2. There are, and these are the ones you never break (Show, don't tell).
3. You have to know the rules before you can break them.

This article over a io9 last week spoke to 10 generally well known rules about sci-fi/fantasy fiction; rules in writing generally being not what you should do, but what you shouldn't.  The article makes a case for breaking every single one of them.  I thought it would be fun to talk about each one in turn as I'm facing some of these decisions now in writing the new novel.

1) No third-person omniscient.
I'll be honest - I'm not sure if this is actually a rule.  As the article points out, the omniscient perspective has long been the default perspective in most fiction.  Maybe it's not fashionable any more, but fashion is most often momentary; writing never should be.  It depends entirely on the type of story you're telling, and how you want to tell it; if you're writing grand space opera or major fantasy, you probably don't want to limit yourself to a single first person narrator, which will limit the scope.  But then you can see by what George R.R. Martin is doing in A Game of Thrones, and you see immediately why rules are only rules until someone decides they're not.

The Book of Elizabeth employs the third person omniscient, as most of my work does. In my work in progress, the SciFiJohnHughesNovel, I'm using the first person.   The novel takes place on an alien world over the course of a single night; I could have chosen to create more distance, and see more of the world/plot/backstory, but in this instance this is one character's story, and I wanted her to be the lens we saw this world through.  She is a reflection of it, as it is of her. 

You're never limited to one or the other, though.  There are numerous examples of novels that employ varying points of view simultaneously.  Frankenstein is a great example of shifting first person narrators; the book follows a succession of storytellers that nests the overall plot.

When choosing which point of view you're going to use, you have to consider the pros and cons of each.  David Madden's Revising Fiction, which I've discussed here before, will help guide you in making that decision.  And there are cons to the third person, the biggest of which is typically a tenedency towards excess.  Since the narrator knows all, they can sometimes tell all, and that isn't necessarily a good thing.  An omniscient narrator also allows for explicit authorial commentary, and even judgment.  This is generally what modern writers object to with the third person.  Objectivity is essential when telling a story this way; let the facts and the story itself make whatever case needs to be made.

Next time I'll discuss whether to prologue or not to prologue.

Why Write Novels At All?

Usually when people ask me why I write books, I tell them because I have to.

It's a pretty good answer and I can't think of any other way to describe it.  For whatever reason, there is this narrative engine within me that compells me to try and tell stories.  This engine is missing a belt or two sometimes, but you know what I mean.  There is a very interesting article in the NY Times this morning that poses the question in general: why write novels at all?  In the face of more popular entertainment, specifically movies, why the novel and not a screenplay?  What motivates a writer to write?  A reader to read? 

The novel faces the same challenge that the play did when the novel took over the mainstream consciousness.  I don't think the novel or literature is in any danger - more people read now than have ever read.  The book will be fine.  In fact, the book is experiencing something of a revolution.  The e-reader and digital publishing hasn't so much changed the way we read as how we write.  Or who writes.  The most interesting part of the article today was this:

The roots of this question (why write novels), in its contemporary incarnation, can be traced back to the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who at the dawn of the ’80s promulgated the notion of “cultural capital”: the idea that aesthetic choices are an artifact of socioeconomic position. Bourdieu documented a correlation between taste and class position: The scarcer or more difficult to access an aesthetic experience is — the novel very much included — the greater its ability to set us apart from those further down the social ladder. This kind of value is, in his analysis, the only real value that “refined” tastes have.       

Now this is why there has forever been such resistance to self-publishing in literature, and why producing and marketing your own work is a cardinal sin when it's not - when it's expected - in nearly every other medium.  Literature above all other mediums has been the distinction between not just socio-economic status, but education and intelligence as well.  Reading and writing were not popular things, in the most basic sense of the word, until only recently.  The novel itself helped spur a wider, more general literacy.  Digital publishing makes literacy viral.  The class perspective - represented in literature in the distinction of terms like 'literary,' 'genre,' or 'vanity publishing' - continues, but faces a democratic avalanche in the form of digital publishing. 

I'm glad I have the opportunity to share what I write.  I would write even if I couldn't publish it traditionally.  I just have to.  Storytellers have voices.  At the fire, at the dinner table, no one has ever said, you can't share your story.  You don't have the appropriate education or class. 

People tell stories.

Writing In The Light of Day

“From the midst of this darkness, a sudden light broke in upon me—a light so brilliant and wondrous.” - Victor Frankenstein

So after about a week of solid panic and lamenting the ruin of my art, I put it out of mind for a day.  Then I did what Anne Lamott did in Bird by Bird.  I sat down and just thought about what I liked in the story.  What the story was, not necessarily what I wanted it to be, or what others might want it to be.  I wrote down the characters, the places, the scenes, all of it in the journal there on the left, and I discovered something: all the pieces I liked, all the varying aspects of the story I tried to view it through, they all existed within the draft I had been writing.  They co-existed rather well.  This story - it's not fair to call it a story, really - this world has always been bigger than what I could get my arms around.  So many lenses existed to view the world through that I tried one at a time, certain this was it, and then finding out it wasn't.  Ultimately, I went back to the beginning.  Why did I want to tell this story?  Where did it come from?  As I wrote down this piece and that piece in the journal, the story revealed itself. 

And I found out something else: I really liked this story.  This is the story I wanted to tell.  I don't think my struggles with the novel are over.  In fact, I'm still pretty unsure how it will all come together, but I feel a lot better than I did the other day.

No Write, No Write

I think back to the scene in Bird by Bird, where Anne Lamott finds out her editor doesn't think the book she has invested everything in and depends on for her livelihood will not be published. He tells her he thinks it's competent, it's... capable, but what's it about? Why did you do this? She stages a passionate defense of the book (after some drinking) and in her rant, discovers the book in her heart is not the one that came out of her head. That's how I feel right now.

I am disgusted with myself and the book at this point.  I went from feeling lightheaded with the tipping point a few weeks ago to the stark realization the other day that I am probably on the wrong track with this.  Again.  What's worse is I feel I was on the right track before. 

Day after day I chip away at the book, and I feel, this is it, this is progress; this is the end finally for this story which has hounded me for 10 years.  The book radiates this fatigue, let's say; this near persecution of creative unfulfillment.  What bothers about this draft - in my meek opinon, this very capable draft - is that it radiates nothing about the passion or the even the interest that first informed this story.  The architecture of the book mimics the theme, figuratively and literally; it has become a ghost.  A reanimated corpse.  As a literary exercise, I suppose it's, again, capable.  It contains my best, sparest and sharpest writing.

It doesn't contain any of my soul.

Writing Update

I thought I'd update on where I'm at in my writing on a couple different pieces since I haven't really done that here in awhile.  Twitter seems to have taken over my daily updates on my progress.

Novel In Progress aka GhostofBigDamnEpic aka ThatWhichRefusesToDie:

Actually pretty good progress here.  252 pages as of today.  I expect the novel will be close to 400 at that end.  What's it about?  It's about a man alive at what appears to be the cosmological end of the earth - not the end, like OMG, it's the Mayan apocalypse - THE END end.  He has seen the world floruish and freeze.  He has seen every trace of humanity in the world and in him expire.  When he decides to meet his own end, he discovers the story of man - his story - is not yet over.  I hope for this to be ready for the fall.

Story Collection:

This is done, more or less, in the sense I've settled on the content.  Sort of.  I've debated on the Elizabeth story in it, because it has become the foundation of what the sequel will be, and I'm not how much of that I want to give away yet.  But it's an experiment.  What the hay.  Just need to cover this and format and it should be ready for February.

Elizabeth Sequel:

Like I was saying, the Elizabeth story in the collection ended up providing a way through for me on the sequel.  I am approaching the sequel somewhat as a level setting of the story.  It will assume no one has read the first book.  Partly this is due to Miranda's emergence as the main character; partly it is due to the nature of the story itself.  One of the themes of the first book is reinvention.  The sequel takes the form, broadly, of a murder mystery.  The mystery expands into a conspiracy thriller, of sorts.  You'll see this - and the big giveaway - in the story.  I always wanted to write a murder mystery.  My mom loves them and I grew up watching Perry Mason and Columbo... I don't think she had something like this in mind, but I always have to be difficult.

Then It Begins To Resolve

I never do very good by making New Year’s resolutions, but as I get older, I have gotten more focused on setting specific goals.  I feel I accomplished a lot in 2011 - I went to NYC for the first time, I went to New Orleans (ok, let's forget that), I moved into a new house, I published my first novel - two of those are from a lifetime goal list, so 2011 wasn't too shabby.  My only real goal for 2012 is to make 2011 the rule, and not the exception.  That being said, I have a few small goals I will tend to in 2012:

• Publish my collection of short fiction (Winter 2012)
• Complete and publish my next novel (Fall 2012)
• Start work - and complete a first draft?- on the Elizabeth sequel (2013)
• Go back to NYC
• Make that return trip to Europe I have been planning for 10 years

There's lots of other things I'd love to do, such as:

• Hold my breath until Community comes back on
• Stop caring so much about new Apple rumors
• Redirect frustration over the things I cannot change into the things I can

But a man must have priorities.  Everyone have a safe and happy holiday, and a wonderful new year!

Revising Fiction: The Reader

182.  Have you forgot your reader?

The writer-reader relationship may be one of the most complicated - and unforgiving - in the arts.  To give you an idea, do a Google search to see how many qutoes line up on the side of the reader being the most important aspect of writing, and then see how many quotes you can find for the exact opposite.

The truth is, without readers, fiction is nothing.  Your reader must be your primary concern, but then at the same time, you have to have a certain ignorance of them.  As a writer you need to achieve a couple things in your novel or short story.  The first and probably most important is distance.  The reader can't be aware of the author as they're reading; if they are, the jig is up and what John Gardner calls 'a vivid and continuous dream' is shattered.  Every effect you create within your work has to work towards the goal of making you as the author invisible; you have to work in mysterious ways. 

That being said, there's a lot of fiction that is deliberately meta.  An excellent example would be one of my favorite shows (and things ever) - the NBC show 'Community.'  Dan Harmon has made the show a running commentary on itself, other TV shows and the medium.  Part of the audience engagement here is in this communal self-consciousness.  The reward is a deeper understanding and appreciation of the medium, and the acrobatic skills of the author; the risk is story. 

Revising Fiction: Uses of Dialogue

Continuing my series of posts based off of David Madden's essential Revising Fiction:

99. Have you failed to make dialog perform secondary functions?

A lot of beginning writers see dialogue as a way of advancing the plot. Most of the plot will come out through it, and in lesser fiction, characters will contribute things they already know and/or would have no reason to share with someone else because the author needs to get this out for the reader. Dialogue can and should advance the plot - in a play it's often the only means - but dialogue can also convey other functions as well.

Dialogue is a incredibly effective means of conveying character. Done correctly, a character may reveal any or all of the following through dialogue:

Beliefs
Biases
Education
Location
History

Most of this should come subtly. You don't want to have a character announce any of these things (typically). A highly educated person will sound different from someone without an education. One or both of those people may have a bias against the other; this will come out in their interaction, even if they don't openly express it. The highly educated person may be condescending, or we may see he/she is talking circles around the non-educated person in a way that person is not aware of.

Dialogue should also say what the person isn't saying. People often talk around subjects that are painful or distressing to think about. Yet these things inform their conversations and behavior; imagine a married couple deciding which tree to buy for Christmas. The wife has had an affair. They've reconciled but the fault lines are still there. The husband wants the tree. She seems disinterested. They argue over which one to pick. Are they arguing about the tree? The affair?

Try writing this scenario out as an exercise yourself.

Revising Fiction: 1st Person Narrative

As promised, I'm kicking off a little run of posts dedicated to the topics from David Madden's essential Revising Fiction: A Handbook for Writers.  I'll touch on a few of these, and in no particular order, so here goes:

3. If you have used the first-person point of view, have you realized all its potentials?

The novel in progress, otherwise known as #GhostofBigDamnEpic, features a first-person narrator.  This is pretty unusual for me.  Most of my work tends toward the third person, such as The Book of Elizabeth.   I chose to tell the new novel from the first person because of the opportunity the character presented me.  The main character lives in isolation, exiled from his memory and every other concept of life that we take for granted.  His voice is his only constant; it's repetitious, a trick against forgetting.  It had a music and an energy that made it compelling to pursue. 

Where I rely on Madden is asking myself some key questions:

Revising Fiction

You've all heard the old addage - writing is rewriting.

No one believes that more than me.  I probably over-revise.  I spend years on short stories.  'News Right Fresh From Heaven,' my story that appeared in Fantasy Magazine earlier this year, began almost four years before, as two different stories (one was good, one was bad).  I have a couple other stories right now that I have been working on in some way, shape or form for just as long. 

It's funny now to be editing my story collection, which will appear very early next year, and to revisit these stories.  My intent with the editing was mainly cosmetic.  I ended up making some minor edits, mostly aimed at excessive commas and exclamation points (!!!), but also a few bigger changes to sentences and paragraphs.  I changed nothing structurally in the stories.  I don't want to re-write these, though the impulse sometimes occurs - what was I thinking there? - and so this is less a Director's Cut than it is maybe Edited for Television.  I plan to post about each story to promote the collection when it appears.  It's been fun to return them.  Most of them I hadn't looked at since they were published.

The hardest thing with revision is knowing when to quit.  Also hard is knowing when and where to start.  An invaluable resource to me for years now has been Revising Fiction, by David Madden.  I found it at Barnes and Noble and I've never put it down.  I recommend it for advancing and advanced writers alike.  What I enjoy most is that the book never quits on me.  As I grow as a writer, some of the sections and ideas in the book reveal themselves, or take on new meaning.

One thing I plan to do this week and maybe next is pull out some pieces from the book and offer some of my own thoughts as to how they relate to my writing, and maybe yours.

My Writer Pet Peeves

In no particular order:

• I'm usually too tired from work and writing fiction to blog.
• Most everyone says I need to blog to promote my fiction.
• I write fiction to promote. On the blog I'm too tired to update.
• Most people think since you're a writer, you always know what to say.
• Most people - sometimes - think you must be smart, because you're writer.
• You calculate the speed at which excitement collapses into disappointment on someone's face as the time it takes you to answer, "So what kinds of books do you write?"
• Time=the books you want to write
• The best books you will ever write are the ones you dream about right before you wake up.
• You listen to music for economy and melody.  You watch TV for rhythm and depth.  You listen to the way people talk on the bus for dialogue.
• You tell everyone else who wants to write to read.

Me & Star Wars: Guest Post by Ty Johnston

Last month Ty Johnston was gracious enough to let me guest post on his blog.  Now, he returns the favor with a great story on growing up with Star Wars, and how it impacted him as a writer:

I’m going to talk about Star Wars, but I want to say right here up front that I am not a Star Wars fanboy or geek or anything of the sort. I enjoyed the original trilogy, especially the first movie, and I found elements of the more modern trilogy which I enjoyed, though it just wasn’t the same experience for the most part (whether that was because I was older or because George Lucas had lost his mind is debatable).

I am 42 years old,and as an author of speculative fiction, I would by lying if I said Star Wars had never had an influence upon me and my chosen career. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I am not sure those of older and younger generations can appreciate the effect Star Wars had upon my generation, commonly referred to as Generation X within the media and broader culture.

When the first Star Wars movie was released in 1977 (I refuse to call this film “A NewHope”), I was eight years old. Before seeing the movie, I had showed some interest in science fiction and fantasy literature. My first memories of reading are of comic books, after all, a graphic and literary medium filled with the speculative. I also remember being somewhat of a fan of the Star Trek re-runs on television,including owning a number of Star Trek action figures and even the USS Enterprise bridge play set with the twirling transporter. Also, in 1977, I discovered The Hobbit, at first through the Rankin-Bass animated television show, then through the actual novel.

So, I was no stranger to fantasy and science fiction, even at such a young age. But Star Wars was so much more. I repeat, Star Wars was so much more. Star Wars made speculative fiction more accessible, as before science fiction and the like had seemed only upon the fringes of society, and was difficult to find in movie theaters, book stores and even on television. Before Star Wars, most sci-fi television I remembered were re-runs of shows from the 1960s, most of them in black and white. They had titles like “The Twilight Zone” and “The Outer Limits,” and were obviously from a different time than the one I was steeped in during the 1970s. Men wore suits out on the streets. Cars were bigger, longer, sleeker. Women dressed up to cook dinner. Etc.

After the success of Star Wars, science fiction was everywhere. New TV shows abound, and it seemed every week there was some new (though usually awful) sci-fi movie at the theaters. Also, whereas before I could hardly find any science fiction or fantasy at local book stores, now their were names like Bradbury and Heinlein and Asimov popping up all over the place.

Melancholia

This post isn't about the new Lars Von Trier movie where Kristen Dunst gets married and ends the world (I didn't see that coming either).  This is about how writing seriously affects my mood.

If I am making a lot of progress, then I'm a pretty happy camper.  If I'm not, as usually the case, my frustration tends to show.  This week I made serious progress on my new novel.  I had been spinning my tires a bit before, but then I realized what had been the stumbling block.  The dam broke, but I wasn't feeling excited, or successful.  Somewhere around Friday, I got pretty blue. 

It took me by surprise.  It took a little introspection before I understood what was really bugging me.  In some ways, it was where I was in the book - a major character dies, leaving the story in shadow - but it was another passing that really became real as I worked through the pages this week.  Elements of this book date back 15 years.  Ideas I kept in my back pocket, concepts and characters I explored elsewhere in earlier attempts.  This isn't a drawer novel - if only I could get off that easy - but the truth is I have been working on a version on this story off and on for 10 years. 

This week, I realized, to my surprise and apparent dismay, the end was near.

Carnival of the Indies Issue #14

My post from last month Mirror, Mirror on character description is featured in this month's Carnival of the Indies at Joel Friedlander's fantastic resource for indie writers, The Book Designer.

This is a website I visit daily and it's become required reading for me as I continue on this journey into independent writing.  Please check out my post and all of the other great articles!

How Putting Up A Christmas Tree Is Like Writing A Novel

1. You'll start off trying to follow the instructions, and then give up.
2. Are you watching football, or you..?
3. Keep pulling left and right long enough, and it will start to look like something.
4. Remember the ornaments you hang on it will cover up the gaps.
5. OOH LIGHTS PRETTY. 
6. There's more of it on the floor.
7. You cap it off with something over the top, or subtle and understated.  It ices the overall effect, or completely undoes it.
8. At the end, your arms and hands hurt.
9. You always find one you like better at someone else's house.
10. Next year you swear you'll get a real one.

Must There Be A Definitive Version of a Novel?

As you may have guessed from my post the other day, I am a pretty big Star Wars collector.  One of the biggest joys - and stresses - of collecting any toy line as old and broad as Star Wars is the question of variations.  The pic on the left shows that this started right away - Chewbacca went through six major card variations between 1978 and 1985, not counting the nearly infinite versions that feature this sticker or that back - and it continues to this day.  I avoid variations by and large.  What happens when you reach a certain point in collecting like I have is that, variations are all that's left, and variations are endless.

And expensive.

It got me to thinking though, about variation in fiction.  Typically, despite a fascination with looking into the creative process that makes us curious as to what might have been with any one of our most treasured classics, actual, planned variance in novels is pretty uncommon.  But must there be a 'definitive version' of a novel?

Ralph Wiggum Has Nothing On Me

Slightly off topic, but...

Some of you may have seen this elsewhere on the web last week, but I am now the proud owner of a fantastic piece and a real treasure, really.  This is a 1978 12 back shelf display that is complete and virtually intact.  There is some minor wear, but considering its age and condition, it's hardly distracting.  The best part - maybe - was that it came with 6 original 12 backs, all of them the 'A' version (find out what all this geekspeak is here).  EDIT: Two of them, the Stormtrooper and R2, are UNPUNCHED.

This is the centerpiece of my collection now to say the least.

 The 6 figures include R2, Luke, Han, Leia, 3-PO and a Stormtrooper.   I had a Jawa previously, which means I'll probably have to get the other 5 now...

A Million Voices Cried Out All At Once

Voice is the hardest thing to capture in fiction.

Every short story or novel has a voice, even if it's told in the third person. Often the 'voice' of that narrator, omniscient or not, will have a rhythm or cadence particular to the storyteller. Sometimes this is called 'style,' but for me, someone is always talking.

Junot Diaz has an excellent article on voice over the Huff Post this week. Ignore the comments - wow, did some of these people spill their barely bottled resentment all over themselves - and take in what he's saying. I always start with voice; character is voice. Character is story, so they go hand in hand and the failure in one will be the failure of both. To distinguish the voices of your characters, you have to hear them. You need to listen. It's been said a lot of times before and by better writers, but one of the best tools in your toolbox is eavesdropping. Dialogue benefits from this as well, so don't have your earbuds in when you're on the bus or train or standing in line at Starbucks. Hear what other people are saying, and how they say it.

Hear what they aren't saying. 

Community Rules

So NBC has elected to leave Community off its recently announced mid-season schedule.

Sign the petition if you'd like to see the show continue.    In the meantime, check out this excellent article over at Wired that provides insight into the creative process of Dan Harmon, creator of Community. In the article, Harmon talks about his 'narrative embryos,' a distillation of the story process by way of Joseph Campbell, and oh, Die Hard:


1. A character is in a zone of comfort
2. But they want something
3. They enter an unfamiliar situation
4. Adapt to it
5. Get what they wanted
6. Pay a heavy price for it
7. Then return to their familiar situation
8. Having changed

Essentially, it's Campbell's monomyth, boiled down to the extreme. Harmon uses this same process in breaking every single episode of Community.

Here, from Harmon's blog, is the extremely complex 'embryo' for the episode recently that explored six different possible timelines for the show:

I don't outline or break stories down this way, but often times I wonder if I should. My WIP right now (the #scifiJohnHughesbook) comes together and falls apart every day. Two days ago I was reaching the tipping point, now I'm questioning the purpose of the entire thing. I don't know what this book is. It doesn't feel like other books I have written. It feels strange and awkward. I know I have to just keep going. This novel has been waiting to be written for years.

How about the rest of you? Outline? Embryo?

 

Guest Starring...

Today I have a guest post over at author Ty Johnston's blog, on world building and the challenges involved when you're a fan of Hemingway, like me. 

Ty is currently doing a blog tour for his new novel Ghosts of the Asylum, available now!  I met Ty over at the Kindle boards, which is a good place to meet fellow authors and a good resource as well.  Blog tours and guest posts are very cool and different and I look to participate in more of them.

Look for a guest post from Ty here in December!

Frank Miller, You Are The Opposite of Batman

I'll try and be polite about this nonsense:
This little post isn't going to try and sort out the ways 9/11 impacted Frank Miller and all Americans, nor is it going to attack an artist who clearly has lost his perspective.

What I will try and do here is talk about art and agenda. Every work of art has one. Art is its own agenda; what it tries to convey through you, or about you, your circumstances or those circumstances you may find necessary to shine a light on, art communicates. Art is message. Art then must speak for itself. If you as the artist decide to be the messenger, or if you confuse the form - writing, in this case - with a bully pulpit, or worse, a weapon, then you are not an artist anymore. You are a propagandist.



Frank Miller rants against the Occupy movement in his blogpost. He's entitled to his opinion about the movement. As someone who visited the protesters in Zucotti Park last month, I have mixed emotions about the movement. I also have perspective. Frank Miller does not, it seems. His anger - real, visceral anger - over the protest quickly collapses into his real issue with them. These people hate America, because they aren't protesting the terrorists.

'This enemy of mine' he says, of al-Qaeda. Frank Miller is at war, and art is his weapon. His recent, um, piece - Holy Terror - makes it clear his art no longer speaks. He speaks for his art. He uses it as a means to exact a revenge for what happened to us ten years ago; he uses it as a means to ridicule and diminish Muslims in a way that is ignorant. 

The real enemy of America is ignorance.

Ignorance of our evaporating quality of life. Ignorance of those who do mean us harm. Ignorance of why.  So, I would say to Frank Miller, and to any writer, write about 9/11. Write about revenge. Write about an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan or a Muslim community in Michigan.  Shine a light on the things we don't want to think about. That we don't know about. Let your art speak for itself. Let your reader use their imagination to understand - or reject - what you confront them with. If you are only passing on your own personal judgement of a situation or people, then you are not a writer.

A writer cannot be a judge. A writer protests. A writer prosecutes. A writer defends. In the end, a writer doesn't decide. If they did, they wouldn't need readers.

Sent from my iPad

15 Things You Don't Know About Me

After Joel Friedlander at The Book Designer:

The Book of Elizabeth is the first novel I have published.

I did it all by myself.  Proudly.

It is not the first book I have written (it's the fifth).

None of the five novels (and the sixth one I'm working on now)feature a main character that is male.

I spent a summer in Dublin, Ireland, at Trinity College with the Irish Writing Program.  We talked a lot about male/female POV and a person's 'default setting.'  I think I said one time men are boring to me.  What more can you say about the male perspective that hasn't been said?  I overstated it, I think.  What might women say of the male perspective?

I get emails all the time from people who think I'm a woman. 

What is it about sexually ambiguous women?  This has nothing to do with writing.  Well.  Yes, it does.

Right now, I'm listening to the new Florence and the Machine record.  A pattern emerges.

The only patterns in your writing you should be conscious of are the ones that are improving.  I graduated from the University of Iowa with a first rate education and a first class confusion of the soul.  I spent years after college trying to reconcile the literary novelist with the Star Wars nerd.  Many of your peers will attempt to 'solve' or 'diagnose' you in workshops.  They're scientists, not writers.  You are person of faith - you yearn to communicate something to the world you can't quantify or explain - living in a world of science. 

There's always things like spaceships and aliens and time travel in my stories.  Not exactly hard science, but have faith.

I'm not particularly religious, but almost everything I write deals with faith to some degree.

My grandfathers, father, and uncle all served their country so I could sit here and ponder things better men asked as only as they died.

I'm only a veteran of bad decisions.

I didn't start watching Community until season 2.

Most everything I learned about writing growing up, I learned from TV.

Call of Duty: #amwriting

Up to 137 pages in the new novel.  Very close to the tipping point.  Haven't felt this way, in oh, four years?  You'd think I'd do it more often.

Slow Down - Icebergs Ahead!

A fair point in the Good Book Alert review of The Book of Elizabeth was the pace of the novel.  I knew this was an issue back to when I completed the first draft in 2008.  The primary reason the book reads as fast as it does is I was trying to cram all of this world bubbling over in my head under a hard page count given to me by the publisher.  Eventually, of course, that became irrelevant. 

When I took the rights back, I did consider expanding a little on the novel.  At that point though, the idea of spending more time on it made me sick.  I wanted to get past the book and four years of my life I felt had been wasted in waiting for it to arrive.  In retrospect, I should have taken a breath and expanded on some items.  The sequel will be more relaxed in pace, and won't be as hell bent on running through the world in an attempt to hit all the touristy spots before you leave town.

That said, I do kind of like the hit and run pace of the book.  Read on for some thoughts on why.