Category Archives: Resources

Making the Reader Drunk on Words

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“My arms ached, my back was cramped and I was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall. Besides this, the unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes. The air was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down the shaft.”
THE TIME MACHINE – H.G. Wells

In March, 2012, there was an article in The New York Times – Sunday Review by Anne Murphy Paul, titled, Your Brain on Fiction.  Now, isn’t that a great suggestive title? Fiction as a mind-enhancing drug, one that evokes images of the brain drunk on words. So, what does it mean? Well, I recommend you read the whole article, because it is not only fascinating information (and Knowledge is Power), but to a writer, it can also be used as a guide to improving your own writing. (Click Here for Link to Article)

The excerpt above of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (which I recently re-read and was delighted to see it still held my interest) gives us a example of how to stimulate the reader’s brain with its emotional “actions.”

There is a feeling of movement to the words, texture and emotions of terror.

Ms. Paul’s article talks about research by a team out of Emory University about how the reader’s brain actively reacts to descriptions with textures, touch, a sense of movement and smells. We can truly live vicariously through fictional characters and their longings, frustrations and trials and tribulations. As writers, we need to remember to be conscious of this fact when we are “moving” our characters through the interweaving fabric of our stories.

According to the Ms. Paul’s article, a team of Emory University researchers also reports that …metaphors like “The singer had a velvet voice” and “He had leathery hands” roused the sensory cortex while phrases matched for meaning, like “The singer had a pleasing voice” and “He had strong hands,” did not.

Which brings me to one of my favorite use of a metaphor by an author. It comes from a John Irving’s book, Prayers for Owen Meany. Read it and weep all you writers, for this has to send your sensory cortex into overdrive!

“You’ve seen the mice caught in the mousetraps?” she asked me. “I mean caught – their little necks broken – I mean absolutely dead,” Grandmother said. “Well, that boy’s voice,“ my grandmother told me, “that boy’s voice could bring those mice back to life!”

Obviously, there is only one H.G. Wells, and one John Irving, but we can tear a page from their fiction on how it should be done. I will leave you with an excerpt of a story I’m working on currently. I can only hope it tickles your brain, too.

Big Doofus is usually right, since his coon dog’s snout knows what curdled fear smells like, and surely those escapees stink from it as they push through the brambles, crawl over rocks, twist an ankle in shallow holes and get bitch-slapped by low-slung tree limbs. They always lose their sense of direction, all the time going deeper and deeper into Catalysta Woods. Wheezing hard and bloodied from their efforts, the prey arrives at the Clearing. There is no getting out of the woods.

If you want, please use the comment section to give me a brief example of your own efforts to engage the reader’s imagination.

Prototypes and Tributes

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Prototypes for fictional characters come to a writer in many ways. The man who became the basis for Sherlock Holmes was Dr. Joseph Bell, a distinguished Scotch surgeon. Sir Arthur Doyle was a student of Dr. Bell’s at the Edinburgh University school. It was there that he became impressed by Dr. Bell’s remarkable powers of observation and deduction, through which he could diagnose illness almost on sight. Sir Arthur transferred these same abilities to Sherlock Holmes when it came to solving crimes.

We bring all this up because back in December, we did an interview with Naomi Hirahara, author of the Mas Arai series. (click Here for interview) 

The character, Mas was based on her father, who was a gardener, like Mas, (and in fact, his name is her father’s spelled backwards).  Isamu (“Sam”) Hirahara sounds like a remarkable man. He was born in California, but taken to Hiroshima, Japan as an infant. He was only miles away from the epicenter of the atomic-bombing in 1945, yet survived. Shortly after the end of WWII, her father returned to the States, where he went into the gardening and landscaping business in Los Angeles area.

Sam Hirahara knew his daughter had based a character on him. Recently, he passed away peacefully on January 18, 2012 after an prolonged illness at the age of eighty-two in his home.  But thanks to his daughter, he will live on through his daughter’s tribute to him, in Mas Arai, a character who exhibits quiet strength and grace.

Be sure to check out the Mas Arai Facebook page, as we extend our sympathy to Naomi and her family on their loss.

Nancy Ellen Dodd: author of The Writer’s Compass

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A scene has to have a rhythm of its own, a structure of its own.
Michelangelo Antonioni

Lazy minds are like Jello, they need a mold for structure and to avoid brain spillage on the floor.
A Writing Primate

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In a few days, the New Year will be upon us: 2012. This is the time for resolutions, right? So, here is an interview to help you with your creative efforts. I’ve asked Ms. Dodd for the interview, because structure has always been a elusive goal for many writers, including myself. Structure as in discipline (write, write, and write), and structure as in building upon an idea into a complete story.

Nancy Ellen Dodd is a writer, university instructor,and an editor with two master’s degrees in writing from the University of Southern California. She currently teaches screenwriting at Pepperdine University and has studied with a number of award-winning authors. Back in May, 2011, she did an interview with Writer’s Digest Magazine. (Click here).

She is the author of The Writer’s Compass: From Story Map to Finished Draft in 7 Stages, which gives ideas/insight on mapping your novel from idea to final draft.

Nancy Dodd

Tell us what you mean by developing a “mind-set” for writing, and how important is it to the creative process?

Sometimes it’s difficult to shut out the rest of the world. The problem for too many of us is that we let too many other things interfere with our writing. Without a discipline or a mindset, we find that day after day goes by and we aren’t accomplishing what we wanted to in our writing because we haven’t prepared ourselves to see it as important as other things that we allow to interrupt us. 

Getting into a creative writing space, or really any type of writing space, usually means preparing yourself, your mind, to sit down and start working. For many of us just saying it’s time to write, then doing it, isn’t how it works; we have to prepare our “mindset.”

One of the ways to do this is to have a consistent time to write so that your mind and body rhythm knows that every day, or whatever days you choose, at this time you will write. Another way is to have a certain place you write or certain music you write to or certain writing implements just for this type of writing. Again, when you get into that place or use those implements, your mind knows that it’s time to be creative. The more disciplined you are about writing, the more your mind will know when it’s time to focus on just writing and to let everything else wait.

You equate story-telling with building a house: foundation, adding structure of walls and roof, the flooring, painting and adding designer touches. Elaborate for us the use of the 7 stage process described in your book which maps out the writing of a story with beginning, middle and end.

Through years of studying writing I found that there were many questions a writer should ask themselves to help them develop ideas, character, structure, and so forth. I began to organize these questions and tools into stages that would help to build a story organically and more efficiently, much like a house, and in ways that you see the details as you need them.

I recently watched a show in which the contractor finished the walls in the kitchen and was getting ready to put in the cabinets when he realized he had overlooked allowing for the electrical and venting components of the range hood—something he should have done before dry walling. His comment was that even the most experienced sometimes overlook an important detail. The same is true for writing, when you work in stages it can be much more effective, and helps you not to overlook so many details. I suggest the following stages:

Stage 1 – Developing Ideas
Stage 2 – Building a Strong Structure
Stage 3 – Creating Vibrant Characters
Stage 4 – Structuring Scenes, Sequences, and Transitions
Stage 5 – Increasing Tension and Adjusting Pacing
Stage 6 – Enriching Language and Dialogue
Stage 7 – Editing the Hard Copy and Submitting

As you develop your story, in some ways you will be working on these simultaneously throughout the process, you create and introduce new ideas and you work on language. However, by focusing on what a particular stage requires, you address the particular issues for that stage. How I do this is when I feel I have enough ideas for a story in Stage 1, I create a story map and then I work on structure, going from the beginning to the end of the material I have.

During that stage I’m adding more material and ideas to develop the structure of Stage 2. Once I’ve gone through all the work I have, answering the questions and filling out the story, I then go to Stage 3 and work on developing my characters, getting to know them, again filling out the story with more details that focus on characterization.

When in Stage 4, I tear apart the story and develop each scene, determine where I have left out scenes that would add to the story and condensing what I thought was a scene, but really doesn’t have all the components of one, and I make sure all of my transitions are clear and won’t lose the reader. Then by State 5, I go back through the story and I look at tension and pacing and increase it or slow it down as needed.

Now I’m ready to do work on the language and dialogue and by the time I’ve gotten to Stage 6, my story should be well-developed and nearly complete. Finally it’s a matter of printing out the hard copy and editing, then submitting or prepping for publication Stage 7.

What recommendations can you give to a writer who is blocked about writing a certain idea, but can’t seem to get a handle on it?

Understanding what you are writing about, what the theme and/or dramatic question of your story is, can help with getting a handle on an idea. Having a clear theme really helps in making decisions about the story and can help to overcome being blocked.

Along completely different lines, finding what inspires you to write the story, what event, idea, activity, image, music, or whatever stimulated writing this story, then going back to that source, can help get the writer back into the story.

Another method would be to ask yourself, “What if it didn’t happen that way, what if it happened this way?” and seeing if changing direction can get you excited again.

What if you already have a rough draft or even a completed manuscript, how can your book, The Writer’s Compass help the writer?

Having a rough draft or completed manuscript means that you can skim through the questions to see what you may have missed or what you can add to further develop the story. The questions will help you to see where you might have problems you can fix. Using the story map at this stage is a tool that helps you to see where there might be holes in your story. I create a new one after every stage to see what I should change to make the story more dynamic or if I can’t answer a particular element on the story map, then I know precisely where I have a weak spot or a hole.

Building tension is important to any story line. What tools/ideas would you recommend on how to do this naturally in developing this sense of urgency?

People often confuse tension and pacing. Pacing is created by moving things quickly, putting in fewer details, making dialogue shorter, using less narrative. However, this may or may not increase the tension. Sometimes tension is better served by adding details and slowing down the pace. Which is more frightening: running through a haunted mansion, or going slow and being forced to see every shadow, hear every creak. In my book I give an example of a knife fight and how by showing each individual’s movements versus, just getting stabbed increases the tension in the scene. It also helps when the reader is going to guess the outcome. If the reader knows you probably aren’t going to kill off your protagonist halfway through the book, then showing how the protagonist feels and his or her fears, helps draw the reader into the tension of the moment. When you shorten it to something like, “…then he stabbed him.” The sentence goes by so quickly the reader may not catch the significance of what just happened.

Tell us a little about what you are currently working on?

I always have too many projects I’m working on. Three of the areas I’m pursuing include: how using storytelling tools to create ideas helps businesspeople to develop business ideas; how ministers can use storytelling tools in developing sermons; and using story telling techniques to develop case studies.
In my creative writing I’m working on prepping a screenplay for pre-production about a minister whose son is murdered, forcing him to reconcile his own past as a boxer who killed a man in a prize fight; the screenplay has already received awards. I’m also doing a final draft on a play about a clueless father whose wife leaves him and he has to raise their autistic child alone. I’m also trying to finish the final draft of a coming of age manuscript called “Wake-Up! Henny.” And I’m working on a creative nonfiction story on how my friend had to be smuggled out of the mid-east to escape execution for a crime he didn’t commit.

Please give us an eight-word description of your life.
God, family, writing, surviving, and learning to live.

Nancy Ellen Dodd / Facebook Page

Check out 1st 50 pages of

The Writer's Compass

Ode to Smith Corona and Underwood

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No. 5 Underwood American Standard Typewriter -photo by D.S. Renzulli

I’m feeling a bit sentimental tonight. Very recently, I upgraded my Apple OS to Lion (a belated hear me roar! to Steve J.).  That’s when I discovered that I could no longer use my trusty Microsoft Word, version 10 or thereabouts!  You have to understand that I’ve been using Microsoft Office software since 1989, first at work, and then at home. I’ve written reports, done graphs in Excel, setup PowerPoint slideshows, written books (yes, completed and whole and not published), short stories (some published), letters, and this particular blog: A Writing Primate.  I loved Word, although I never upgraded after the 10.1. Once I left the working world, I only needed a word processor for my writing, and I was quite happy with the version I was using, thank you very much. After all, you don’t want something too complicated to interrupt the muse at her literary efforts. But, when I went to write after installing Lion, well, the big cat bit me in the ass by telling me that it wouldn’t open this particular Office software version.

Now, I could get an upgrade to Office 2011, but I had Pages on my computer, and I made a life changing decision to try it out. Pages (an Apple program) has been on my Macbook Pro for a few years, but I never got into using it. After all, I had the Word and the Word was all I needed, but sometimes you have to try something different, to make sure your brain cells don’t calcify or dribble out your ears (which can be quite messy). So, this blog is being written on Pages, and after it is done, I will uninstall the Microsoft Office with a ceremonial piping generally used for retiring admirals.

Which brings me to Smith Corona and Underwood. For you youngster, these are typewriters. What are typewriters, you ask? Ah child, they were used before the computer came along, and they were glorious machines. They made clackety-clack noises as you pressed down on the keys, and if you made a mistake, shame on you, you either used “white-out” to cover over the mistake, or start all over again, which, when you think about it, really made you think first about the words you were laying down on that pristine sheet of paper.  My mother gave me her Underwood typewriter when I was ten years old and the thing had to be thirty years old then. It was a huge, hunk of metal and I loved it. At a later Xmas, I got a Smith Corona that purred like a kitten because it was electric. The clack wasn’t quite so clicky any more, but there was still a noise. (When I write on my Macbook Pro, all I hear is my brain yelling, “THINK, THINK, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO WRITE NEXT, DUMMY?”, so I do miss the noise of a typewriter.

The concept of a typewriter dates back to at least 1714, when an Englishman filed a patent for an artificial machine to impress or transcribe letters singly or progressively one after another. The first typewriter built was for a blind Countess in Italy, so she could write letters, and that was in the early 1800’s. The first successful for the public typewriter (1870) looked like a pin cushion with a writing ball above the paper. Others soon followed, looking more like the typewriters we remember, and one in particular, Sholes & Glidden became popular, because it introduced the QWERTY keyboard (a layout we still use on our computers), although it only typed in capital letters. In the 19th century, the cost of a typewriter was $100. The typewriter also helped our grandmothers and great grandmothers find respectable jobs in office around the country, typing away at business letters written by men. Times have changed our perspective, haven’t they?

I miss my typewriter, and I miss my Word, but you know what? I kind of like this Pages software, too. Whatever tool you use to express yourself, it can only be good, whether using a pen or pencil, or typewriter or laptop, or iPhone, or iPad. It’s awesome to think of all the machines I’ve used to write. What fun, it’s been, and will continue to be. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Quick! What was the first published novel written on a typewriter?
If you are interested, check out the Comments section below for the answer…

Interview: Donald Maass – Agent

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Donald Maass Literary Agency, founded in 1980, represents 100 authors and sells over 150 novels per year to leading publishers both here in the United States and internationally.  The agency is a known for its fiction writers. According to Publishers Marketplace, all agents of the Donald Maass Literary Agency are members of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR). In addition to being members of the AAR, the agency also holds memberships in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Mystery Writers of America, and the Romance Writers of America.

Donald Maass, Agent & President of DMLA

Donald Maass is president of Donald Maass Literary Agency and an author of both fiction and popular craft books for writers as well. He is a past president of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc, and quite respected in the field of publishing. He also enjoys helping writers achieve their goals, and teaches workshops on the art of writing and getting published.


Interview with Donald Maass

Tell us something about how you got started in becoming an agent and then, opening up your own literary agency.

Ahem, that was a while back!   I was previously a junior editor at a publishing house.  What appealed about “agenting” was spending more time working with authors, less time in meetings.  It’s now kind of hard to imagine doing anything else.

You are a writer yourself (both fiction, and non-fiction on writing). Has this given you an insight into what you would look for in a storyteller, and in what way?

One thing I learned is that fiction writing isn’t something you do alone.  Critique friends are essential.  It’s also a lifelong education.  The best writers keep learning.

    Walk us through the process of what happens when a query letter/email comes into your agency, right up to the point where you accept them as a client.

It’s a bit less dramatic than you might suppose.  When one of my agents is excited about a project, that’s it.  We may pass it around, read and discuss out of interest, but the decision to sign up an author doesn’t need the boss’s approval.  What you’re passionate about is what you should represent.  There’s far more discussion after we’ve taken someone on; about the pitch, marketing and such.

We once talked about the death of the small, independent bookstores, and now we are seeing the closing of a major bookstore like Borders. Obviously, the current economy has a hand in that, but do you think the increasing popularity of e-books is also a part of the issue?

The popularity of e-books is due to the success of the Kindle reader, the development of which was somewhat coincidental.  I mean, the Kindle didn’t bring about the demise of Borders.  (Borders did that to itself.)  There’s no question that e-book sales have cut into physical book sales.  Where that will top out remains to be seen.

    With the move into digital forms of books (audio, epub), how do you feel this will change the role of an agent in the publishing world?

Agents help authors get published.  Maybe that’s morphing nowadays but it’s still the same basic service.  And publishing is still publishing.  If you’re one of the Big Six, same job.  If you’re an e-publisher, same job.  If you’re an individual author going the e-book route, same job.  (Except that you’re probably not as good at it.)  Writers still write.  Publishers still publish.  Agents are still the author’s friend and advisor, early editor, deal cutter, subsidiary rights department…really, everything they did before.  The medium is mixing and changing, to be sure.  The process is still essentially the same.

   What advice would you give a new novelist in developing their career and expanding their readership base?

90% of your success is your stories.  Work on those most.  The last 10% matters, but only by 10% and only if the first 90% is already terrific.

    What kind of advances are first novels getting these days, and do you think there is any future for the mid-list authors?

Advances are down (four figures for first novels isn’t rare) and mid-list is not a place you want to be.  Why not aim to soar out of category?  (See comment above!)

    You seem to be invested in teaching writing and getting published (with your books and workshops on the subject). What do you get out of it? 

There are some aspects of fiction writing that are poorly understood and rarely taught; for instance, what I term “micro-tension”, the line-by-line tension that keeps readers glued to everything on the page.  I feel it’s important to get those ideas out there.  There’s too much magical thinking about writing fiction.  Even inspiration and originality are qualities one can cultivate.  I’d even argue that they’re learnable techniques.  Just because some authors do certain things instinctively doesn’t mean other authors can get good at them too.

  What do you think of the trend toward self-publishing? Does this have any effect on an agents’ business?

Self publishing is still self publishing.  Digital only makes it cheaper.  Selling books to the public isn’t any easier.  Social media–?  Helpful but not a panacea.

What books are you reading now (for your own personal enjoyment)?

A history of coffee!

    Please give us an eight-word description of your life. 

Agent, boss, teacher, writer, husband, dad, reader, traveler.

LINKS

www.maassagency.com

Follow Don on Twitter: @DonMaass

Donald Maass – Appearances/Workshops

Books on Writing


A Writing Frenzy in November!

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If you see people in November walking around muttering, “Nanowrimo! Nanowrimo!”, please be assured, they are not from Mars, or Zombies from Planet X. They are participants in National Novel Writing Month (aka Nanowrimo), a yearly ritual for writers that has become an international obsession.

Nanowrimo participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30. That’s right, 50,00 words in one month! That is 1666 words per day…and if you skip a day, double that amount. It is a challenge, but it’s invigorating, trust me, because I’ve done it twice. The idea is to let the writing flow…to never stop and think about it or rewrite it, not until after the month of November is finished. It gets your creative juices flowing.

The first Nanowrimo started in July, 1999 with 21 people in the San Francisco Bay area. Twelve years later, in 2010, 200,530 participants all around the world had written 2,872,682,109 words, with 37,479 winners blowing through the 50,000-word goal. And you could be one of them in 2011.

Go to the National Novel Writing Month website and sign up now…before November starts. You will be able to track your progress, join forums with other writers in the same situation as you, and maybe even get together in person with the local Nanwrimo group.

I’ll be doing it this year, and hope to see you there. Let’s do it together.

nanowrimo.org

New Writers Corner for Sept. 2011

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This month at our New Writers Corner, we are looking at authors who view history as a chance to tell fascinating stories through the eyes of real people. It’s a genre that is hard to pull off, but when it’s done right, as these authors did, it gives the reader a chance to get lost in an era other than their own. Check out these authors and buy their work. After all, we want to encourage them to keep writing!

The Painter from Shanghai is a historical fiction novel based on the life of Pan Yuliang, a Chinese artist born in 1899. Based in New York, Jennifer Cody Epstein has written for Self, The Wall Street Journal, and the Chicago Tribune. She has published short fiction in several journals and was a finalist in a Glimmer Train fiction contest.

Fighting Castro: A Love Story is a fascinating glimpse into the world of Cuba during the time of Castro’s takeover of the country as seen through the eyes of an actual couple:  Lino and Emy.  The book combines historical fact and storytelling of a turbulent time.  Kay Abella is a professional journalist, author, and editor who has been a magazine journalist in New York and in France where she worked as a translator and journalist for the Chicago Tribune. She is now a full-time writer of fiction and nonfiction.

Coffeyville by C. E. L. Welsh is an interesting mixture of using a historical character like Harry Houdini in a novel full of misdirection and mystery.  This is a short novel at a great price ($2.99). C.E.L. Welsh is an author of fiction living in Texas.

Have you come across a book like the one above that you’d like to share with us? Be sure to tell us in a comment below.

Interview with Selina Rosen of Yard Dog Press

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And here in the ring tonight, we have with us a small press publisher in the red boxing gloves ready to take on all contenders, including the big guys like Random House, or Harper Collins.  Okay, maybe not, because small presses are different from those multi-million dollar businesses, and not just in the bank account department.  Sure, they’d like to make money; after all, they are human (at least from what I’ve heard). But, there is something almost spiritual or quest-like in their mission to publish those books that might not have an audience except for the efforts of the small press.

According to Publishers Weekly, there are over 7,000 small press startups every year, and their motivation is to publish what THEY want and not just go along with trend-of-the-moment books.  As you can imagine, not many of these small publishers survive even for the year, but there are some that struggle along and have successfully developed their own customer base.

Among these hardy survivors is Yard Dog Press, based in Arkansas, who has been publishing since 1995.  Here is what their mission statement says on their website:

  • To bring to the attention of the reading public the talent of authors who haven’t earned the “big numbers” yet, so therefore get little or no attention from the corporate giants.  These are great story tellers with equally great stories to share.  We think it is shameful that there is no forum for their work
  • To provide a press for those mid-length novels that the big houses won’t touch.
  • To bring to the reading public stories that they will enjoy.
  • To provide a home for the bastard literary children of some well-known authors in the field.
  • To never forget that we are in the business of ENTERTAINMENT!

Yard Dog Press Mascot

That says a mouthful, doesn’t it? The people behind Yard Dog Press are Selina Rosen and Lynn Stranathan, who are not only a couple, but the driving force behind YDP. Selina, herself is an avid writer in many genres: Fantasy, S/F, Horror, Humor, Mystery, Suspense, Action Thrillers, and do on… The woman has a definite addiction to writing. Her latest book is Black Rage, a very-nearly-paranormal romance.

YDP publishes dark humor, s/f, fantasy, gay/lesbian, mysteries and anthologies (You should check out their Bubba anthologies!). They have some great authors on their list, such as Beverly Hale and Laura J. Underwood among others.

Below is an interview with Selina Rosen. 

Selina Rosen, Editor-in-Chief / Yard Dog Press and Author


Tell us how YDP got started in 1995, and what has kept up your enthusiasm for a small press?

Yard Dog Press started as the brain fart of myself and artist Brand Whitlock. Through the convention circuit we had meet many talented authors and artists that for what ever reason couldn’t make their voice heard. A lot of that was location. Southern and Midwestern writers and artists still have trouble getting representation and being taken seriously. There is this idea that if we really wanted to make it we’d move closer to New York or at the very least get an agent from there. But the cost of living there is insane so unless you’ve made it as a writer or artist you can’t afford to live there and as for getting a New York agent that can be almost as financially unattainable. You need to be the places they are to get their attention.

At the same time readers were complaining that they were getting tired of reading the same book over and over…that they wanted to see something different.

We saw a need and we tried and are still trying to fill that need. We started with a small comic book that featured at least one short story a month and from those humble beginnings sprang Yard Dog Press.

I don’t know that you could say I’ve kept my enthusiasm as much I feel like I have a responsibility to the community of writers and artists we’ve worked with and the readers who count on us to give them exactly what they’re looking for in a good read.

YDP is entering the e-book field in the near future. How do you see this move as changing your view of the publishing world?  Tell us where the e-books will be available, and how difficult or easy has the transition been technically for you?

YDP already has several e-books up they are at Amazon and Smashwords. Frankly I’m doing the e-books because it’s where the readers are going. I like to read a book something I can hold in my hands and most of our titles will continue to get a print run. Some like our recent book I DIDN’T QUITE MAKE IT TO OZ will be released as an e-book only, but that will be rare and it’s really sort of a test.

I’m not happy with the speed the titles are being put up at, but I can’t do it so I’m at other people’s mercy.

In my opinion the e-book market will either save publishing or be the final nail in the coffin. Jury is still out, of course I’m hoping for the saving but after 12 years of the worst economy of my life I’m not going to hold my breath or sell the farm.

What advantages do you feel a small press has over the more commercial companies? What disadvantages/problems?

The advantage is not having to go through a process that rapes your work and leaves you feeling like you owe the publishing house a big ass favor because they took your book. Simply put I like a well-told story, I’m not looking to tear a writer apart or rebuild them in my image. I don’t want to put them into a box and tell them how to write. I’ll know when I read their work if they can write and if they can I will gently edit their work so that it’s still their work.

Disadvantage is always going to be small press doesn’t have the deep pockets. Money and the right push can make a book huge. Mass distribution can make a fist full of people rich. No small press can get your book the kind of distribution one of the bigger houses can get you. You’ll never make really good money; you’ll never be a household name.

However we will let you keep your soul. It really all comes down to what a writer ultimately wants their work to do for them.

What attracts your attention when you read a mss submission for YDP?

Good old fashion story telling. A robot can put out grammatically correct, work all day, no typos, no spelling errors and no heart. Now I don’t want something that’s a G-d awful mess, but I’d rather see something that has a few problems that has heart then some perfectly written meaningless, heart less, drivel.

A writer’s words need to take me someplace I haven’t gone before make me feel something I might have never felt, or what’s the point? For me a good story still has a beginning, a middle and an end that is conclusive. I don’t want to be sucked into a story and find out the book has no real ending or worse yet I have to wait for the next 50 books to get to the ending.

I despise descriptive narrative masquerading as story.

What ways do you try to attract attention to the books printed under YDP cover? What can you recommend an author to do to help their book become more visible to the public?

We have given away hundreds of books as well as other promotional items. We are probably best known for the “Coupons of Great Value,” which our writers hand out at each convention we attend.

I do between 10 and 15 shows a year with the company where the books are prominently displayed in the dealer’s room. We have a web-site, we run sales, we send our books out for review sometimes we run adds. We encourage all of our writers to get on the Internet and work the social networks.

YDP is also known for its humorous, offbeat anthologies, like the Bubbas’ series or the I Should Have Stayed in Oz anthology.  What do you have in store for the your anthology readers for the future?

Something really campy, playing with Alice in Wonder Land. Maybe titled, Waiter There’s A Hare in my Soup. I say maybe ’cause I’m sure that if that one’s good enough someone else has already snagged it.

You’ve had many books published and a number of short fictions in magazines. What keeps you fresh as a writer? How has your writing changed through out the years?

In fact I just sold a short story today to a Joe and Kasey Lansdale anthology that comes out next year titled IMPOSSIBLE MONSTERS.

My life is constantly changing so my work is bound to change. But honestly what keeps my work fresh is that I just write exactly what I want to write and I jump around from one genre to another. I learned a long time ago that writing for “The Man,” didn’t work for me. Writing just exactly what the big houses say they want is no guarantee you will sell to them in fact odds are you won’t. There are too many good jobs out there that pay better there is no sense in writing if you don’t write what you want to write.

I’ve been told my writing is darker and less hopeful. I don’t know that I’d say that’s really true I know it is more realistic.

How do you balance being a writer and an editor?

Damn! You’re supposed to do that?!

The editing eats my writing time. Devours it in fact. There is nothing creative about editing and there shouldn’t be, the editor isn’t there to make the work sound like them. They are there to make the book easy to read and understand for as many people as possible while hopefully leaving the writer’s voice in tact.

I actually hate editing. Hate it like pulling teeth. No doubt this is why I’m good at it. You’re always better at the things you hate, which means you have to keep doing them.

Who are your favorite authors?

Me, Joe Lansdale, Connie Willis, CJ Cherryh, Robert Howard, Lee Killough and of course everyone who writes for YDP.

Yes I said me if a writer wouldn’t rather read their own work than anyone else’s then they aren’t where they need to be as a writer. A writer should always be writing the book they’d most want to read. Like the guy with the tiny pecker at the whore house… if you can’t please yourself you can’t please anyone else.

Give us an eight-word description of your life.

Brutal, sad, hard, painful, futile, tiring, frustrating, brilliant.

Check out these links for Yard Dog Press.

Yard Dog Press website

YDP Facebook

Selina Rosen’s Books

YDP Books

Fun Blogs on Writing

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The Internet can be cheesy, annoying, perverse, but it also can be interesting if you happen to hit on the right sites. Below are some of my favorite Blogs that deal in some way with the art of writing.

Top of the List is The Dark Side of History.  I’m going out on a limb on this one because it’s a brand new Blog, and I’m hoping the blogger keeps it up. What I like about the posts so far is they are written with elegance, and I especially love the ones on Fun With Words, where words are dissected based on their historical roots. Check out the one on the word Villain.

D.W. Beyer, Steampunk Author has a great site. He states that  his plan for this blog is really nothing more than chronicling and sharing my journey to becoming a writer. What he’s come up with is an enjoyable Blog, where he shares his enthusiasm for writing with discussions on his characters and the quirky books he’s read and liked.

I haven’t forgotten you poets. Although I’m not the most poetical writer, I do enjoy this particularBlog, called We Write Poems. They give writing prompts for poems and they make it fun.   It’s a good way to tickle those brain cells into creative activity.

Hope you enjoy them…if so, drop the bloggers a comment or click on a Like button to let them know there is someone out there reading their Blogs.

New Writer’s Corner for JULY 2011

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Today we travel in our search for new writers. Now, when I say new, it doesn’t necessarily mean new as in inexperienced, but new as in a delight to the brain, a treat we’ve never had before, a book we want to read while riding the “A” train, the ferry to Long Island, or the Shuttle-That-Is-No-More (except in our dreams) or maybe, just maybe, the bullet train in Japan.

Getting Oriented: A Novel about Japan is by Wally Wood. Mr. Wood is a professional writer and a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, with 19 business books to his credit. This is his first published novel and it is about one of his passions: Japan.  The main character of the book, Phil Fletcher, also shares Mr. Wood’s infatuation with a country steeped in tradition and yet, rushing to embrace the modern age. A nation of contradictions. When I read this book, I felt as if I were part of the group that Phil is unexpectedly shepherding  on a twelve day tour of Japan. Like any group of people, they’ve all got their problems, and despite his efforts to remain aloof, Phil gets involved, which helps him deal with his own issues. We can’t help but root for him as he tries to understand the lemons that life has handed him.

Japan has gone through some rough times recently, what with the tsunami and earthquakes, and Getting Oriented is a gentle return to the days before all those troubles. Definitely a book worth reading.

Wally Wood also does a blog about Japan and writing. Check it out HERE.  You can read the first chapter of his book there.

Upcoming on A Writing Primate will be an interview with this author.