Don't Build Up Your Writing Obstacles

We all have writing obstacles--- poor spelling or grammar, difficulty with dialog, awkwardness in transitions.... Or perhaps we are shy when it comes to things like submitting to *real* publishers--- the ones that pay royalties.

But don't exaggerate these obstacles. Don't make them ever bigger in your imagination, and fuel them with your fear thoughts.

Minimize your obstacles. Don't utterly ignore them, because you have to deal with them. But every time you worry about your obstacle, give yourself a positive thought: "This isn't a big deal. This little obstacle is something I can fix pretty quick. It won't hold me back."

Exaggerating your obstacles will paralyze you as a writer. You will have inaccurate ideas about your abilities. You will double-up, in your mind, all of your flaws, and when you find something you can actually do well, you will assume it's no big deal, every amateur writer out there can do as well or better....

This just leads to more low self esteem, and when you feel that bad about yourself, you don't have the energy to work on your writing craft.

So when you look at your obstacles, don't see mountains. See molehills. And you can tear down molehills any day.

Cat picture is my cat Cheney, that I was given election day 2004 along with her mate Bush. I don't have Bush any more, but do have their children Mariska and Reagan.

Catsong: for Niki

This is one of the poems that will be in my new, expanded edition of Where the Opium Cactus Grows. Written in honor of my nine-year-old cat Niki, it is a sijo, a form of Korean poetry somewhat similar to the haiku. It was composed using an ancient Korean sijo as a model/inspiration. 

Catsong: for Niki
a sijo

what if my heart is too long or too tall?
what if my cat is too light or too small?

this calico tabby is mine
no matter that her nails are too sharp

the chill moonlight is mine also
to collect in alabaster jars


 This is one poem of mine with which I am satisfied--- not that I think it perfect or even good, but I feel that it is as good as I can make it, and any time I might spend fiddling around with it would be better spent writing new poems.  Other poems I've written I make endless revisions, sometimes achieving a better poem, sometimes only a new arrangement of the deck chairs on my poetic Titanic. Strangely, in my earliest poems this sense of satisfaction came more easily--- and I continue to be satisfied, for the most part, with these poems still. Today this sense of satisfaction is harder to find.

Note: I am planning to list this poem on Poetry Pantry over at Poets United this Sunday. If you have a blogged poem to share, or just want to read some poems, please visit their site.

The poem will also appear in the revised version of my book, Opium Cactus, on which I am still diligently working.

Last week with my Poetry Pantry poem undercover lesbian I got some valuable feedback which, strangely, I may actually use. Thanks to all my visitors from last week. 

Update: I have indeed shared the poem on Poetry Pantry #143 and am having fun looking at the other poems, seeking treasure. I've already found some, my favorite so far being And Bells Will Ring.

7 Things Famous Writers Can Do That You Can't

When it comes to the actual writing, it is good to imitate writers well-known for their fiction's quality, or at the least, famous writers of your genre (and others.)

When it comes to blogging and social media, there are many things that the well-known, mainstream-published author is and should be doing that you, a new, unknown, unpublished/self-published writer, must not imitate.

1. Write only about their own books --- authors like Orson Scott Card, Holly Lisle, Jerry B. Jenkins, Charlaine Harris, and Jeff Lindsay (author of the Dexter novels) know that the people that read their blog or follow their tweets and Facebook postings because they are already fans. They want to hear all they can about their author's published and upcoming books. For the rest of us, most of our followers are not familiar with our writing and thus are not fans of it. Writing too much about our work feels like advertising, and no one likes being advertised at.

2. Refer offhand to characters and situations from their books --- when a well-known author does this, it is what his fans want. When we do it, we are making our readers feel like outsiders because they haven't read our book yet. This will not make them run out and buy your self-published book.

3. Forget to proofread --- when a famous author misspells a word in a blog post or tweet or makes some other obvious error, no one thinks a thing about it. He's good enough to get published by a mainstream publisher, so the error is forgiven. When we do it, our readers assume we are bad writers. If the mistake is the misuse of big words, we are pretentious bad writers. Proofread everything down to the shortest tweet.

4. Offer a free ebook --- when bestselling Christian author Jerry B. Jenkins announced on Facebook that his novel 'Riven' would be available as a free ebook for limited time only, folks jumped on the offer. He's an author that's made the bestseller lists many, many times. When we make free offers, folks take it like they take offers of a free kitten. This doesn't mean you shouldn't offer your self-published ebook for free--- it just means that folks won't take it as a precious gift but as a potential waste of their reading time. It is more like they, the readers, are giving you a gift when they take the time to download and read your free ebook. Be thankful when this happens.

5. Be rude to commenters --- when you have a blog or a social media account, comments and replies are your life blood. A nationally known author has floods of commenters and, if the mood strikes him, can afford to call one or two of the most annoying ones idiots. We who are not yet known must cherish all our misspelling, zany, and odd commenters, and only when they are actually uttering death threats or spewing hostile profanity can we afford to scare them off.

6. Ask you to vote up their book on a web site --- while famous authors rarely make these kinds of requests, it would not be off-putting to their readers/followers if they did. If we do something like that, we are imposing on our readers. What if they haven't read our book yet or didn't like it? At best, you might mention in passing if your book is gaining ground on a GoodReads list or something. Leave it up to your readers what to do with that bit of information.

7. Insult a whole political faction or religion --- while this is a stupid thing to do even for the most popular authors in the country, they can get away with this if they do so within the limits of political correctness. Years ago I visited Stephen King's web site and saw a rant in which he proclaimed his opinion that conservatives were stupid. His fame was such at the time that he could probably gotten away with saying liberals were stupid. Maybe. All I know is that before I read that web site, I bought every Stephen King novel out there and read them to pieces, and bought books about Stephen King. Afterwards, I have only once or twice bought the new Stephen King novel, and rarely re-read my Stephen King collection, because aware of his real-life attitudes, I can't write off the intolerance in his books as just part of the fiction. But Stephen King was big enough at the time he didn't need me as a reader.  We, on the other hand, can't afford to actually insult conservatives, liberals, Christians or Jews, even if what we write is political thrillers aimed at those who share our views or religious fiction for those who share our faith. We have to cherish every person who gives us his attention, perhaps especially the ones who do so in spite of political or religious differences.

I think perhaps the best way to sum the whole thing up is that all writers, in social media interactions or blogging, need to come across as humble. For the bestselling author, they do it by humbling themselves to interact with their readers by internet at all. For us, we must never presume that our readers have any abiding interest in our books or book-related news, and must limit our mention of these things. Blogging and social media are about building friendships, not about peddling books or anything else to the uninterested.

To find a blogging role model, look to blogs by indie and small press authors who have won a successful following by NOT talking about their book all the time. Mike Duran's blog, in my sidebar, is one example, Karina Fabian's blog, also in the sidebar, is another.

How Many Blog Page Views is Enough?

Many of us use blogs to build a platform--- a following--- which can be a useful thing. Publishers and literary agents are impressed by writers who come to them with a good platform. But how much is enough?

A recent article in Writer's Digest magazine gives an answer as to how many blog page views a month is impressive:

Notable: 20,000 views a month.
Very Notable: 100,000 views a month
Impressive by Any Means: 500,000 views a month.

By contrast, my own page views in the last month were 1531. (It hasn't been a very active month, and I have been in the middle of once again re-inventing my blog--- hence the new title, which I may yet change again, perhaps to something as dull as my own name. I just have to decide which name.)

Now, there are page views and pages views. If you look at your stats for the search terms people use to find your blog, you will see that many came looking for the wrong thing, and most likely immediately left. In my own case I have a lot of people who come looking for 'David Tennant naked' or 'Billie Piper pregnant' or 'John Barrowman naked'. But never, sad to say, 'John Barrowman pregnant'. (OK, it's his character, Captain Jack Harkness, who has been pregnant.) Since this blog, alas, is not about nudity or celebrity gossip, these hits are wrong numbers.

On the other hand, some blog views really count because the viewers stayed to read and then to comment. My friend Mike Duran's blog tends to run towards 40-50 comments on every blog post. Often he arouses controversy among his reading base, but not in an angry or rabble-rousing way. I invite my readers to scroll down my sidebar to find the link to Mike Duran's blog and check it out.

How do you get more blog views? NOT by going around to forums and groups online and saying 'hey, read my blog!'. That seems spammy, and, worse, a little desperate. No, you have to decide which topics contribute to the platform you are building, and write about those things.

Now, for writers the trap is to write about writing (which I do far too much) and build a following of other would-be writers of a similar genre and outlook. We need to expand--- particularly to expand to topics of interest to readers. For example, I ought to be writing more about popular books I enjoy, such as The Hunger Games trilogy, or Howl's Moving Castle by the late Diana Wynne Jones, or Orson Scott Card's books, particularly the Homecoming series, and Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series.

Blogging about TV series and movies of interest--- Doctor Who, Star Trek, Gattaca--- is also worth doing. Blogging about books from small presses, or self-published books, does not attract readership except perhaps the author of the book in question. So my plans are to limit mention of such things to the most excellent examples, such as 'Live and Let Fly' by Karina Fabian. 

Doing these things, I hope, will get me more page views. Perhaps not to a notable level. But, one hopes, better than I am doing now.

If you are a blogger trying to expand your platform/followership, what methods are you currently using? Are there any new methods you are thinking of trying?

Is Mentioning Religion Taboo in YA Fiction?

Back before juvenile fiction was given the condescending rename 'Young Adult', there was no real taboo on mentioning the existence of religion. It was not allowed to be important to the story, but churches and synagogues were mentioned and characters might even go to them in an offstage sort of way.

But things have changed since then. Juvenile fiction is profoundly influenced by what is going on in schools. When I was in high school, I brought a pocket Bible to school with me every day and even read it in class when a boring class discussion was taking the place of learning-related events. My Bible was never taken away from me and I was never ordered to leave it at home. Why, we even had a Christian club at my high school, though we were forced to change its name to 'The Fellowship Club'.

Now the schoolish attitude toward religion is more of a zero-tolerance policy. And that cannot but affect what juvenile fiction authors write.

The author of the Hunger Games is rumored to be
of the Catholic faith. As she created her alternate world, Panem, certainly mentioning religions or their remnants would have come to mind. But if she had mentioned something of religion--- that religions weren't officially permitted by the Capitol but were tolerated in a low key way, perhaps--- would the Hunger Games books have been declared off limits in schools? If the heroine of the series, Katniss, had been portrayed as participating in a religion and it was significantly important to her--- if she had prayed at key moments--- I think it quite possible the books might have been banned at a few schools, and been discouraged at scores of others--- not purchased for school libraries, at any rate. And that would have limited book sales.

I think also of the Harry Potter series. The author was said to be Anglican. In the book, characters celebrated two Christian holidays--- Christmas and Halloween (All Saints' Eve). Yet there is no mention of even the possibility of any character going to a church (or synagogue, mosque or Hindu temple).

Now, my reading of YA fiction is not extensive. I didn't read teen fiction as a teen, and now that such fiction has a silly new name, its appeal to me has not increased. Only if the YA book in question has an interesting plot which avoids the dismal high school setting am I likely to read. But I would be very surprised if mainstream publishers of YA were OK with mention of religion--- particularly the Christian religion--- when that might hurt sales by getting the book banned from schools.

Now, in taboos regarding human sexuality, breaking taboo is almost a point of honor. Think of how proud TV producers have been at each step in the direction of showing ever more explicit sexuality onscreen. And I have read a 'YA' book in which the main character had a gay male friend who was said to habitually engage in sex activity with 'rough trade'--- thankfully, off stage.

But no one is proud of breaking the anti-religion taboos, at least, not as regards the Christian religion. (I'm sure that a well-written book about a faithful Muslim or Hindu kid would be well received by publishers and schools.)

The problem with the religion taboo is that there are a lot of kids out there who are of the Christian religion, and who are undergoing problems because of it. Most Christian kids spend most of their time in the hostile environment of government schools, where they have to learn to keep their mouths shut about what they think at the same time their atheist peers are being encouraged to express their opinions even when those opinions are hostile towards others.

There are YA writers who identify with this, who might want to write something which touches on this issue at least slightly--- but who don't want to become unpublishable as a result.

What's the writer to do? There are no easy answers. One can write exclusively for Evangelical Christian publishing houses, if you are an Evangelical and you want to write about the themes that are acceptable to such publishing houses. One can stifle one's opinions and write fiction set in imaginary faith-free, God-free worlds. Or you can write what's in your heart and resign yourself to the likelihood that you will have to self-publish or publish through a small press, and have little in the way of sales. Or you could do a little of all three.

In my reading life I've learned to ignore the many authors who feel the need to say something untrue and nasty about the Christian faith to please a certain set of their readers. But when I find an author who is also a Christian (or a person of faith from another religious background), and who skillfully writes the kind of fiction I like, I go back to that author again and again, and I hope always to find more authors like that.  

How does your own perspective on the religion issue affect how you react to the presence or absence of religion in your fiction? Do you think YA fiction should be open to this topic, or not?

Subtlety or Self-Censorship?

Currently I am engaged in producing a revised and expanded edition of my self-published poetry book, 'Where the Opium Cactus Grows'. In the original 2010 edition, I sometimes dealt with some embarrassing words and phrases from my older poetry, written in my Youthful Marxist Phase, by frank self-censorship.

In the revised edition, I am generally restoring the original forms. But sometimes, the choice between an older version and a newer one is not so simple. Like in the poem currently called 'undercover'.  Here it is:

undercover

they cant really tell with my clothes on
i think
them nasty
jokes wouldnt keep on coming if
they knew
i think
if i told them they'd say
you dont really look it
i think
then they'd look very close
because they're sure you can tell
     its the eyebrows george says
     you can tell them by the eyebrows


This poem expresses the experience of a person who feels like an outcast, who wonders if others know the secret thing that makes her an outcast. We don't know, in this version, what kind of outcast the speaker feels herself to be, and so we can't really evaluate if it is something that others really could detect.

The original version, which will be given below, is not subtle at all. It tells what kind of difference we are talking about right in the title. And so, perhaps, persons who otherwise might sympathize with the speaker of this version of the poem might not with the speaker of the original version.

The newer version, thus, may have wider appeal. But is it because of self-censorship--- or, perhaps even cowardice? Am I afraid to speak out on what the poem is really about, and be rejected by people I respect because of it?  I will give you the original version, below a break (you will have to click on 'Read more' to see it.)


undercover lesbian

they cant really tell with my clothes on
i think
the faggot & dyke
jokes wouldnt keep on coming if
they knew
i think
if i told them they'd say
you dont really look it
i think
then they'd look very close
because they're sure you can tell
     its the eyebrows george says
     you can tell them by the eyebrows


There's a little personal story behind this poem. When I was in high school, and long before I began to seriously think about topics such as my own sexual orientation, if any, I had two persecutors who rode by on their bikes every day as I walked to school. They threw rocks at me and called me a lesbian--- the first time I had ever heard that word spoken out loud. When they boys were finally identified, I was called with them into the principal's office and had to sit there while he expressed some sympathy with the boys, who, in his opinion, were provoked by the 'strange' way I dressed. (I wore informal long dresses to school while most of the girls wore miniskirts and halter tops.)

When later I finally admitted to myself that my orientation was less than heterosexual, it made me wonder if somehow those boys long ago had actually known something about me that I hadn't then known myself. Which brings up fears--- what stuff do other people, even strangers, just know about me that I don't even know myself?

The original version of the poem is less subtle, less universal--- does that make it stronger or weaker? It's hard to tell, really. The specifics on the original poem mean that the reaction of readers will be all caught up in their feelings about gay people, and the current social requirement that one either accept gay marriage as a governmental sacrament or be cast into the outer darkness.

I think the poem is about more than that single issue. The character speaking in the poem would not be in the least reassured if people told her 'no, dear, we don't care that you are a lesbian, we despise you because you are Catholic, or Jewish, or have an autism spectrum disorder, or wear an overly modest dress, or speak Esperanto in public....'

So, with much trepidation, I am asking for input. Which version of the poem do you think is more compelling and why? If I get more than seven intelligent responses (excluding spam and hate comments, in other words), I will take them under consideration in deciding which version of the poem will be included in the new Opium Cactus.  (I also could use a little feedback on the book title: should I stick with 'Where the Opium Cactus Grows' or prune it to 'Opium Cactus'?)

This post has been shared on Poetry Pantry #142

In Search of Good Bible Software

Years ago, even though I was not then a Christian, I bought a cheap Bible software and installed it on my computer. The cool thing about it was that I could search for any word and it would come out with a list of verses where that word was found. Bible scholars would use this to study topics such as circumcision or salvation, I used it to look up words like 'wizard' and 'dragon', just for fun.

Nowadays I am not only back to being a Christian, but I am a Catholic. And I have just begun on a non-fiction writing project which requires me to dive into the study of the Bible. Now, I took a lot of theology courses in college, and spent lots of my free time immersed in the theology section of the library. But that was many years ago, and I spent the intervening years without much of the Bible in my life.

I decided I needed to beef up my tiny theological library. I looked at Dave Armstrong's blog to see if he had anything in the way of a list of recommended theological books. Dave is a convert to Catholicism who was previously a Protestant campus missionary, so I thought anything he'd use would be just about right for me as well.

What I found on his page was a link to Verbum, the new Catholic Bible software from the makers of Logos, the premiere Protestant Bible software maker.  Verbum is cool, it's an entire theological library for your computer--- but the cost of the cheapest version is $270.

I could look up some of the commentaries and such and see if I can find them for free online. You see, the theological libraries in software like this is mostly old, classic works that are now in the public domain.

I still wanted a Bible software package I could use now, so I searched for free Bible software. I found e-Sword, which is evidently a Protestant operation, though they didn't feel the need to mention that at their web site. I am downloading that software and will report back on how useful it is.

Some of my readers may wonder why anyone needs special Bible software. Can't they just read a Bible for that information?

The problem is that the Bible is not just some simplistic little book. It is a wide variety of ancient text, written in three languages--- Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic--- and from historical eras quite distant from our own. To really be knowledgeable about any given Bible text, you either have to go to a seminary for years to learn the original languages and the historic context, or you have to use books that can give you a similar amount of knowledge.

Bible software can simplify that process. In my old Bible software, I could go from any given Bible verse to the things that different Bible scholars had written about that verse in commentaries. They were, of course, all Protestant Bible scholars, and that software did not at all include the entire Catholic Bible, but omitted certain books of the Old Testament of the Bible that most Protestants have rejected. (Some Protestant groups still keep these books in their Bibles, but put them in a 'neutral zone' between the Old and New Testaments.)

Even if you are a non-Christian writer--- heck, even if you have an anti-Christian bias--- Bible software can be very useful in coming up with a Bible verse for your characters to quote or misquote. That's what I bought my old Bible software for, after all. I had most firmly rejected Christianity and had no intention of ever going back to that misguided point-of-view.

Some Rules for Writers

"Be united, but not closed off.
Be humble, but not fearful.
Be simple, but not naive.
Be thoughtful, but not complicated.
Enter into dialogue with everyone, but remain yourself."


I think that the instinctive following of these rules is what distinguishes the mature-enough person who is currently ready for the writing profession from the immature wannabe striking a writing pose.

The Wannabe closes himself in with his own little writing in-group. If he ever emerges, he will use common sayings and writing rules from within the group as if all writers everywhere must know them or be ranked an amateur. The true writer seeks out contact with the wider world, even with people who do not agree with him and are not impressed with him.

The Wannabe is seems arrogant as he announces word of his latest self-pubbed masterpiece, assuming this announcement is as newsworthy as a new James Patterson book. But all this just masks his fear that he is 'not a real writer'. The real writer remains humble--- and thus able to learn and to correct his own work. He does not claim his work is brilliant, or 'just right' for any given reader. If he wins writing awards, he does not feel the need to mention them.

The Wannabe does not want to seem simple, so his tongue is always coming out with just the right trendy phrase from just the right elite little segment of the culture. But he is so naive that he often uses these phrases in a way that alienates just the little elite-group he is trying to emulate. The true writer is known for being simple in his words and his way of life.

The Wannabe thinks that good writing is complicated writing. He brags when a computer assesses the reading grade level of his work at 'early college' and mocks a fellow writing-wannabe whose work is at the sixth grade level.  The true writer writes to communicate, not to impress others with the scholarly nature of his vocabulary--- and so he rejoices when his work is tagged as being at the sixth-grade reading level.

The Wannabe, on those occasions when he condescends to dialogue with others, is influenced and changed by that dialogue so much that he does not remain himself. You can see examples of what I mean when some young person joins a new group--- political, religious, or intellectual--- and starts spouting the jargon of that group to the point he alienates anyone who isn't also a part of the new group. The wise writer, on the other hand, does not rule out communication with people of all backgrounds and beliefs, but he is able to remain true to his own beliefs no matter what the people around him think.


Now, about the quote: the person who said it was a Catholic priest once known as Joseph Ratzinger. While he was not speaking specifically about writing in this quote, he is known as a man who has written many scholarly books on theological topics. As Pope Benedict XVI, he continued to write, in spite of his very many responsibilities. So he is a good role model for writers and a source of sound advice.