Whole Mess of Scared

There's that bit of writing advice: write what scares you.

It's nothing new and honestly, the advice is solid, but I think writers often get a little too focused on the macro fears than they do the actual issues that stifle.

Me, for instance, I'm scared of being my parents. A lot of my work reflects that and explores that fear thoroughly. As a matter of fact, I've explored it so often that I'm not entirely sure that I'm as afraid of it as I used to be. Maybe fascinated. Definitely still disgusted with those people. Afraid? More like worried. Not necessarily pants-shitting afraid.

So what do we do then? What happens when we process those broad issues with our art? 

I began to realize there were fears creeping in the periphery. Things I would ignore; that were easy to ignore. There were moments where those fears crept in, but I did a good job avoiding them until I simply couldn't.

I couldn't be comfortable anymore. Comfortable to write the same stories. Comfortable to coast on what I created before. Comfortable to explore the same themes. See, fear, well, what we fear, can evolve. It can worsen, lessen, and change. My fears shifted. I wasn't afraid of content anymore, but I was afraid of risk. As a writer, it takes so long to find a rhythm, to find a sense of belonging, whether that is within your work or within creative circles. Complacency is a major risk, but it's a hell of a comfy security blanket.

And that complacency was strangling me. It was making me question whether I had reached my limits and whether it was worth taking a step outside of them. This led to a decision: do I go beyond writing what scares me by doing scares me or do I simply remain where I am?

Fear made me choose the latter for far longer than I care to admit, but now things have changed. I've realized that the only way out is through and that facing the fears I have :whether I'm good enough to try other genres, styles, subjects or good enough to leave the work I've created in the past fully behind, and take the risk of failing again. I've often joked about being a professional failure and while it's important to remember that writing is littered with failure with brief moments of triumph, it's super easy to avoid the failures that are super obvious.

So instead, I've mustered the nut to jump head first into those new patches of failure. 

I am writing while scared. I can't pretend it feels great all the time. I can't even pretend it will be worth it, but I do know I'm somehow happier, more passionate about the work I'm putting together. I'm more open to collaboration and to exploring themes/elements I never believed I had to ability or right to explore.

Even afraid, I know this will be worth it and I know I'll find new things to fear. But when that time comes, I believe I'll be more ready to tackle those fears than I've ever been.

So yes, write what you fear, but remember to write scared as well.

Act Like You've Been There Before

Stop justifying and be proud.

A lot of authors are taking up blog posts, twitter updates, yadda yadda (yeah, my usual pet peeves) to justify why their book is an e-book only. Whether they are with an upstart e-book publisher (who, by the way, are all AWESOME) or they're self-publishing, they need to go out and write and write and write about why they aren't on pieces of paper.

You know what?

At this point, it's unnecessary. E-books are here to stay. They're books. They have words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and eventually tell a story. If an editor was a wonderful person and picked you up, that means he or she loved the story. If you and your agent sent the book around, got a few close calls, but didn't get an official bite... and you published it yourself... if you're getting good reviews. Then stop worrying.

Too often e-book authors like to jump on the the interwebs and act like the little brother. They NEED to matter. They NEED to be noticed.

To use an overused sports cliche, act like you've been there before.

People respect e-books. They buy them. They read them. You've made it. Be happy, be proud.

But all these blog posts, Facebook statuses (stati?), and Twitter updates explaining WHY YOU HAD TO PUBLISH AN EBOOK... are written for once small, teeny, tiny group of people.

Other e-book writers.

And maybe a few people considering going e-book.

Remember your audience should be everyone. Not just this corner of the blogosphere that the crime fiction or sci-fi or paranormal adverb-filled romance community. More people read than the 200 people who visit your blog.

Be proud.

You're an author.

You're awesome.

Jim Winter Stops By

It's round 3 of guest bloggery as Jim Winter stops by to shill his latest e-release Northcoast Shakedown, er... I mean Northcoast....wait a second...Yeah... Northcoast Shakedown.

So what is Northcoast Shakedown? Isn’t that some book that came out from some penny-ante Baltimore area press that went under about five minutes before the sequel came out?

Yes, it is, and yes, it’s back.

In a nutshell, it’s about Nick Kepler, a Cleveland area insurance investigator who’s scored free office space and secretarial help from his former employers at TTG Insurance. We meet Nick actually in the middle of the action with a dead hooker and a rising star in local politics. Always start with a bang, and Sandy Lapinsky’s morning started off with just that. Back up a few days, and we learn Nick’s life would be a lot easier if 1.) he never picked up his phone on the way out to nab a worker comp cheat and 2.) told a TTG exec what he could do with his job reference for a cheating spouse case. From there, it gets complicated.

There’s sex, drugs, some rock and roll in the background, and little bedroom gunplay that doesn’t end well.

Nick was what I saw as one of the first Gen X PI’s. Others came out around the same time, including our own Dave White’s Jackson Donne. Only Dave liked to torture Jackson more than I wanted to torture Nick. I had a multi-book arc in which I send Nick to Hell, then take my sweet time bringing him back. Dave pretty much destroyed Donne in one book and dragged him kicking and screaming back in the second. (I liked that second book quite nicely, actually.)

But one of the things Dave and I used to talk about was our respective settings. Dave wrote in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I, of course, wrote about Cleveland. While Northcoast was in its polishing stage, I paid Dave a visit during a trip to New York City, and we, along with fellow writer Pat Lambe, did the Jackson Donne Tour of New Brunswick.

There’s something about a city that makes this type of story work in a way it doesn’t with other types of fiction. For instance, much is made of how chick lit used to be almost a creature of Manhattan. Come to Cincy during the warm weather. Look me up. I’ll take you to Mt. Adams or Hyde Park on a Sunday morning, and I swear to God, it’s every episode of Sex and the City you never wanted to see.

You could conceivably transplant a PI character from his environs, but it seldom works. I couldn’t watch Eight Million Ways to Die because, the Dude Jeff Bridges may be, when he starts out as an LA County deputy sheriff, the show’s over. Similarly, I tried to like the Robert Mitchum remake of The Big Sleep, but let’s be honest. Philip Marlowe is not an overweight Yank in London pushing sixty. (Didn’t help the movie was done by the same outfit that did Space:1999.)

No, Nick is definitely Cleveland. His is a generation that saw lifetime employment at GM and US Steel and Goodyear slip away before high school. He and his North Coast compadres spent the late eighties and early nineties listening to Led Zeppelin and lusting after Detroit muscle cars from the post-Woodstock era. But of course, those days are gone for him and everyone else. It’s not the city he grew up in, but it has that same gritty, roll-up-your-sleeves vibe you still see in Chicago.

So Nick is a creature of his environment. I toyed with sending him to Chicago or New Orleans, but it wouldn’t work. I love Chicago, and New Orleans holds a lot of promise for good storytelling, but they’re not for Nick.

Unlike his creator, who very nearly moved to Chicago before meeting his lovely bride a few years ago, Nick can never leave Cleveland. Or if he does, the story will be in him going back.