A Writer for Writers

One of the disadvantages of building a library almost exclusively from thrift store finds and free ebooks is I don’t often find books by the authors I’m really curious to read. Yes, I could resolve that problem simply by buying new books (that would certainly make the authors and publishers happy and I certainly hope the same happens when I publish), but I’m a poor slob. So I was pretty excited when I saw a Lois Lowry hardback on sale this weekend for $2 at a thrift store. Messenger is the third in I guess what is being called the “Giver” trilogy.

I loved The Giver. I’ve got a weak spot for dystopia and to read one in which many progressive ideals (rather than conservative stasis) is skewered is a treat. (Not that I’m overly conservative or anti-progressive; I happen to sag quite happily in the middle.) Messenger hits a nice, middle-of-the-road tone that I find quite striking.

Lowry’s style impresses as always. I’m intrigued at her ability to bring in the mundane to a story to help it jump off the page. She’s there with vivid imagery and great characters and brisk plotting, but it’s the little details she adds that make her stories go so far.

“I remember all the fish, the feeling that they would never end. I felt that I could drop my line in again and again and again and there would always be fish. Now there aren’t. But, Leader . . .”
Leader looked at him and waited.

“Things seem more when you’re little. They seem bigger, and distances seem father. The first time I came here through Forest? The journey seemed forever.”

“It does take days, Matty, from where you started.”

“Yes, I know. It still takes days. But now it doesn’t seem as far or as long. Because I’m older, and bigger, and I’ve gone back and forth again and again, and I know the way, and Im’ not scared. So it seems shorter.”

Leader chuckled. “And the fish?”

"Well,” Matty acknowledged, “there don’t seem to be as many. But maybe it’s just that I was a little boy back then, when the fish seemed endless.”

This exchange has little to do with the plot or story, but it helps set character – and that’s what counts almost as much as the story itself. I try to emulate this in my own writing, with mixed results.

What I appreciate the most about Lowry is that she takes a fresh approach – or at least a fresh, spare writing style, to an old fantasy meme. This kind of getting-what-we-wish-for is a common staple of fantasy writers, and I love it when it’s handled well. Lowry handles hers subtly, leaving the reader in the dark but offering enough hints that the astute reader can generally figure things out and still be pleasantly surprised that he or she is right. And I don’t mind when authors handle this kind of device overtly; Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, with the hall of mirrors and the merry-go-round handle the meme with a blunt overtness that swiftly carries you along for the ride.

Let's Get Digital

When it comes to the nuts and bolts of writing, revising, revising again, getting published and then working your ass off to promote your own books, my model thusfar has been Robert Newton Peck's Secrets of Successful Fiction, a barely 100-page guide the author of A Day No Pigs Would Die and other books put together to show aspiring authors the ropes. There are better books on writing (Richard Rhodes' On Writing comes to mind) but for the budding author wanting a glimpse of the business from the point of view of a successful author, Peck's book, bar none, is the best out there.

There's now a companion to that volume, one primed and ready for the digital age -- and that's David Gaughran's Let's Get Digital: How to Self-Publish and Why You Should.

Both books are similar in content and length. Both advise the basics of writing -- getting your story and characters straight through revision after revision, seeking professional help whenever necessary and relentlessly promoting your own books no matter what your publisher may think or want to do on their own. Gaughran takes the voyage into the digital age, offering plenty of advice and ladders through the world of digital self-publishing.

There are a few interesting quirks in his book, however. One is a nit-pick, and may be due to his Irish upbringing, but throughout a book in which he preaches watching out for typos and errors that bug readers, he can't seem to find the cent symbol. I found out how to do it easily enough (Here is is: ¢. And here's how to do it). But again, that's picking nits.

The success stories -- I like hearing them as much as the next guy, but seriously, after the first ten of the 33 testimonials he has in the book my eyes were glazing. Those testimonials needed to be culled by at least half, with those presenting similar material to others cut completely. I know showing that many testimonials chimes in with his evangelical approach to demonstrating self-publishing success, but they're hard on the brain to read. They blended together a lot.

That said, this book is an excellent primer for anyone looking to get into (I won't say break into, because that breaking barrier is obviously gone) the self-publishing world. Lots of nuts and bolts features that every budding author should be interested in.

Sunday Preview

NOTE: Here, a preview of the boring talk I'm going to give on Sunday. B ring your pillows, please. You'll need them.

Dad came into the church late in life, though he’d been a member for quite a while. He was born in Holland in 1928 and, as a young man, witnessed some of the horror of World War II in the little city of Santpoort, a distant suburb of Amsterdam. He, his parents, and his older brother emigrated to the United States in 1950 and made their way to Idaho where his parents farmed and he and his brother worked in construction. He met my mother at a Knights of Columbus dance.

Her story starts in the village of Pilley Green, England, where a great-great grandmother left her family, converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and emigrated to the United States following the call to the saints to gather in Zion. Her family disowned her, but she went on faithful in the gospel. She settled in Utah, married, raised a family.

Mom was always strong in the gospel, serving, as I recall, alternately as either primary president or Relief Society president as long as I can remember. Dad went to church as well, but always had questions.

They married in 1955, but it wasn’t until 1980 that they were sealed in the Idaho Falls temple. I was then eight years old and remember sitting in some room in the temple with my siblings, waiting it seemed forever for Mom and Dad to finish whatever it was they were doing – they were taking out their endowments – so we could get on with the rest of the event.

While we were waiting, the attendants has we younger three kids work on a little art project. I still have mine. For those of you who can’t see it, it’s a pair of scissors made of paper, held onto another piece of paper with a brad. On the paper is written in part the following:

“Marriage resembles a pair of shears so joined that they cannot be separated. Often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.”

I’m sure at the time I had no idea what any of this meant. But now, older, hopefully wiser, I see the wonderful promise that this simple inscription holds.

“Joseph Smith the seer revealed the eternity of the marriage covenant,” says President David O. McKay. Temple marriage is “a doctrine so beautiful,” he goes on to say, “so logical, so far-reaching in its significance that if it were adopted in its entirety, many of the present evils of society might be abolished.” I look back at my parents’ relationship and try to see in them this significance.

Like the pieces of a pair of scissors, Mom and Dad did often move in opposite directions. Once they were discussing a gospel topic over the fence with a neighbor. Dad said something snotty about the topic at hand. Mom and the neighbor lady took their Books of Mormon and started whapping him on the head with them until he shouted “I believe! I believe!” That’s just Dad being Dad.

Michelle will tell you I’ve inherited a bit of his odd sense of humor. But another thing I’ve inherited, as I look on their relationship and on the relationship that I have with my wife and children, is that above all else, we are family.

We sing in the church:

I have a family here on earth
They are so good to me
I want to share my life with them through all eternity
Families can be together forever
Through Heavenly Father’s plan
I always want to be with my own family
And the Lord has shown me how I can
The Lord has shown me how I can.

I remember singing this song with gusto as a child, watching my mother direct the music in Primary. I remember singing the words loudly, trying as Primary kids do to out-sing or out-shout the kid next to me.

These days I can hardly make it through the song without the Holy Ghost whispering to me, “Brian, this is more than a song, you know.”

I guess this prompting, and the prompting I felt as a child to keep this little art keepsake, are part of my journey of “coming to myself,” as we read in the scriptures.

“The Savior told his disciples about a son who left his wealthy father,” Elder Robert D. Hales told us at conference last month. This son “went to a far country, and waste his inheritance. When a famine arose, the young man took the lowly job of feeding swine.”

“Away from home, far from the place he wanted to be, and in his destitute condition, something of eternal significance happened in the life of this young man. In the Savior’s words, he ‘came to himself.’ He remembered who we was, realized what he had been missing, and began to desire the blessings freely available in his father’s house.”

We are all prodigal sons and daughters of God, gone to a far country, far away from the place we want to be.

Dad grew into this knowledge late in his life. I remember as a child some Sunday mornings being very reluctant to go to church because there were more interesting things to do. “Hey, boy,” Dad would say with his Dutch accent, “Jesus wants you to go to church.”

Of course he does, Dad, I probably thought to myself then. That’s what parents always say. You have to say that, Dad. I say it myself nearly every Sunday. I am my father’s son.

But fifteen or so years ago, Dad said something else about going to church, about going to the temple. “These are the only places where Satan can’t get you,” he said. He said this during a rather tumultuous period in our lives, with some children going astray and with health problems beginning to plague him.

We are all gone to a far country, far away from the place we want to be. We’re told in the scriptures that when we were told of the plan of salvation, we shouted for joy at the opportunity to progress, to become as our Father in Heaven is. That shout of joy should be our reminder, as prodigal sons and daughters, as to what is missing.

There is another shout of joy spoken of in the scriptures. Joseph F. Smith, writing in Section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants mentions this shout of joy:

“The eyes of my understanding were opened, and the Spirit of the Lord rested upon me, and I saw the hosts of the dead, both small and great.

“And there were gathered together in one place an innumerable company of the spirits of the just, who had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus while they lived in mortality.

“And who had offered sacrifice in the similitude of the great sacrifice of the Son of God, and had suffered tribulation in their Redeemer’s name.

“All these had departed the mortal life, firm in the hope of a glorious resurrection, through the grace of God the Father and his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

“I beheld that they were filled with joy and gladness, and were rejoicing together because the day of their deliverance was at hand.

“They were assembled awaiting the advent of the Son of God into the spirit world, to declare their redemption from the bands of death.”

More prodigals, gone to a far country. Looking with joy for ways to go home. I feel peace in the temple. I feel a sampling of the joy we all felt when we learned we were to come to earth to obtain a body, to learn, to grow, and, ultimately, to return to our Father in Heaven. These are good reasons to go to the temple.

Elder Hales reminds us of others. He said: “As endowed temple recommend holders, we establish patterns of Christlike living. These include obedience, making sacrifices to keep the commandments, loving one another, being chaste in thought and action, and giving of ourselves to build the kingdom of God. Through the Savior’s atonement and by following these basic patterns of faithfulness, we receive ‘power from on high’ to face the challenges of life. It is power we receive only through temple ordinances. I testify that the sacrifices we make to receive temple ordinances are worth every effort we can make.”

I think this is what Dad was telling us when he said church and the temple are places where Satan can’t get us. A few years before he died, Dad asked his four sons to go to the temple with him. We obliged. I recall standing together in the celestial room of the Idaho Falls temple, underneath that shimmering chandelier, looking at my father and three brothers, dressed in white. I had a glimpse, momentarily, of Lehi seeking his family as he stood at the base of the tree which bore the fruit that made him happy. We’re here, Dad, I remember thinking. We’re here.

We found the way along that strait and narrow path, through the mists of darkness, through the mocking of those in the great and spacious building. We’re here.

I think the same thing when I see my beautiful wife in the temple, knowing we are there together. Soon, I will experience the joy of seeing my own boys, my own daughter, also dressed in white, also standing beneath that chandelier in the temple, and I will catch another glimpse of the eternity to come.

Obviously, we still have journeys to make. “We may deceive men but we cannot deceive the Holy Ghost,” said Elder Melvin J. Ballard, “and our blessings will not be eternal unless they are also sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. The Holy Ghost is one who reads the thoughts and hearts of men, and gives his sealing approval to the blessings pronounced upon their heads.”

President Henry B. Eyring suggests four things we can do to seal these temple blessings as ours, and as our families’. First, he advises that we gain a testimony that the keys of the priesthood are held by the president of the church. Second, he says it is “imperative” that we love our wives. Third, he says we must “enlist the entire family to love each other.” Finally, fourth, is to lead our families in the Lord’s way.

Is that easy? Perhaps not. But it is not outside our ability. “Worthiness to hold a temple recommend gives us the strength to keep our temple covenants,” Elder Hales said. “We strive to obtain a testimony of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the reality of the Atonement, and the truthfulness of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the restoration. We sustain our leaders, treat our families with kindness, stand as a witness of the Lord’s true Church, attend our Church meetings, honor our covenants, fulfill parental obligations, and live a virtuous life. You may say that sounds like just being a faithful Latter-day Saint! You are right. The standard for temple recommend holders is not too high for us to achieve. It is simply to faithfully live the gospel and follow the prophets.”

Growing up, I know my family had times when the love was strained and forced, when nerves frayed, when the childish thoughts of packing a few sandwiches and a few pairs of socks and underwear into a hobo bag and “running away” sure sounded tempting. And now that I have a family of my own, I see the same things, the same difficulties. But I also remember instances of selfless service and sacrifice, of prayers said behind closed doors answered in the broad daylight, of love, fun, laughter, joy, and happiness. I see such instances in my own family, and my burdens are lifted and my heart lightened because I know that Jesus Christ loves us all and wishes us to rejoin he and his father in his father’s kingdom when all is said and done. And I remember the times my family served in the temple as the crowning jewels of childhood and adulthood.

Yes, I have a family here on earth
They are so good to me
I want to share my life with them through all eternity.

I stand here as a witness that temple service strengthens families. Children may learn when they are young by the example of their parents who attend the temple that the temple is more than just a building to be pointed out while traveling. Soon our son Liam will be able to participate in baptisms for the dead and will have a glimpse of the anticipatory joy President Smith writes of in the Doctrine and Covenants. Parents may learn that despite the struggles we may go through to make regular temple attendance part of our lives – and I stand here as a witness to this struggle – that blessings will come in the form of power from on high as we serve in the temple. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

The Bellegarrique Solution

I suppose I’m lucky that I can look at my job as an adjunct instructor at BYU-Idaho as a supplement to my full-time job income. Certainly – and I don’t even have to pound the numbers on this – if I were dependent on my BYU-Idaho job as my sole source of income, we’d be sunk financially deeper than a sub-muh-reen.

This article, written by Stacey Patton for the Chronicle of Higher Education, spells out the financial trouble of those who rely on their adjunct professorship as their sole income as they seek better jobs and larger income in order to support themselves and their families.

I won’t jump into any argument over whether the people in this article “wasted” their time pursuing post-graduate degrees that others may sniff at as “not useful.” In this economy, usefulness doesn’t necessarily guarantee full-time employment. Where I work, I’ve seen hundreds of useful people laid off not because their education wasn’t up to some standard of usefulness, but simply because the money just isn’t there any more. Those who argue that the “uselessness” of a degree is what put a person in a precarious financial situation miss the point – which is we have less of an emphasis on paying educators well than we do paying entertainers or sports stars well.

There is a solution – however, it ain’t a popular one. And as mightily as I’ve searched for it, I’ve only seen it fully applied in a science fiction setting.

It’s the Bellegarrique Soultion.

In Harry Harrison’s The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted, James Bolivar diGriz ends up on a planet where people aren’t paid in cash, but in wirr, short for work hours. Wirrs do not gain interest. Wirrs do not vary in value from occupation to occupation. Wirrs do not increase or decrease in value. It simply goes that those who work get paid in wirrs, and work that is paid is pretty much every bit of work that’s done, from the hero Stirner working in his hydropower plant to the people serving in restaurants. Hobbyists who write books are paid in wirrs. Those who have doctorates in the Bellegarrique equivalent of mideval history are paid in wirrs. Each has sufficient to live adequately well because the system is set up to ensure that work is compensated, no matter if it’s as an engineer or as a bum who only does enough work go get enough wirrs to pay for the barest necessities.

Bring this idea up in conservative circles and it’s automatically branded as socialist. Brand away. It sure as hell sounds blissful to me.

Yes, there are lazy people in Bellegarrique, as there are in our society. But in that society, emphasis is placed on doing what is necessary so that one and others may live adequately, not on doing what is lucrative so that one may live better than others. Should it really matter that the janitor gets paid an equivalent amount of wirrs for the same amount of work that an engineer gets paid, if both are contributing to the betterment of society and are doing what is their aptitude, what they enjoy, what they want to do, and what allows them the free time they desire to pursue leisure? Not in my book. But then again, I’m not in charge.

Says Patton in her article:

It's difficult to talk about being on aid, says Matthew Williams, cofounder and vice president of the New Faculty Majority, an advocacy group for nontenure-track faculty.

“We regularly hear about adjuncts on food stamps,” says Mr. Williams, who received food stamps and Medicaid himself when he taught at the University of Akron from 2007 to 2009, earning less than $21,000 a year. “This is not hyperbole and it isn't theoretical.”

Some adjuncts make less money than custodians and campus support staff who may not have college degrees. An adjunct's salary can range from $600 to $10,000 per course, according to the Adjunct Project, a crowdsourced database about adjuncts' salaries and working conditions. The national average earnings of adjunct instructors are just under $2,500 per course, according to the American Association of University Professors.

Bellegarrique levels the playing field. It doesn’t matter whether one has a degree or whether one works at a job that those with degrees may sniff at as menial. Everybody who works gets paid enough to survive and thrive and to go on into other pursuits that we might define as “bliss.” And they likely get paid for that, too. It’s Thoreau’s Walden Pond, but on a planet-wide scale.

Artsy-Fartsy Books by the Foot

Photo from Slate.com.

I don’t deny that we are heading into a world of digital books.

This year, I have read more digital books than I ever have, and likely will continue to read more of them. Although I do like a printed book (I must, I have more than a thousand of them) what gets me coming back to certain books again and again are the words, the story, the images that form in my mind as I read what the author has written. It’s these images – not the visceral feel of the book in my hands as the images form in my brain – that I remember. So there will be little lamentation on my part as we move into the digital era – that is if they ever can come up with a legal used ebook marketplace, since most of the books (the physical ones) I buy are used and, thusfar, all of the ebooks I’ve “bought” have been free.

But reading Michael Agresta’s article on what he deems as the future of physical books leaves me a bit cold. Throughout, he writes about the physical appearance of books, how they will evolve and how the artisinal ones – the twee ones with the cutout pages, the hand-illustrated drawings, the accordion-folded ones, the ones printed on enormous maple leaves, etc. – will come to dominate the printed world. He’s likely right. So the printed world, in the future, will likely be dead to me. Here’s what he says:

As paper books become more unusual, some will continue to buy them as collectors’ items, others for the superior sensory experience they afford. There’s reason to think this is happening already: Carl Jung’s Red Book, a facsimile edition featuring hand-painted text and illustrations, sold well in America in 2010 despite its $195 price tag. When readers believe that a book is special in itself, as an object, they can be persuaded to pay more.

Bookshelves will survive in the homes of serious digital-age readers, but their contents will be much more judiciously curated. The next generation of paper books will likely rival the art hanging beside them on the walls for beauty, expense, and “aura”—for better or for worse.

I can buy off on the more heavily curated collections. And I’ll certainly buy off on the for better or worse part because nowhere in his little article does he talk about the readability of these printed wonders. Maybe some of them are wonderfully written. But it’s my sad experience that with most of these artisinal books, the focus beams in so much on the design of the book that the designers and authors, at the end, kinda forget they’re supposed to be telling a good story.

Good story physical books? They’re dinosaurs, according to Agresta:

There’s a whole class of paper books we haven’t discussed yet—the paratextually unremarkable, unimaginatively designed rows of paperbacks and late-edition hardcovers that line most of our shelves. These are headed for the same place most manufactured objects go eventually—the scrapheap.

Maybe I’m exhibiting sour grapes. The only artsy-fartsy books I’m familiar with are the ubiquitous pop-up books which, in my experience, are just more trouble than they’re worth. The writing in them may be excellent, but they’re so expensive and so fragile that you hardly dare read them lest the fall apart like a fragile Japanese kite in your hands. And I have to worry about the gimmickry he describes with bated breath for the coming digital revolution:

Hypertext, embedded video, and other undreamt-of technologies will give rise to new poetic, rhetorical, and narrative possibilities. But a literary culture that has defined itself through paper books for centuries will surely feel the loss as they pass away.

If they add to the story, that’s great. But if they take me off into endless little culdesacs that mire the story down, then they’re little more than distractions. We may yet see purely digital books take advantage of the technology, but not until we have a crop of authors who understand the pitfalls that hyperlinks and embedded video and other gimmickry present to author and reader. Again, I look to DVDs as models. The full movie is there, with extras. But the extras don’t intrude as you’re reading the full story. They supplement, they do not supplant. Books – digital or printed – aren’t meant to be commodities added to or subtracted from just for the sake of some new-fangled technological advancement, like those sold by Books by the Foot. Books ought to tell good stories. End of rant.

I Hope His Supper is Still Hot

Maurice Sendak is a genius in that he knew what his audience wanted and gave it to them.

As much as some children may quail at the thought of monsters, what little kid wouldn't want to sail away from hom and find himself king of a bevy of ferocious beasts, set to ply to his every whim and powerless to stop him from leaving when his anger was spent and his supper lay waiting.

I remember reading "Where the Wild Things Are" as a kid, and wanting to start a wild rumpus of my own. Along with Crockett Johnson's "The Purple Crayon," this was the book I most wanted to re-enact, for real, and prayed nightly that my room would transform itself into a forest with that eerie moon peering at me through the branches.

That is what vivid writing does -- it skips the brain and goes right to the soul.

I hope Mr. Sendak, wherever he is now, is on his own wild rumpus. But comforted knowing that his supper is waiting. And still hot.

More Goals

I have two distinct goals that are linked not specifically to this class, but to the work I'm doing as an online adjunct instructor at BYU-Idaho.

The first goal has to do with educational and professional development.

Utah State University is close to offering an online doctorate in technical communication. I recently (2009) finished their masters program, and am considering furthering my education in this arena. The doctorate program requires a teaching component. Because of my family situation, however -- three young kids to raise -- moving to Logan for this venture is problematic. The program directors at Utah State have shown flexibility and forward thinking, however, so I'm going to write a proposal this semester and submit it by the end of the year (sooner if possible), to USU to see if they'd consider a hybrid program in which I take their online doctorate classes and teach not at USU but at BYU-Idaho. This would require some research on similar programs and some coordination between the two universities that I would have to explore.

The second goal has to do with more of the nuts and bolts of the courses I'm teaching. While the information provided by Online Instruction and in the individual courses is helpful, it's scattered and not easy to swim through if a new instructor (such as myself) wants a one-stop shopping spot for information on a new course to be taught. With my wife's help, my goal is by the end of the year to put together two ebooks that I and future FDENG 201 and ENG 106 instructors could use to familiarize ourselves with the course. The ebooks would consist of all course materials, rubrics, articles, syllabus and sample schedule so at a glance an instructor can tell what's going to happen in the course over the semester. The ebook could also be of benefit to the students so they too have a one-stop shop in which to find pertinent information. The nature of online courses implies that we work on the fly, and with the advent of ereaders and tablet computers, having the information in one portable format not necessarily tied to the internet would be helpful.

UPDATE: Second goal is scratched, or at least put off for a while. Radical changes coming to the course next semester. So I offer a substitute goal:

I have had students in the past express interest/beg for more visual aspects to these online courses. I've made it a habit to find TED talks, powerpoint presentations, etc., that tie in with the weekly lessons, but that has happened only sporadically. My goal for 201 this semester, then, is to find some kind of visual accompaniment for each week's lesson and to present it as part of the weekly discussion.

Purple Squirrel Doesn't Stand Out

A few caveats here: I'm a Wally personality. You know Wally, from Scott Adams' Dilbert comic strip. He believes, among other things, that God created the world because he hates people and that coffee tastes better if you stir it with your finger. He prefers inertia to action. And thought I do a hell of a lot more work than Wally does because I actually enjoy what I do and want to keep on getting paid to do it, I've got to admit that when it comes to job-seeking and career advice, I'm more likely to turn to the likes of Wally, Dr. Peter Hull, and Stanley Bing than earnest go-getters like Michael Junge.

There will be many who like this book. That's fine. I'm not one of them.

I guess I'm more of a fatalist/realist who sees more truth in the works of Barbara Ehrenreich when it comes to finding jobs in modern America. I went through a stage of underemployment starting on April Fools Day 2005 (it lasted for just over a year) so I'm not just whistling Dixie when it comes to this review. Junge is very keen on helping you find a job with a Fortune 500 company and offers some sound career advice, but I've got to admit the advice he offers isn't all that extraordinary -- I've read similarly powerful stuff in ehow articles. So I'm glad I got this book for free.

The book lacks a certain professionality, which surprised me, considering how much Junge insists we put our best foot forward. There are myriad copy editing mistakes that a geek like me notices instantly. And there's a certain lack of humanity throughout the book. Junge doesn't even explain the title -- which despite its clear meaning in the recruiting world, tells the average reader nothing because we're not able to marvel at the jargon. A Purple Squirrel, for the uninitiated, is a job description written so narrowly it's difficult to find the right candidate to fit it. Junge never explains the term and only uses it once, in the conclusion. Where he could have use the term to add some personality to the book as a whole, he leaves it as an opportunity wasted.

Package that Niche!

I’m here to say that ebooks may be the best thing to hit publishing since, well, mass publishing was invented.

And I don’t mean in the sense of opening up publishing avenues to any schlub with a story to tell – though that is certainly to our advantage as well – but I do mean in the sense that we as writers can get a feel for what exists out there, quality-wise, as we assess our own writing and compare it to what is getting published traditionally, what is being published electronically, and what is being put into the vanity press that is the ebook put out by the common man without a publisher, without quality control and, frankly, without much of a chance to succeed unless a mass following develops and forces that author into a wave of goodwill.
Yes I’m babbling a bit. But it’s good babbling.

You may recall earlier my review of Bob Brooks’ Tales from the Glades of Ballymore, an ebook I recently acquired for free. A good read all the way around – so it stuns me that it’s not been published by a traditional publishing house. Brooks may have his own reasons for going the electronic route, and for that I applaud him. He’s inspired me to do the same with Yershi the Mild this summer.

I also recently read Boyd Brent’s Diary of A Superhero Kid, and, frankly, didn’t think much of it. Boyd has published other books and, by the looks of the Superhero Kid, wants to ride on Jeff Kinney’s coattails into the kiddie lit market. Can’t say I see him succeeding.

So what makes the two authors and their books different? Both are, in my opinion, solidly written (though Brent has an odd mix of British spellings with Americanisms throughout, so he needed some better editing along the way).

First, I think the difference is a question of niche.

With the success of Harry Potter and the Wimpy Kid books, everyone is trying now to get into those niches. The good will rise while the bad will settle rather quickly to the bottom of the pool. Without illustrations – the strength of Kinney’s work – Brent doesn’t have much of a chance of standing out.

Brooks, on the other hand, hits his niche nicely and in a very quiet way succeeds in convincing his readers that his stuff is worth the time to read.

Then there’s also a difference in packaging.

Brooks teams up with a wonderful illustrator – how he managed that I don’t quite understand, but kudos to him for doing so. His writing is good enough he doesn’t need illustrations, but the illustrations augment the overall ebook package. Brent, whose book screams for illustrations, tries to get by with an acceptable cover and then abandons the reader with blocks of text and nothing else. A successful ebook, then, needs what a good print book needs: Packaging.

So that gets me to thinking: How can I get some illustrative packaging with Yershi the Mild? A back-burner thought is to have my kids read the book and to have my oldest, an aspiring cartoonist, help with the illustrations. That’s one approach. Maybe a bit twee and trite, but it’s an approach. I need something to spookify the entire spooky package in order for this book to sail.

Pants, Flying by the Seat of the

We had our first teacher group meeting tonight for English 106, and I've come away with some mixed feelings.

First of all, the course is, for the instructors, much more of a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of thing than I anticipated. That's both good and bad. That lets us do a little customization within the curriculum, but it also means that YIKES things are still not really all that concrete there are NO rubrics yet for the essays the students have to write and YOWZA there's a lot left up to us as instructors to help fix things up with our students.

Pray for a litle curricular freedom and boy do you get it.

Our TGL said that this iteration of the course is just coming out of Beta and that it probably should have stayed in Beta a while longer. But no matter. Forge on ahead we will, yes? And talk like Yoda we will as well too, hmm hmmm hmmmmm. I wanted a challenge. And I'm getting it.

Is that why they picked me for this course? Because I'm so laid back and flexible? Or am I like Maverick, and prone to thinking that everything I say is so damn dumb that I just might as well roll with the punches and see what happens when Chief Joseph decides I've smoked too much tobacco?