Writing Means Never Having to Say your Sorry. Really?

Being a writer is tough. Everyone knows the hazards of being the lone writer locked in a world of imaginary constructs for hours at a time, closed off from ordinary contacts with human beings in order to cultivate the tools of the trade. These are very real sacrifices that take a toll on a life. The impact of books in our culture is so huge, that millions of people are willing to take that route, seeing it as a noble calling. But is it worth it? What if your impact is so minimal that it is barely measurable? Is there some metaphysical trade-off that you can point to and claim as a reward? That's a question that every writer must answer for him or herself.

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money," said Boswell. And it was a quote I always liked. But now, as it becomes clearer that writers along every path of the trade are looking at diminishing streams of income and the near Sisyphean task of making a living from their work, either original or of a journalistic bent, I wonder what other writers are telling themselves as they struggle in their dingy lofts or plush caves. For me, it has been years since I contemplated writing as anything other than something I did to keep myself sane, to keep my instincts and perceptions sharp in the world of humdrum adult responsibilities and routines, and if I ever managed to knock it out of the park by selling my work to the remote, big league universe of New York publishers, well, that was a nice dream to take out and burnish once in a while like a remnant, a childhood bauble, but not something to take seriously and plan a life around. It was just too random, the touch of literary success. And now that the demise of the mainstream publishers is on everyone's lips, there is a new phenomenon, the rise of the self-publishing route to financial sustainability, to inflame the writer's ambitions for worldly recognition. Real or just Memorex - a replay of the mirage of the old school dreams that writers of my generation, that would be the generation somewhere this side of the Boomers but pre-GenXers, used to gather around before it shattered like the vase in the commercial. The cynic in me says it's just another cyclical gold rush, to the benefit of the few lucky or quick enough to draw off the sap before it dries up.  The rest of us will do what we have always done, continue to struggle to hone craft and refine our stories, and that hard work is our calling and reward. And in case anyone is interested, here is my contact information:

Anthony Caplan, Author

www.anthonycaplanwrites.com

www.twitter.com/#!/AnthonyCaplan1

www.thenewremembrance.blogspot.com

www.amazon.com/Anthony-Caplan/e/B004C6F15W. 

The New Cultural Paradigm in Publishing

The last vestiges of ice are making a final stand around the back steps. I love it when it gets to this. I was taking up the sheep fence yesterday to move them onto new pastures in time for the lambs. The ground was soft and mushy and down by the woods there was still some banked snow and when the wind picked up it felt like March again, but it was the old, cold weather's final farewell. Now, of course, there is a rush of work for the next few months in the garden, and on top of that, planning the release of a new book. I decided to skip the writer's conference today because I'd rather be outside working on cleaning out the barn. But then I got roped into driving to a lacrosse practice, so there goes most of the morning. Just barely time to squeeze in a few sentences on the blog before I run. When do we get a time to just reflect? Hardly ever. Still, I love my weekends.
I met a writer the other day. He'd had a big success in the seventies with an experimental, literary kind of work, and then his second book was turned down by all the major publishers and he went into making educational video scripts, and it seems his more ambitious work took a back seat. And maybe we're the poorer for it. Here's an argument in favor of the cultural importance of the new publishing paradigm. People like to complain about the deluge of crappy books hitting the market, and of course many of the novels being written and self-published are the reflex scribbling of barely literate people or the fandom exercises of sheep-like followers of literary fashion. But how is that so different from the piles of slush being published by the big six, oh sorry, now big five, mainstream presses over the last thirty years, most of my adult, reading lifetime? Not much, in my humble opinion. I say: let the self-determined presses roll and let the writers' work find its level. This is my libertarian ethic for a new American literature. Get out of the way, all of you so-called judges and aesthetes. The people will educate themselves, and when they are sick of the vampire love stories and the button-pushing elegies to the known, they will turn to the work of the risk-takers, the writers who today are ignored because they work with character and voice and themes that are implicit instead of calling out to the mass delusions of the day.

The Next Leg

As you set out for Ithaca,

Wish your journey to be long, 

Ithaki, Constantine Cavafy

Getting started on a new writing journey is always a little daunting. Actually, blogging about it helps, it's like talking to someone. Hello? Actually maybe it's not. Kind of scares away the demons, though and gives you the courage to carry on.
Now with Latitudes launched on the world, there is marketing to do, but there is also the sense that it has a life of its own now, no matter what happens. Time to turn attention and face the hardest part. You start with the thought: Where can I turn the light now? What is my burning need to say? I have written three novels so far.
One thing I've learned in the self-publishing adventure is to think in terms of market. It is amazing the lack of originality in the book world. You think of novels, and the word itself means something new, different, but there is in fact little new or different in books. If you have written a murder mystery featuring a drug addicted homeless millionaire, or a thriller featuring a teenage vampire in love with a basketball star, you are joining the parade of thousands, and you have a chance at best-seller status. With books as in food and other commodities, we like what we already are familiar with. Going against that is swimming against the stream. So...
Taking my character driven, plot resisting story telling instincts and twisting them a notch, I have decided to write a thriller. That's right, a young adult thriller with plot twists and contemporary action galore. Now the only way I'm going to do that is also to change my methodology a little. Therefore I have researched and found what I wanted. It is called the snowflake method of constructing stories, and seems reasonable and not simplistic. With the scaffolding of multiple pre-writing documents,  this will be a less mysterious way to go, but I think in the end, my characters will always retain the stamp of their creator. So I am not worried about their dimensionality. This should be fun. So far here is my elevator pitch. See if you like it:

While on vacation, a widowed high school teacher and his son find a Mayan calculating tablet that is the long sought key to the doomsday machine being built by the al Qaeda terrorist Ali Jajabr.

Right now it's tentative title is Cypher. I've written a synopsis and character sketches of the five main characters. Next I will build a scene list on a spreadsheet. Then I will write the first draft.  I'm not going to predict how long it will take, because that depends on so many things.

Next week, while in Costa Rica, I will take notes and do some research. So the next leg is already underway. Hooray for the craziness that is the writing life. Ithaca will loom on the horizon someday soon, perhaps.

Anthony Caplan is a writer, blogger, teacher and homesteader in New Hampshire. He is the author of the novels Birdman, French Pond Road, and the just released Latitudes - A Story of Coming Home. Find out more about him and his work at http://www.anthonycaplanwrites.com. 

  

April almost come and gone is usually my favorite time of year, before the black flies arrive, but not this year. They are already here and making their horrible presence known. I wish I could find a silver lining to the suffering they bring, but there is none. Unless you can count getting inside with a good excuse when the day is absolutely beautiful otherwise. But trying to bring out a book in a couple of months means a lot of preparatory work; right now it involves putting together a marketing plan and figuring out the best way to distribute the baby when it arrives, whether it's ebooks or traditional paperbacks. I don't believe in spelling out the details involved, because I prefer to produce the work with a magician's sleight of hand and preserve some of the mystery for the general public. I mean, do you really want to know the benefits of going with Amazon versus the independent bookstore, or the ins and outs of social media for writers, or Google rankings for websites? Okay maybe you do, but I don't want to talk about it. But believe me, being an independent self-published author is a bundle of work. Add to that lesson plans for Spanish classes for the end of the year, summer plans for the family, spring preparation of the vegetable garden, and an eye operation, (old scar tissue - too much time in the out-of-doors as a youngster), and you could say my plate is full, thank you very much. But, I like it this way. When I'm busy I'm not thinking about which foot to put forward and am less likely to trip. A basketball coach once told me the time you get injured in a game is when you relax, and I've remembered that rule and applied it to life in general. Whatever you're doing, do it with intensity and you'll be pleasantly surprised at the results. I'm not going to knock meticulous planning, but sometimes when a task seems overwhelming, the trick is to dive in and start flailing until you see some clarity. So that's not me running from the black flies, that's me figuring out what to do to make my next book, LATITUDES - A Story of Coming Home, a best-seller. 

 

Anthony Caplan is a writer, blogger, teacher and homesteader in New Hampshire. He is the author of the novels Birdman, French Pond Road, and the forthcoming Latitudes - A Story of Coming Home, due out at the end of June from Hope Mountain Press. Find out more about him and his work at http://www.anthonycaplanwrites.com.