Writer's Notebook

How Much of Your Life is in Your Fiction?

The autobiographies of some novelists often read like a James Bond novel. No wonder they have things to write about.

What about the rest of us? We've done a lot of living: it just doesn't make dramatic front page news. Yet, that living--on a quieter scale, perhaps--often finds its way into our books in various forms, usually with the names changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty.

The worst stuff and the best stuff are obviously dynamic for page-turner books. But a lot of tears and joys are tangled up with everyday, garden variety lifestyles. It's just as well we don't feel larger than life: how vain would that be! But we can ramp up the little things, fine-tune the middle of the road things, and cautiously use the more exciting messes we've gotten ourselves into.

By fictionalizing bits and pieces of our life's stories, we not only bring passion to our work, we bring honesty. We're telling it true because we've been there and we've experienced it. This sincerity comes across to the reader.

I set my novel "The Sun Singer" in Glacier National Park. Why? I wanted a mountain environment, so I picked a place I knew. I knew Glacier because I worked there at one of the resort hotels and had fallen in love with the place. Consequently, I had a sense of the place and also knew where to go to find any facts I was missing.

My protagonist in "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire" is a journalist. While I've done very little work as a journalist, my father was a journalist who taught reporting and editing at the college level; many of his friends were journalists and they were around the house a lot telling stories when I was growing up. I taught journalism for several years myself. So, it was natural to write about a reporter.

My yet-to-be-published novel "Garden of Heaven" is set, in part, aboard an aircraft carrier in the 1960s. You guessed it. I served on a carrier--as a Navy journalist, actually. Many of my experience aboard ship and in liberty ports have been fictionalized and placed in the novel.

I don't know whether everyone does this or not. Maybe their first kiss in in one of their books, and that's it. Maybe they had an argument with a math teacher, so they put that in. Or, perhaps their car ran off a snowy road during a long Wisconsin winter, so they put that in. Maybe it's one little thing here and another little thing there.

While my life will never read like a James Bond novel, I use myself as a source for a lot of stuff--and then I punch it up, so to speak, so it makes a good story. Maybe my novels represent the life it would have been fun to have lived.

--Malcolm

The Sacrifice of Writing

"Have you finished writing your new book yet?"

Writers are asked that question a lot. If you're a writer, how do you answer?

Since most writers are employed at regular jobs, writing that new book means sacrificing something else, giving something else up in order to free up the time needed for research, writing, sending query letters to publishers, marketing, and promotion.

In her ezine The Creative Penn, Joanna Penn writes, "Lack of time seems to be the no. 1 reason people haven't written their books yet, so it is the main thing you need to overcome. You can't have more hours in the day, so what will you give up to get that book written?"

If you have written that book, then you've already given up something. Sleep? Television? Nights out on the town? The number of hours a week spent on Facebook and Twitter? What?

There's a reason why many people don't attempt a book until their kids are grown and out of the nest. It's hard to justify skipping your son's debut in the school play and missing your daughter's recital, or driving your children to school or the next Cub Scout meeting. There are dinners to prepare, doctor's visits to keep track of, and perhaps a family vacation.

Whenever or wherever you decide to write that book, whether it's during November's National Novel Writing Month or just after the first of the year or right after spring break, you will be making proactive choice to sit down and write rather than doing something else.

It's a hard decision, it really is, and often a lonely one. Your friends will be sipping margaritas at the new Mexican restaurant on Saturday night while you're sitting in front of your PC. Your spouse will be at the George-Florida game while you're composing query letters to prospective publishers. Your children will schedule a visit back home on the same night your latest chapter is being discussed by the library's writers club. Something's got to give.

Time has a way of getting away from us. How many people have you heard say for years they want to start working out at the gym, take French classes, volunteer at the local museum, tutor a kid at the local middle school, or jot down their memories of an exciting childhood experience. But they just don't do it--or even try to start doing it. Are they asking you for permission to give up on such dreams? Or, do they want you to ask "Why not start tomorrow?"

What have you told yourself about your book?

--Malcolm

slam poetry book by STRAT released

from Barry Campbell…

A book of poetry, “big bad slam poet,” by Dave Campbell (aka STRAT) was released this month. Campbell, who died last year, is known to many in the Orlando area arts community and beyond as a talented poet and hip hop artist. He won numerous poetry slams and rap battles. He grew up in the Orlando area and refined his poetry and hip hop skills while working at various jobs.

Campbell’s book has insightful poems about relationships and life in general. In addition to the poetry book, a CD with the same name as the book and with Campbell performing 14 of his poems is expected to be released by the end of the year. The name of both the book and the CD are also the title of one of Campbell’s poems.

Curtis Meyer, a five time participant at the National Poetry Slam, said that “it was as if poetry possessed” Campbell. Campbell “oozed charisma and talent” and “epitomized spoken word as an art form” according to Meyer.

Click on the link above for more information. The book should become available at additional online booksellers in the coming weeks.

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Brief Review: 'Redeeming Grace' by Smoky Trudeau

Redeeming Grace by Smoky Trudeau

My rating: 5 of 5 stars According to one version of the old gospel song Old Time Religion, "it makes me love everybody." Unfortunately, that old time religion has often been less than kind to women. In the hands of a fundamentalist zealot preacher like Luther Harmon in Redeeming Grace, it can be cruel and potentially deadly. Loving everybody is an idea Harmon sets aside.

Luther Harmon was a loving father before his wife and two of his children died. After that, his figurative drug of choice was child abuse backed up by a literal interpretation of scripture that demands a vengeful father and submissive women, children and other chattel.

Even as she does her best to safeguard her younger sister Miriam, Grace loves her father. Grace mourns the disruptive changes in him. She strongly feels the absence of her mother--her calming role and her more liberal religious views. She tries to fulfill her role as a dutiful, yet questioning daughter, a steadfast peacemaker, and Miriam's primary caretaker. Grace is in many ways grace personified in spite of her inner struggles.

The novel begins in rural Maryland in the summer of 1928 and ends in the spring of 1930. During this time, Trudeau's impeccable and often lyrical prose carries a haunting story of families within a beautiful natural world assaulted by the daemons of insanity, loss and ill-conceived beliefs. Redeeming Grace is a beautiful and inspiring novel that portrays without rancor the hell of that old time religion en route to the heaven of unfettered love and trust.

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My wife is the time traveler's wife

My wife is the time traveler's wife.

If you're a writer, your siblings, parents, grandparents and spouse probably also walk in traditional linear time while you soar between here, today and tomorrow at the speed of thought.

None of us are characters in Audrey Niffenegger's wonderful 2003 novel "The Time Traveler's Wife." We simply follow our memories to those times and places and people in our lives packed with energy. If you remember your first kiss, our greatest sorrow, your first job, your most dangerous experience, the thing that frightened you the most, and the day you met your soul mate, then you will always be able to write about such things with power and accuracy.

Within the Huna tradition of Hawaiian mysticism, practitioners believe that cords of energy connect you to everything of importance in your life. It's like a spiderweb. Whether you feel the pull of long lost moments and half-forgotten people, that is where your power as a writer lives.

The window of the far right of this photograph of our house in Tallahassee as it was in the 1950s, was my bedroom.

There I had the aquarium that influenced the aquarium I put in "The Sun Singer." There I had the journalism books that influenced my views in "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire."

More important than that, in that room, I experienced all the hopes, dreams, goals, and disappointments that were common to every young man coming of age. Energy cords or not, when I need to write a scene that includes such experiences, all I need to do is return to that room. My fictional protagonists may be quite different than I am, but the power of my first kiss and my first lost love are strong enough for me to capture in print as I write about their first kisses and lost loves.

I have often used mountains in my writing, and that includes the very stretch of the Appalachian Trail was was exploring with my two brothers when this photograph was taken.

I remember the moments of that hike well enough to describe the way I felt on the hard, upward sections of trail, the sounds of the night, the awe when looking at magnificent views, and the feeling of accomplishment at trail's end.

Whether you hike or play football or ride for miles on a bike or served in the military, those experiences have the power to make your fiction come to life. Why? Because you are writing what you know. Not just the facts of it, but what it felt like to be there and see it and live it. As a writer and time traveler, you can go back to your best game and your worst day at boot camp and the day your bicycle broke down miles from home, and you can write about what it felt like. It's what you know. And it translates to thousands of plots and fictional scenes that may have no real similarity to your "real life" moments.

My wife knows when I've traveled far away. I act different, not quite there, slightly hypnotized, unhearing and unavailable. She's used to it and, like Clare in "The Time Traveler's Wife" all she can do is wait until I pop into the present again, different than I was when I left, but always the writer with a thousand stories from a thousand places that he never forgets.

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Copyright (c) 2009 by Malcolm R. Campbell, author of the new comedic thriller, "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire."

Your Experience is Your Most Important Asset

If you've lurked your way around writers' chat rooms, bulletin boards and forums for a while, you've probably seen posts with titles such as NEED INFO ON SCOTLAND ASAP. Typically, an author who has never been to Scotland, doesn't have a Scots ancestry, and has never read any books about Scotland has decided to write a novel set in Scotland. Why? Because romances and other novels with highland themes are selling like hotcakes.

My Scots heritage goes way way back and I've read a little bit of Scottish history, poetry and fiction. But I've never been there and have no experience on which to base a novel set in the land of Robert Bruce and Mary Queen of Scots. Passion and a reasonable set of goals might carry me, though the research required would be extensive. It would take me a great deal of time just to break even with a writer who has gone to Scotland many times or who went to school there.

Author Curtis Casewit once wrote that "the novel should fit a writer like a glove or a bathing suit." This is another way of telling people to write about what they know. I know about Glacier National Park, so I set "The Sun Singer" in the Montana mountains. I've taught at a small college and served in the Navy, so I based scenes on this background in a novel in progress called "Garden of Heaven." Likewise, I morphed a journalism background into my comedy/thriller "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire."

Quite often when I'm reading, I think "I wish I had written this." Or, perhaps, something like it. Pat Conroy's "The Prince of Tides" is an example if for no other reason than his descriptions of the South Carolina coast. That coast is part of his personality and his experience, so "The Prince of Tides" reads well and feels right. I wish I'd written "The Prince of Tides," but as much as I loved that book, I am not that book any more than Pat Conroy is Glacier National Park.

Most of those who throw a dart at the map and choose Scotland or San Francisco or Miami or some other place they've never been simply because a romance or a thriller or a mystery set there might catch a publisher's or a reader's eye are going to be writing with a lot of handicaps. Not only will research time be tremendous, but their lack of knowledge about a place they really can't identify with will cause them to make mistakes they don't know they're making. And even if the facts are correct throughout the book, the story won't properly fit either the author or the place.

Your experience is a springboard to your best writing. You need not have actually lived a James Bond or a Clint Eastwood lifestyle. But having been there (wherever) or sone that (whatever) gives you a wonderful platform for writing a story that rings true.

Today's Blog Post: Writing, Blogging, Promoting - My Aha Moment Author Pat Bertram talks about writing and promoting outside the box.

Today's Quotation: "If you spend a lot time thinking about how to write a book, you probably shouldn't be talking about it, you probably should be doing it." -- Cormac McCarthy

Copyright (c) 2009 by Malcolm R. Campbell

Book Note: 'Ferocious Promotion for Timid Authors'

C. Hope Clark (The Shy Writer, fundsforwriters.com) and Gwynne Spencer (Down the Shore 1956) have collaborated on a very informative new e-book called Ferocious Promotion for Timid Authors.  At $7.95, the 64-page PDF download is a bargain, especially for first-time authors of self-published and small press books.

The book covers the basics for establishing an Internet presence while focusing your a fair amount of effort on local venues including libraries, schools, fairs and social clubs. The book contains links for everything from disseminating news releases to tracking down libraries and book fairs in your state.

The table of contents shows the book's well-organized presentation:

Chapter 1 - Strategy, the Ground Rules
Chapter 2 - Collecting Your Tools
Chapter 3 - Mailings
Chapter 4 - Back to School with Educational Groups
Chapter 5 - Shhh, Libraries are a Great Secret
Chapter 6 - Do Good Through Civic and Charitable Groups
Chapter 7 - Show Off at Conventions and Fairs
Chapter 8 - Commercial Venues Make the Money
Chapter 9 - Scoop the Press
Chapter 10 - Wrapping Up Loose Ends
Chapter 11 – Keep Finding New Ways

The authors aptly define the writer's challenge once his/her book is complete: "Rarely do writers enjoy selling their books. Sure, they enjoy having sold their books, but not the process itself. They’d rather write the stories and collect the checks. That middle, promotional mess is a struggle and goes against the grain.

"But every job has its darker side. Marketing is the writer’s bane, and the self-published author has the worst up-hill battle of all. Those authors with books through small publishers aren’t far behind."

That said, there's much more to be said about how to confront the challenge. If you already have several books on the market and have shared tips with other authors and have done a lot of book promotion research, you probably won't need this e-book. But everyone else will need it. There are no smoke and mirrors here: just practical, well-tested advice that works.

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Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire

I'm happy to announce that the Kindle edition of my new thriller/comedy novel went live on Amazon today. I fully expect the trade paperback version to be in stock At Amazon and other online booksellers within the next few days.

According to author Nancy Whitney-Reiter, the novel features “small town hi-jinks delivered with healthy doses of sarcasm and wit. Jock Stewart is like Guy Noir freed from the confines of public radio. A must-read for anyone who likes their sleuths hard-boiled, their women salty, and their plots with as many twists and turns as a plate of the Purple Platter Diner’s spaghetti.”

New Literary Magazine Open for Submissions

from Dzanc Books

Dzanc Books is pleased to announce its newest venture: an online journal called The Collagist. Intent on continuing the Dzanc tradition of bringing extraordinary writing to a wide audience, the first issue of The Collagist will be published on August 15th, 2009, and appear subsequently each month thereafter at www.thecollagist.com.

The Collagist is edited by Matt Bell, with Matthew Olzmann as Poetry Editor. Each month, The Collagist will deliver outstanding new short stories, poems, and essays from both emerging and established writers, as well as an exclusive excerpt from a forthcoming novel. Early excerpts will include works from the standard bearers of independent publishing, including Coffee House, Two Dollar Radio, and Unbridled Books. The Collagist will also publish several new book reviews in every issue.

The Collagist is immediately open for submissions in all categories. As you might assume, we suggest you read the books Dzanc and its imprints publish to get a flavor of what writing gets us most excited. Submissions guidelines can be found at www.thecollagist.com/submissions.html.

We thank you in advance for your submissions and your readership, and look forward to sharing this exciting new project with you when our first issue launches in August.

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Visit Malcolm R. Campbell' author's page at Vanilla Heart Publishing

Vanilla Heart to Publish 'Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire'

from Vanilla Heart:

Vanilla Heart Publishing, an independent publishing company in Seattle, Washington, USA, is pleased to announce the signing of author Malcolm R. Campbell of Jefferson, Georgia, for his novel, Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, scheduled for release later this summer.

Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire is mainstream humor with a dash of mystery. A throwback to Hollywood’s film noir reporters, Jock Stewart is out of touch with the looming world of digital journalism. A mix of Don Rickles and Don Quixote, Stewart is the man for the job when the skirts are up and the chips are down.

Hard-boiled reporter Jock Stewart wakes up on the morning after the Star-Gazer office party with a hangover and an old flame in his bed, and much later, he cuddles up with the mayor’s wife in the back seat of a 1953 Desoto. Between these defining moments, he investigates the theft of the mayor’s race horse Sea of Fire and the murder of his publisher’s girl friend, Bambi Hill.

Stewart discovers the truth for his news stories via an interview style based on lies, pretense, and audacious behavior.

Campbell was graduated from Florida State University with a B.A. in radio-television writing, with a minor in English, and from Syracuse University with an M.A. in journalism. He also attended the University of Colorado as a journalism student and was a weekend climbing participant at the school’s Mountain Recreation Department. He served in the U. S. Navy as a journalist between 1968 and 1970, writing news stories and features for the military and the civilian press while on board the aircraft carrier U. S. S. Ranger (CVA-61) and while stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Station.

Campbell lives in Jefferson, Georgia with his wife Lesa, of 22 years, a former newspaper reporter, systems analyst, and the consulting director of the Crawford W. Long Museum. In December, Campbell finished serving four years, three as chair, on the Jefferson Historic Preservation Commission. Both Campbells have been active in the town’s Main Street Program.

Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire will be available in print editions through several trade distributors and on Amazon, Kindle editions, and Ebook editions throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America. A video teaser, pre-release reviews, contact information, and select excerpts are available on the Vanilla Heart Publishing Author website – http://www.vanillaheartbooksandauthors.com.

PUBLISHER CONTACT INFORMATION
For Media Requests or to schedule an appearance or interview with Malcolm Campbell, please contact MediaInfo@vanillaheartbooksandauthors.com.

Detail is more than description

"The great novelists of the past and the breakout novelists of today employ many approaches to setting, but all have one element in common: detail." Donald Mass in Writing the Breakout Novel

Young writers often say, "nobody uses much description anymore." While we seldom see thousands of words of description at a time, some writers think description of any kind will ruin the pace of their work. When an author runs from description, s/he ends up moving characters around in front of an essentially empty background reminiscent of low-budget cartoons.

The first mistake in "stamping out description" comes out of the erroneous assumption that the characters and their actions are separate from their environment. Even if a real-life environment is non-threatening and easy to move around in, it influences what we do and how we do it. When you find a cat outside your front door, you reach down and pat it, when it's raining, the drive into town will be slower, when a deer runs across in front of your car you might hit it or at least brake hard to avoid it, when a bridge is out due to a flooded creek, you take another route and arrive at your destination later than expected, and when bad guys are chasing you through the woods, you hide behind trees or defend yourself with sticks and stones.

The cat, rain, deer, washed out bridge, trees, sticks and stones may all seem inconsequential if you believe that mentioning them is "just description." But when you see them as an environment that is always getting stirred into the characters' thoughts and actions, then the value of this detail becomes much more apparent.

Even when it's simply there, detail supports the characters and the plot because, without it, there's no realism to the scene. When you walk into an auto repair shop, what tells you it's an auto repair shop? What will tell your readers the room where your characters are standing is an auto repair shop. If the place is open for business, what kind of smells and sounds and sights will fill the room?

All of this matters, and it can be accomplished without boring the reader to death with hundreds of words of description. Realistic characters--those with depth--mention stuff, step around stuff, smell stuff, laugh at stuff, pick up stuff, and utilize stuff that they find where they are whether they are just passing through or whether they are intimately involved with the place where the reader finds them.

Detail is part of the "showing" people are always reminding us about. It impacts the reader even when the characters don't overtly notice it.

-Malcolm

Don't Forget Libraries in Your Book Marketing Plan - a tip from @bookgal

Did you know that in a slow economy libraries tend to get a boost in visitors because folks don't want to spend money on books? In fact I've talked to some libraries that say they have folks lined up to get their new releases. What does this mean to you? Well it means that if your book isn't in a library you might want to see about getting it accepted there.

When I was marketing The Cliffhanger (my first novel) I learned a handy lesson. I dropped a copy of it off to the main library and found that getting it listed there generates automatic orders to any area libraries. Does this work for every city? Not sure, but you won't know till you donate a copy (or three) of your book now will you?

Also, according to ALA (American Library Association) libraries buy nearly $1.8 billion in books annually. If donating a copy to your main library won't work or if they're hesitant to accept it into inventory, then try getting a review in library journals. Check with your local library to see which journals they subscribe to and then go online to find their submission information!

Reprinted from "The Book Marketing Expert newsletter," a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com