The British model Jordan, who is also known by her real name, Katie Price, is a star, loosely speaking, in the Jane Russell/Jayne Mansfield/Pamela Anderson tradition. That is to say, her principal assets are carried around in front of her. And in Jordan's case, it seems to be common knowledge, indeed boasted about, that various surgeons have embroidered upon nature.
Jordan/Katie has already written a couple of autobiographies -- well she is in her late twenties, after all -- and the latest of these, just out, is doing pretty well. Last week Jordan -- a Whole New World, sold 10,301 copies and was at 26 in the top 50.
However, there is more to come. Last August, Galleycat noticed a Publishing News report to the effect that Katie's latest book contract includes not only autobiography no. 2 (i.e. the one just out) but also two novels. And, in this morning's Times, we have some gripping insight into Katie's working methods.
In the People column, Hugo Rifkind reveals that Katie has been giving an interview to US Vogue, in the course of which she puts in a plug for the first of these novels, Angel. Due out in July, folks, just in time for the beach. Listed on both Amazon.co.uk and .com.
How does she write, asked the Vogue interviewer. Answer: 'I talk. I'm not going to say I sit there with a pen and paper. I don't think anyone does that. I haven't got time for a typewriter or whatever.'
Well quite. It's a busy life. What with the washing-up, making the beds and everything.
However, as Kate Allan commented on our (first) report of the Random House saga competition, Sniff ye not. Commercial fiction may wrinkle the nose of some supercilious readers, but it pays the rent considerably better than the highbrow stuff.
Ghost writer for the autobiog, by the way, was Rebecca Farmworth, though whether she's doing the novels as well I know not. Nice little earner for somebody, anyway.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
A Woman of Cairo update
On Thursday last I suggested that the progress of Val Landi's online sales drive for A Woman of Cairo would be worth watching.
Well, news is that, over the weekend, his web site for the book had 5,000 visitors from over 20 countries. So many of them clicked on to Amazon.com to buy the book that Amazon ran out of stock. Now Val is talking to Booksurge (the Amazon publishing arm) about getting the thing available again.
Val is so excited that he even includes some unnecessary apostrophes. Well, we'll forgive him, just this once.
Well, news is that, over the weekend, his web site for the book had 5,000 visitors from over 20 countries. So many of them clicked on to Amazon.com to buy the book that Amazon ran out of stock. Now Val is talking to Booksurge (the Amazon publishing arm) about getting the thing available again.
Val is so excited that he even includes some unnecessary apostrophes. Well, we'll forgive him, just this once.
25 books to remember?
A correspondent named Teddy has led me to the New York Public Library's list of 25 books to remember from 2005.
At first sight it all looks very pc and worthy, but on closer examination there is some stuff which even a vulgar fellow like me might find interesting.
There's a book about Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, for instance. I don't think I want to know any more about that era, and the two men's fights, than I know already, but it is all going to be news to someone.
Then there's a mention of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Never Let Me Go, which apparently has an English boarding-school setting, and which deals with 'alternative reality'. Ishiguro is normally thought of as a literary writer -- he has, after all, won both the Whitbread and Booker prizes -- but someone has had the temerity to shortlist him for the Arthur C. Clarke award! Science fiction, in case you're wondering. Hmm. Mixed feelings on the part of author and publisher there, I suspect.
And there might be others. Worth a look.
At first sight it all looks very pc and worthy, but on closer examination there is some stuff which even a vulgar fellow like me might find interesting.
There's a book about Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, for instance. I don't think I want to know any more about that era, and the two men's fights, than I know already, but it is all going to be news to someone.
Then there's a mention of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Never Let Me Go, which apparently has an English boarding-school setting, and which deals with 'alternative reality'. Ishiguro is normally thought of as a literary writer -- he has, after all, won both the Whitbread and Booker prizes -- but someone has had the temerity to shortlist him for the Arthur C. Clarke award! Science fiction, in case you're wondering. Hmm. Mixed feelings on the part of author and publisher there, I suspect.
And there might be others. Worth a look.
More madness
Quite by coincidence, following yesterday's article about depression in writers, I learn that Dr Steven Hendlin, a clinical psychologist based in California, has a periodic column entitled Your Write Mind, over at Backspace (on the left of the front page). Intended to address the psychological and emotional concerns of serious writers, the first article deals with writing what you want to write as opposed to writing what will (or might) sell.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Suicide is painless
That great and good physician, Dr Thomas Stuttaford, has an article in Monday's Times in which he discusses depression, the risk of suicide among those who are depressed, and appropriate drug treatment.
What has this to do with us, you enquire. Well, to begin with, may I draw your attention, yet again, to the research published by Kay Jamison, Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her study showed that 38% of a group of eminent British writers and artists had been treated for a mood disorder of one kind or another; of these, 75% had had antidepressants or lithium prescribed, or had been hospitalised. Of playwrights, 63% had been treated for depression. These proportions are, as you will have guessed, are many times higher than in the population at large.
Furthermore, may I draw your attention to some of the comments on this blog written by those who are bitterly aggrieved and deeply depressed at the injustice which has been done to them by those blind fools in publishing who resolutely refuse to recognise genius when it is presented to them on a plate.
Take, for instance, a recent email from one such. I asked him if I might quote him, anonymously, at some point, and he agreed. And, as I suspected, the opportunity to quote was not long in coming. Here is what he says:
But you really would not have to go far to find some writers who are deeply depressed by their situation as frustrated novelists (or playwrights, screenwriters, et cetera). And Dr Stuttaford draws our attention to Professor Schneidman's book The Suicidal Mind, in which he highlights five groups of depressed patients who are at the greatest risk of suicide.
Of these five groups, three at least seem to me to include substantial numbers of writers. They include those who suffer from (1) frustrated desires for achievement; (2) damage to self-image, and the need to avoid shame, defeat, humiliation, or disgrace; (3) excessive anger, rage and hostility.
You don't have to read my mail to detect these features in the writing community. Just sniff the wind. And if you couple that with the entirely natural, and, in a sense, fully justified depression which results in a having your book repeatedly rejected, then you have, I suggest, a potentially health-threatening situation. One which you would do well to be aware of before you start.
None of this, by the way, is a new thought on my behalf. It was the main thrust of my 2003 book, The Truth about Writing.
However, Dr Stuttaford has a piece of practical advice. He says that modern anti-depressants in the SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) group are often attacked in the media. They are, however, a much safer drug to give to depressed patients than the older, and cheaper, tricyclic antidepressants. With the latter, apparently, it is far too easy to kill yourself with an overdose; and, in a ten-year period, nearly 4,000 people did so.
So, if you do end up in the doc's hands, make sure he gives you the right stuff.
What has this to do with us, you enquire. Well, to begin with, may I draw your attention, yet again, to the research published by Kay Jamison, Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her study showed that 38% of a group of eminent British writers and artists had been treated for a mood disorder of one kind or another; of these, 75% had had antidepressants or lithium prescribed, or had been hospitalised. Of playwrights, 63% had been treated for depression. These proportions are, as you will have guessed, are many times higher than in the population at large.
Furthermore, may I draw your attention to some of the comments on this blog written by those who are bitterly aggrieved and deeply depressed at the injustice which has been done to them by those blind fools in publishing who resolutely refuse to recognise genius when it is presented to them on a plate.
Take, for instance, a recent email from one such. I asked him if I might quote him, anonymously, at some point, and he agreed. And, as I suspected, the opportunity to quote was not long in coming. Here is what he says:
I enjoy your blog; though, please, do include some homicidal musings about how you'd like to butcher some publishing types, it would cheer me up greatly. Pics of dead agents & publishers, their cheery apple polishing grins stiffened into death rictuses & frozen shrieks of terror, would also be pretty good. Hmm, yes.Now, if my correspondent and I appear to jest somewhat, that is because this is all extremely painful for those involved. What is more, it is a laugh/cry situation, and on the whole he and I prefer the former option.
But you really would not have to go far to find some writers who are deeply depressed by their situation as frustrated novelists (or playwrights, screenwriters, et cetera). And Dr Stuttaford draws our attention to Professor Schneidman's book The Suicidal Mind, in which he highlights five groups of depressed patients who are at the greatest risk of suicide.
Of these five groups, three at least seem to me to include substantial numbers of writers. They include those who suffer from (1) frustrated desires for achievement; (2) damage to self-image, and the need to avoid shame, defeat, humiliation, or disgrace; (3) excessive anger, rage and hostility.
You don't have to read my mail to detect these features in the writing community. Just sniff the wind. And if you couple that with the entirely natural, and, in a sense, fully justified depression which results in a having your book repeatedly rejected, then you have, I suggest, a potentially health-threatening situation. One which you would do well to be aware of before you start.
None of this, by the way, is a new thought on my behalf. It was the main thrust of my 2003 book, The Truth about Writing.
However, Dr Stuttaford has a piece of practical advice. He says that modern anti-depressants in the SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) group are often attacked in the media. They are, however, a much safer drug to give to depressed patients than the older, and cheaper, tricyclic antidepressants. With the latter, apparently, it is far too easy to kill yourself with an overdose; and, in a ten-year period, nearly 4,000 people did so.
So, if you do end up in the doc's hands, make sure he gives you the right stuff.
Henry Baum: North of Sunset
Before I write about Henry Baum's latest novel, North of Sunset, I want to say something about the author himself.
Baum is not a new author. His first novel, Oscar Caliber Gun, was published by Soft Skull Press, a small press which has been publishing for some years and has an intriguing list of both fiction and non-fiction. (It includes, I see, such items as the screenplay of Secretary and a biography of Gene Robinson, 'the world's first openly gay Episcopal bishop.') Oscar Caliber Gun was also published in the UK by Rebel Inc., an imprint of Canongate, under the title The Golden Calf. And Canongate are no mean judges of a book either, having gone with Life of Pi when no one else wanted it. Finally, the book was also published in France, by Hachette. Reviews were positive.
In addition to that, Baum also wrote a successful blog, God's Wife, under the pseudonym Shirley Shave. 'Shirley' was a sex worker; her blog, if I understand the position correctly, was a version of another novel of Baum's, and she attracted a fair number of readers. She also got included in a collection called Best Sex Writing 2005.
And, no doubt, there's more.
The reason why I mention all this is because I want to make the point that Henry Baum knows what he's doing. He's not some total beginner struggling to fight his way through a first book. He's been there and done it, several times before. And so we must make the assumption, I think, that if he chooses to write a novel in a particular way, he has chosen to do it that way because that's the way which best suits his purposes, and not because he doesn't know any better.
That thought should be borne in mind, because the main thing I want to say about North of Sunset is that it's not written the way I would write it. But so, it is not unreasonable to ask, what?
The title gives us a hint of the locale and the plot. It's set in the Hollywood of today, and the principal character is Michael Sennet, a big-time movie star. Michael has money, fame, women, cars, the lot. But he is bored. Meanwhile, Hollywood is being terrorised by a serial killer, who knocks off people with vanity plates on their cars. And his path and Michael's soon cross.
And that's probably all I'm going to say about the plot. From here on, the topic is technique.
Over the years, I have developed certain views about the 'best' way to write a novel. These views are not absolute statements of the abstract, unchanging truth. They are simply conclusions that I have reached, after getting on for fifty years of studying theory and practising the art of writing, about the most likely way of interesting the kind of readers whom I am interested in interesting.
Let's take a couple of these conclusions of mine. One is, write each chapter from the viewpoint of one principal character; and don't have too many different viewpoint characters. Another is, write in scenes; scenes which more or less correspond to what was called a 'scene' in the traditional form of theatre.
For what it is worth, Henry Baum does observe the character-viewpoint 'rule'. Each chapter is headed with the name of the character concerned. But he does not consistently write in what I would call scenes. For instance, we get to the tenth page of the first chapter before we have any real exchange of dialogue.
Prior to that, the author has chosen to tell us stuff: information about Michael Sennet's history, for example: the parts he played in high-school plays; how he got started in commercials. I would not personally do that. In my view, such backstory, if it is needed at all, is best conveyed by bleeding out gradually during the course of the book. And, when it is conveyed to the reader, it should preferably be contained dialogue, which itself is embedded in scenes which are keeping the reader held to the page by virtue of the events of the scene alone.
But, I repeat, if the author decides to do it his way, I am not going to say that he is 'wrong', and that he has in any way 'failed'. It's his book. He can decide how to do it.
And maybe, when you come to think about it, maybe Henry Baum's way has a certain logic to it. Hollywood didn't invent the practice of writing in scenes; if anyone did, it was the Greeks. But it is to Hollywood (and its brother, TV) that we owe the fact the we have all watched tens of thousands of scenes, played out before our eyes. So it is at least arguable that the 'best' way to write a novel about Hollywood today is not to use the tools of that industry, but to approach the matter in a different way.
That would be, I suppose, an irony of sorts. And there are other ironies involved here too, if you read to the end of the book.
Like many a writer, Henry Baum seems to have had difficulty in placing his work with mainstream publishers, even after an initial success, and North of Sunset is a book that he has put out through Lulu.com. He also has a blog, Ash Tree, in which he writes about the difficulties of the writer's life and finding readers.
And what about readers? To whom is this book going to appeal?
Well, it isn't what I would call a crime/thriller book, despite the serial killer. Neither, despite certain sensational elements, is it Jackie Collins material. It is, I suppose, a literary novel; or at any rate it's a novel which will appeal to those who often read literary fiction, and who are prepared to make a bit of an effort. It is a book which which has been put together with a great deal of care and thought, and it will not, I suspect, reveal all its virtues unless it is read with care and thought.
Baum is not a new author. His first novel, Oscar Caliber Gun, was published by Soft Skull Press, a small press which has been publishing for some years and has an intriguing list of both fiction and non-fiction. (It includes, I see, such items as the screenplay of Secretary and a biography of Gene Robinson, 'the world's first openly gay Episcopal bishop.') Oscar Caliber Gun was also published in the UK by Rebel Inc., an imprint of Canongate, under the title The Golden Calf. And Canongate are no mean judges of a book either, having gone with Life of Pi when no one else wanted it. Finally, the book was also published in France, by Hachette. Reviews were positive.
In addition to that, Baum also wrote a successful blog, God's Wife, under the pseudonym Shirley Shave. 'Shirley' was a sex worker; her blog, if I understand the position correctly, was a version of another novel of Baum's, and she attracted a fair number of readers. She also got included in a collection called Best Sex Writing 2005.
And, no doubt, there's more.
The reason why I mention all this is because I want to make the point that Henry Baum knows what he's doing. He's not some total beginner struggling to fight his way through a first book. He's been there and done it, several times before. And so we must make the assumption, I think, that if he chooses to write a novel in a particular way, he has chosen to do it that way because that's the way which best suits his purposes, and not because he doesn't know any better.
That thought should be borne in mind, because the main thing I want to say about North of Sunset is that it's not written the way I would write it. But so, it is not unreasonable to ask, what?
The title gives us a hint of the locale and the plot. It's set in the Hollywood of today, and the principal character is Michael Sennet, a big-time movie star. Michael has money, fame, women, cars, the lot. But he is bored. Meanwhile, Hollywood is being terrorised by a serial killer, who knocks off people with vanity plates on their cars. And his path and Michael's soon cross.
And that's probably all I'm going to say about the plot. From here on, the topic is technique.
Over the years, I have developed certain views about the 'best' way to write a novel. These views are not absolute statements of the abstract, unchanging truth. They are simply conclusions that I have reached, after getting on for fifty years of studying theory and practising the art of writing, about the most likely way of interesting the kind of readers whom I am interested in interesting.
Let's take a couple of these conclusions of mine. One is, write each chapter from the viewpoint of one principal character; and don't have too many different viewpoint characters. Another is, write in scenes; scenes which more or less correspond to what was called a 'scene' in the traditional form of theatre.
For what it is worth, Henry Baum does observe the character-viewpoint 'rule'. Each chapter is headed with the name of the character concerned. But he does not consistently write in what I would call scenes. For instance, we get to the tenth page of the first chapter before we have any real exchange of dialogue.
Prior to that, the author has chosen to tell us stuff: information about Michael Sennet's history, for example: the parts he played in high-school plays; how he got started in commercials. I would not personally do that. In my view, such backstory, if it is needed at all, is best conveyed by bleeding out gradually during the course of the book. And, when it is conveyed to the reader, it should preferably be contained dialogue, which itself is embedded in scenes which are keeping the reader held to the page by virtue of the events of the scene alone.
But, I repeat, if the author decides to do it his way, I am not going to say that he is 'wrong', and that he has in any way 'failed'. It's his book. He can decide how to do it.
And maybe, when you come to think about it, maybe Henry Baum's way has a certain logic to it. Hollywood didn't invent the practice of writing in scenes; if anyone did, it was the Greeks. But it is to Hollywood (and its brother, TV) that we owe the fact the we have all watched tens of thousands of scenes, played out before our eyes. So it is at least arguable that the 'best' way to write a novel about Hollywood today is not to use the tools of that industry, but to approach the matter in a different way.
That would be, I suppose, an irony of sorts. And there are other ironies involved here too, if you read to the end of the book.
Like many a writer, Henry Baum seems to have had difficulty in placing his work with mainstream publishers, even after an initial success, and North of Sunset is a book that he has put out through Lulu.com. He also has a blog, Ash Tree, in which he writes about the difficulties of the writer's life and finding readers.
And what about readers? To whom is this book going to appeal?
Well, it isn't what I would call a crime/thriller book, despite the serial killer. Neither, despite certain sensational elements, is it Jackie Collins material. It is, I suppose, a literary novel; or at any rate it's a novel which will appeal to those who often read literary fiction, and who are prepared to make a bit of an effort. It is a book which which has been put together with a great deal of care and thought, and it will not, I suspect, reveal all its virtues unless it is read with care and thought.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Magnus Mills back on route
In last Saturday's Times, Magnus Mills had an article about getting his career back on route.
Magnus, you see, was once a London bus driver. Then his first novel, The Restraint of Beasts, became a bit of a literary success (shortlisted for the Whitbread first novel and Booker prizes), and, after that, Magnus gave up being a bus driver and became a full-time novelist.
However, it seems that he found that being a full-time writer wasn't as much fun as he'd hoped. So he got a job driving a van. And now he's back being a bus driver again, and seems quite happy with it.
There might be a few lessons here for those of you who feel frustrated by having to earn a living in a day job. But there are also a few lessons to be had from a previous experience of Magnus's. Details of this experience are a little hazy on the internet, so I will have to depend somewhat on memory.
Back in 1998 or so, when Magnus's first novel was about to be published, his publisher had a pretty good story on her hands (Bus driver writes literary novel). But then an enhanced version of the story appeared in one of the UK newspapers. It said that Magnus had been paid an advance of £1,000,000 for his book. So now it was an even juicer story. Now it was Bus driver makes million with first novel.
This was so good a story that it was lifted, without acknowledgement -- and, please note, without checking -- by every other UK newspaper with readers who also read books. So it became, as it were, established fact. And it generated numerous column inches of free advertising and lots of comment and gossip. It's my belief that the publicity went a long way towards getting Magnus's book on to various shortlists, because the book itself, if anyone troubled to read it, wasn't all that exciting.
After a few days, however, the author's publisher, or agent, was so horrified by the inaccuracy of this report that she was obliged to admit that the story was complete nonsense. The advance had actually been £10,000.
The Bookseller then ran a little comment, sarcastically saying that the newspapers weren't far out; they had only got the figure wrong by three noughts. But actually, of course, if you look at the figures (set out above), you will see that it was wrong by two noughts. So the Bookseller didn't get it right either.
Furthermore, if you think about it, you will realise that Magnus's contract was probably a pretty standard one, calling for the advance to be divided into two, half payable on signature and half on publication. So, far from being made a millionaire, Magnus had in fact received £5,000, less agent's commission, less tax, less expenses. Let's say enough for a week's holiday somewhere nice and a few nights out with the boys.
A couple of year's later, the Guardian ran a story about big advances in general. And in the course of that story it was claimed that the original 'million-pound advance' stuff about Magnus Mills had been cooked up by Magnus himself, with the aid of a journalist friend.
This little history, coupled with the fact that Magnus is now happily driving a bus again, demonstrates a number of points, all of which have been made here before but are worth repeating.
First, any stories about big advance payments for books should be treated with extreme caution, because they are probably the product of some publicist's fevered imagination. They are on a par with claims that we have to go to war with a foreign country because it possesses weapons of mass destruction.
Second, the glamour of the book world is not what it's cracked up to be. Gertrude Stein told Sam Steward that if he wanted to become a writer, he should get a day job as a butcher. Or driving a bus, she might have added.
And third, if you want to make your book famous, learn how to be creative with press releases. You could start by studying the working methods of Charles Faulkner, publisher of Emma Maree Urquhart and Libby Rees. See also the claim that Libby Rees is about to host a TV chat show.
Magnus, you see, was once a London bus driver. Then his first novel, The Restraint of Beasts, became a bit of a literary success (shortlisted for the Whitbread first novel and Booker prizes), and, after that, Magnus gave up being a bus driver and became a full-time novelist.
However, it seems that he found that being a full-time writer wasn't as much fun as he'd hoped. So he got a job driving a van. And now he's back being a bus driver again, and seems quite happy with it.
There might be a few lessons here for those of you who feel frustrated by having to earn a living in a day job. But there are also a few lessons to be had from a previous experience of Magnus's. Details of this experience are a little hazy on the internet, so I will have to depend somewhat on memory.
Back in 1998 or so, when Magnus's first novel was about to be published, his publisher had a pretty good story on her hands (Bus driver writes literary novel). But then an enhanced version of the story appeared in one of the UK newspapers. It said that Magnus had been paid an advance of £1,000,000 for his book. So now it was an even juicer story. Now it was Bus driver makes million with first novel.
This was so good a story that it was lifted, without acknowledgement -- and, please note, without checking -- by every other UK newspaper with readers who also read books. So it became, as it were, established fact. And it generated numerous column inches of free advertising and lots of comment and gossip. It's my belief that the publicity went a long way towards getting Magnus's book on to various shortlists, because the book itself, if anyone troubled to read it, wasn't all that exciting.
After a few days, however, the author's publisher, or agent, was so horrified by the inaccuracy of this report that she was obliged to admit that the story was complete nonsense. The advance had actually been £10,000.
The Bookseller then ran a little comment, sarcastically saying that the newspapers weren't far out; they had only got the figure wrong by three noughts. But actually, of course, if you look at the figures (set out above), you will see that it was wrong by two noughts. So the Bookseller didn't get it right either.
Furthermore, if you think about it, you will realise that Magnus's contract was probably a pretty standard one, calling for the advance to be divided into two, half payable on signature and half on publication. So, far from being made a millionaire, Magnus had in fact received £5,000, less agent's commission, less tax, less expenses. Let's say enough for a week's holiday somewhere nice and a few nights out with the boys.
A couple of year's later, the Guardian ran a story about big advances in general. And in the course of that story it was claimed that the original 'million-pound advance' stuff about Magnus Mills had been cooked up by Magnus himself, with the aid of a journalist friend.
This little history, coupled with the fact that Magnus is now happily driving a bus again, demonstrates a number of points, all of which have been made here before but are worth repeating.
First, any stories about big advance payments for books should be treated with extreme caution, because they are probably the product of some publicist's fevered imagination. They are on a par with claims that we have to go to war with a foreign country because it possesses weapons of mass destruction.
Second, the glamour of the book world is not what it's cracked up to be. Gertrude Stein told Sam Steward that if he wanted to become a writer, he should get a day job as a butcher. Or driving a bus, she might have added.
And third, if you want to make your book famous, learn how to be creative with press releases. You could start by studying the working methods of Charles Faulkner, publisher of Emma Maree Urquhart and Libby Rees. See also the claim that Libby Rees is about to host a TV chat show.
Leopold McGinnis wears a red fez
Surprisingly often, these days, I come across a writer whom I have never previously heard of, and, as often as not, that writer turns out to be extremely active, energetic, and talented. All of which makes me wonder how many more there are out there of the same kind. Thousands, I suspect. Maybe tens of thousands.
Let's take the case of Leopold McGinnis. Leopold is a guy who seems to understand html and a lot more of the same kind, and this equips him to have an extensive web site. The front page features occasional thoughts in a blog-like manner, and the menu leads on to a wide variety of material, including the text of a complete novel, Game Quest.
Leopold seems a little shy of telling us much about his background, but he is young(ish), and operates in the modern, cutting-edge, underground-literature area. Having said that, he also offers us a version of Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, transformed into a modern comic parody, so he has some acquaintance with the more classical way of doing things.
Anyone who is young, keen, ambitious, and who is in tune with up-to-the-minute stuff should certainly take a close look at Leopold and all his works. For one thing, he offers some useful data on the relative effectiveness of following the traditional route to publication (or trying to) compared with the DIY version. He has sense of humour, and a refreshing way of seeing his own work in perspective -- try his rejection museum, for example.
More to the point, perhaps, for some of you, Leopold is the Founding Editor of an epublisher, Red Fez Publications. This is an outfit which makes much of its product available free, but it offers a useful platform on which a writer's work can at least become visible.
As I said at the beginning, active, energetic, and talented. Well worth a look.
Let's take the case of Leopold McGinnis. Leopold is a guy who seems to understand html and a lot more of the same kind, and this equips him to have an extensive web site. The front page features occasional thoughts in a blog-like manner, and the menu leads on to a wide variety of material, including the text of a complete novel, Game Quest.
Leopold seems a little shy of telling us much about his background, but he is young(ish), and operates in the modern, cutting-edge, underground-literature area. Having said that, he also offers us a version of Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, transformed into a modern comic parody, so he has some acquaintance with the more classical way of doing things.
Anyone who is young, keen, ambitious, and who is in tune with up-to-the-minute stuff should certainly take a close look at Leopold and all his works. For one thing, he offers some useful data on the relative effectiveness of following the traditional route to publication (or trying to) compared with the DIY version. He has sense of humour, and a refreshing way of seeing his own work in perspective -- try his rejection museum, for example.
More to the point, perhaps, for some of you, Leopold is the Founding Editor of an epublisher, Red Fez Publications. This is an outfit which makes much of its product available free, but it offers a useful platform on which a writer's work can at least become visible.
As I said at the beginning, active, energetic, and talented. Well worth a look.
Ain't it awful and what's to be done?
Galleycat has read the full text of Nicholas Clee's article in the Bookseller, about the death of the midlist in UK publishing, and, sadly, is not too impressed by it. We all know, says Galleycat, that the industry is a mess. Question is, what's to be done about it?
Well, as far as writers are concerned, I suggested one possible solution about this time last year, in my extended essay On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile. My solution was greeted for the most part with loud raspberries and hoots of derisive laughter. A few enlightened souls, however, wrote and thanked me for it, and said that it had saved them a great deal of time and effort.
What I suggested in that essay is that no rational person, surveying the current publishing scene, would ever imagine that writing in general, and writing fiction in particular, is a sensible way to try to earn a living. For clear-headed writers (all three of them) there are therefore two alternatives: one, give up all this writing nonsense; or, two, adopt the pro-am approach.
The pro-am approach is that of the amateur who performs to professional standard. The pro-am does not expect to make any money from her activity; she does it for the pleasure and satisfaction of same. But she does the job to a fully professional standard, and therein lies much of the satisfaction. All dreams of large sums of money and international fame are recognised for what they are: namely, childish folly.
Pro-ams are readily found in any number of fields of activity. To mention two which are of interest to the GOB household: photography and flower arranging.
There are tens of thousands of people in the UK who are passionately interested in photography, and who work to obsessively high standards in terms of technique and achievement, but who have no illusions about generating serious income from it.
Ditto flower arranging. Anyone who takes the trouble to go round the UK national flower arrangers' gathering cannot fail to be impressed by the design skills, the use of colour, and the general ingenuity on show. And, within the circle of enthusiasts, reputations are made. But that's about it.
I don't think you can read the Clee article unless you're a Bookseller subscriber. But Galleycat gives a link to a similar piece in the US News, by Diane Cole, which ofers yet more doom and gloom. On the whole, however, I thought the Cole article was well written and informative; and if you're relatively new to working out how publishing firms operate, you should take a look at it.
Well, as far as writers are concerned, I suggested one possible solution about this time last year, in my extended essay On the Survival of Rats in the Slush Pile. My solution was greeted for the most part with loud raspberries and hoots of derisive laughter. A few enlightened souls, however, wrote and thanked me for it, and said that it had saved them a great deal of time and effort.
What I suggested in that essay is that no rational person, surveying the current publishing scene, would ever imagine that writing in general, and writing fiction in particular, is a sensible way to try to earn a living. For clear-headed writers (all three of them) there are therefore two alternatives: one, give up all this writing nonsense; or, two, adopt the pro-am approach.
The pro-am approach is that of the amateur who performs to professional standard. The pro-am does not expect to make any money from her activity; she does it for the pleasure and satisfaction of same. But she does the job to a fully professional standard, and therein lies much of the satisfaction. All dreams of large sums of money and international fame are recognised for what they are: namely, childish folly.
Pro-ams are readily found in any number of fields of activity. To mention two which are of interest to the GOB household: photography and flower arranging.
There are tens of thousands of people in the UK who are passionately interested in photography, and who work to obsessively high standards in terms of technique and achievement, but who have no illusions about generating serious income from it.
Ditto flower arranging. Anyone who takes the trouble to go round the UK national flower arrangers' gathering cannot fail to be impressed by the design skills, the use of colour, and the general ingenuity on show. And, within the circle of enthusiasts, reputations are made. But that's about it.
I don't think you can read the Clee article unless you're a Bookseller subscriber. But Galleycat gives a link to a similar piece in the US News, by Diane Cole, which ofers yet more doom and gloom. On the whole, however, I thought the Cole article was well written and informative; and if you're relatively new to working out how publishing firms operate, you should take a look at it.
Friday, March 10, 2006
MNW: first tranche of three
As stated on 7 March, the Macmillan New Writing imprint will launch its first six titles on 7 April 2006. The company has sent me copies of all six, and so I think it only right and proper that I should review them.
I say review, but, as I hope you will recall, the imprint will consider any genre of book, provided it's by a first-time novelist. So the six books are all different, and not all of them are books which I would select, either for personal reading or to review in full. What I have done, therefore, is to perform a 40-page test. That is to say, I have read the first 40 pages, or so, of each book, in order to get a flavour of it and to enable me to make some sort of judgement about the skills of the author. One or two of them, which happen to be my kind of thing, I will undoubtedly go back to.
I read the books in alphabetical order by author, and that is the way they are presented here. Three today, and the rest before long.
Conor Corderoy: Dark Rain
This is science fiction (for want of a better term), set in the UK at some point a few decades into the future. It's been raining for 35 years. At least in the UK it has; elsewhere there is no rain and no food. And we have had warning that the aliens are coming, but we're preparing for them by stock-piling nuclear weapons.
This is the slightly gloomy context, a semi-flooded London, in which our narrator, a police Inspector, makes his way down the mean streets.
The climate may have changed, but some things haven't: honest and incorruptible cops still have to bow under the weight of the rich and powerful, who don't want the truth to be revealed. And, by page 18, our man has found a dead body, wants to investigate the crime by the book, but is told that he is off the case. And, indeed, out of the force. Which is the equivalent of a death sentence. Whereupon a woman recruits him to investigate anyway.
The genre, then, is SF/private eye. Though there are hints, in the publisher's blurb, which suggest that this will develop into something a bit more than that towards the end.
In a sense this is a traditional PI book, with variations. And what's wrong with that? It's a highly honourable tradition: Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, and so forth. I found it eminently readable.
Michael Stephen Fuchs: The Manuscript
By the second page of this book it is apparent that Mr Fuchs knows how to use viewpoint -- always a crucial test. (Or, in view of what I shall say about another MNW book, perhaps I ought to say that he employs viewpoint in the way in which I think it is best employed.) Another good sign is the division of the text into short chapters.
The plot, not surprisingly in view of the title, involves a lost manuscript which may, perhaps, reveal the meaning of life. It was written, or at any rate transcribed, by Sir Richard Burton. No, dear, not the one who was married to Wossname. The other one. The plot is therefore not terribly original, at least at the start, but since I am always saying that originality is a much-overrated virtue, I can hardly complain about that. The question is, can the author make his story entertaining?
He can, and he does. It rattles along at a fair old pace. My early notes record that the book is well written, thoughtful, competent and professional. Round about page 30, however, I began to get really interested. There's a chapter there which is definitely a notch above the run of the mill, and by page 35 I was convinced that Michael Fuchs really can write. He clearly knows a great deal about computing and is also highly literate: this is not a common combination.
So far so good then. Like the book mentioned above, this one seems to promise a little more than just a genre book as it goes along.
There are signs that this book may have been written a year or two ago, and failed to find a publisher in the orthodox way: the author thanks his sister for 'resurrecting a deceased project'. If so, that is further proof of the fact that, today, producing a first-class product is not sufficient to arouse publishers' interest on its own.
This book uses double quotes for dialogue, which is not standard UK practice (with most publishers). And that kind of reminds me that one of the features of MNW, if I recall correctly, is that it set out, from the beginning, to economise by using the authors' word-processor files for typesetting. Nothing unusual about that, but in my experience it is hard to use search and replace to change single quotes to double (for American publishers), and vice versa. Some of the other MNW books use single quotes, so the house style -- whatever it is -- has not been uniformly applied.
The author has a rather fancy web site which demonstrates that he is a multi-talented man. He has also developed another web site devoted entirely to The Manuscript. He himself describes the book as 'a philosophical cyberthriller – a novel of huge ideas disguised as a blow-your-hair-back thrill ride.'
Brian Martin: North
This one is quite different from the two books described above. Both the above are edgy, modern (or futuristic), slightly techno pieces of work. North, by contrast, is a literary novel. It belongs in its own noble tradition, like the other two, but it comes from a different part of the fiction continuum.
Brian Martin is publishing his first novel at the age of 68. However, he has taught literature both at a school in Oxford and at Oxford University. He has also reviewed contemporary novels for more than thirty years for all the leading UK literary journals. So he's not short of background.
It's a first-person story, narrated by an erudite teacher with ample financial means and an acute interest in human behaviour. And the chief subject of his interest, North, is an 18-year-old boy/youth/youngman who is still, technically, at school. Although no one could really regard him as a schoolboy.
When the narrator tells us that sixteen is an early age for a person like North to begin having sex, I think we can assume that he is being tactful with regard to UK laws on these matters. In fact, North seems to me to be the kind of young man who would have begun having sex far earlier than that. With whom, however -- that is to say, which gender got to him first -- is open to conjecture.
North, we soon learn, is a magnetic, charismatic figure. There is, perhaps literally, a dash of the devil in him. Our narrator, we must assume from the early pages, is gay. At any rate he is remarkably well informed about ladies' perfumes and gentlemen's choice of eau de toilette. And the pleasure of this book (for the attentive reader) lies in watching the narrator watch North.
One possible way to describe this book is to say that it is about human relationships. Plus a bit more. (Interesting, isn't it, that all three books mentioned so far fall into a reasonably well defined category but then rise somewhat above it. Or, to be less disparaging of perfectly sound genre books, we might say that the novels build an extension out the back.)
As you would expect from the author's background, North is elegant, polished, and extremely subtle. I found myself questioning, sometimes, how the narrator comes to know so much about other characters' feelings and thoughts, but he gives us an explanation which is, I think, convincing within its context.
In my review of Punjab Nights a while back, I made the point that it was the kind of book, based on personal experience, which many a man, at the end of his life, might have wanted to write. Had he the skill. And while it would be, I suspect, a serious mistake to assume that either Punjab Nights or North is autobiographical, both reflect a wealth of experience in the author.
North, I think, based on my 40-page test, is subtle, thought-provoking, carefully planned, and multi-layered. Its main subject seems to be the power of sexuality. If it's too literary for my taste, well, that's because I'm a vulgar fellow, and no reflection at all on the skills of the author. I prefer less analysis and more action, with dialogue to match. But those who stick with the book to the end will not, I think, be disappointed. (I sneaked a look at it.)
Oh, and by the way. A word of warning. It is possible that what we have here is that creature much beloved of modern literary theory, namely a narrator who is not entirely trustworthy. Hard to believe of a well educated English chap, I know, but I thought I should pass that on.
I say review, but, as I hope you will recall, the imprint will consider any genre of book, provided it's by a first-time novelist. So the six books are all different, and not all of them are books which I would select, either for personal reading or to review in full. What I have done, therefore, is to perform a 40-page test. That is to say, I have read the first 40 pages, or so, of each book, in order to get a flavour of it and to enable me to make some sort of judgement about the skills of the author. One or two of them, which happen to be my kind of thing, I will undoubtedly go back to.
I read the books in alphabetical order by author, and that is the way they are presented here. Three today, and the rest before long.
Conor Corderoy: Dark Rain
This is science fiction (for want of a better term), set in the UK at some point a few decades into the future. It's been raining for 35 years. At least in the UK it has; elsewhere there is no rain and no food. And we have had warning that the aliens are coming, but we're preparing for them by stock-piling nuclear weapons.
This is the slightly gloomy context, a semi-flooded London, in which our narrator, a police Inspector, makes his way down the mean streets.
The climate may have changed, but some things haven't: honest and incorruptible cops still have to bow under the weight of the rich and powerful, who don't want the truth to be revealed. And, by page 18, our man has found a dead body, wants to investigate the crime by the book, but is told that he is off the case. And, indeed, out of the force. Which is the equivalent of a death sentence. Whereupon a woman recruits him to investigate anyway.
The genre, then, is SF/private eye. Though there are hints, in the publisher's blurb, which suggest that this will develop into something a bit more than that towards the end.
In a sense this is a traditional PI book, with variations. And what's wrong with that? It's a highly honourable tradition: Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, and so forth. I found it eminently readable.
Michael Stephen Fuchs: The Manuscript
By the second page of this book it is apparent that Mr Fuchs knows how to use viewpoint -- always a crucial test. (Or, in view of what I shall say about another MNW book, perhaps I ought to say that he employs viewpoint in the way in which I think it is best employed.) Another good sign is the division of the text into short chapters.
The plot, not surprisingly in view of the title, involves a lost manuscript which may, perhaps, reveal the meaning of life. It was written, or at any rate transcribed, by Sir Richard Burton. No, dear, not the one who was married to Wossname. The other one. The plot is therefore not terribly original, at least at the start, but since I am always saying that originality is a much-overrated virtue, I can hardly complain about that. The question is, can the author make his story entertaining?
He can, and he does. It rattles along at a fair old pace. My early notes record that the book is well written, thoughtful, competent and professional. Round about page 30, however, I began to get really interested. There's a chapter there which is definitely a notch above the run of the mill, and by page 35 I was convinced that Michael Fuchs really can write. He clearly knows a great deal about computing and is also highly literate: this is not a common combination.
So far so good then. Like the book mentioned above, this one seems to promise a little more than just a genre book as it goes along.
There are signs that this book may have been written a year or two ago, and failed to find a publisher in the orthodox way: the author thanks his sister for 'resurrecting a deceased project'. If so, that is further proof of the fact that, today, producing a first-class product is not sufficient to arouse publishers' interest on its own.
This book uses double quotes for dialogue, which is not standard UK practice (with most publishers). And that kind of reminds me that one of the features of MNW, if I recall correctly, is that it set out, from the beginning, to economise by using the authors' word-processor files for typesetting. Nothing unusual about that, but in my experience it is hard to use search and replace to change single quotes to double (for American publishers), and vice versa. Some of the other MNW books use single quotes, so the house style -- whatever it is -- has not been uniformly applied.
The author has a rather fancy web site which demonstrates that he is a multi-talented man. He has also developed another web site devoted entirely to The Manuscript. He himself describes the book as 'a philosophical cyberthriller – a novel of huge ideas disguised as a blow-your-hair-back thrill ride.'
Brian Martin: North
This one is quite different from the two books described above. Both the above are edgy, modern (or futuristic), slightly techno pieces of work. North, by contrast, is a literary novel. It belongs in its own noble tradition, like the other two, but it comes from a different part of the fiction continuum.
Brian Martin is publishing his first novel at the age of 68. However, he has taught literature both at a school in Oxford and at Oxford University. He has also reviewed contemporary novels for more than thirty years for all the leading UK literary journals. So he's not short of background.
It's a first-person story, narrated by an erudite teacher with ample financial means and an acute interest in human behaviour. And the chief subject of his interest, North, is an 18-year-old boy/youth/youngman who is still, technically, at school. Although no one could really regard him as a schoolboy.
When the narrator tells us that sixteen is an early age for a person like North to begin having sex, I think we can assume that he is being tactful with regard to UK laws on these matters. In fact, North seems to me to be the kind of young man who would have begun having sex far earlier than that. With whom, however -- that is to say, which gender got to him first -- is open to conjecture.
North, we soon learn, is a magnetic, charismatic figure. There is, perhaps literally, a dash of the devil in him. Our narrator, we must assume from the early pages, is gay. At any rate he is remarkably well informed about ladies' perfumes and gentlemen's choice of eau de toilette. And the pleasure of this book (for the attentive reader) lies in watching the narrator watch North.
One possible way to describe this book is to say that it is about human relationships. Plus a bit more. (Interesting, isn't it, that all three books mentioned so far fall into a reasonably well defined category but then rise somewhat above it. Or, to be less disparaging of perfectly sound genre books, we might say that the novels build an extension out the back.)
As you would expect from the author's background, North is elegant, polished, and extremely subtle. I found myself questioning, sometimes, how the narrator comes to know so much about other characters' feelings and thoughts, but he gives us an explanation which is, I think, convincing within its context.
In my review of Punjab Nights a while back, I made the point that it was the kind of book, based on personal experience, which many a man, at the end of his life, might have wanted to write. Had he the skill. And while it would be, I suspect, a serious mistake to assume that either Punjab Nights or North is autobiographical, both reflect a wealth of experience in the author.
North, I think, based on my 40-page test, is subtle, thought-provoking, carefully planned, and multi-layered. Its main subject seems to be the power of sexuality. If it's too literary for my taste, well, that's because I'm a vulgar fellow, and no reflection at all on the skills of the author. I prefer less analysis and more action, with dialogue to match. But those who stick with the book to the end will not, I think, be disappointed. (I sneaked a look at it.)
Oh, and by the way. A word of warning. It is possible that what we have here is that creature much beloved of modern literary theory, namely a narrator who is not entirely trustworthy. Hard to believe of a well educated English chap, I know, but I thought I should pass that on.
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