Dickens and Writing Markets

Well presently I am surrounded by the busy shopping rabble. It is Boxing Day, and here in XXX it is the traditional biggest shopping day of the year. Everything is discounted, even books.

So it makes you think that maybe, just maybe, writing is also about commerce. The production of one thing of value to be sold to someone else. 

Which brings you to Dickens. Charles Dickens.

The Christmas season is not complete without some Dickens. "A Christmas Carol", a retelling of "Oliver", Scrooge, etcetra...

As with Dickens, this entry will serialised...

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No. 4 - Time and character connectivity

Writing demands Time. And thus updating a blog on writing is not the very best way to accumulate words on the page for the stories, novels, scripts, poetry, prose, or reviews you are writing - in fact a blog is probably pretty close to procrastination.

Though I like to think, the blog enables one to practice communication of a message to an unknown other, and develop a sensible readable voice. Not a bland voice, but a voice which people might want to hear.

Besides by definition life is a procrastination from writing, and by life I include all activities including sleep, eating, breathing..........perhaps I am a tad extreme in my views.

Of course without life you would not have anything to write about. Or would you? Does a space opera require input from my life? Can my day to day domestic chores reflect on the activities of characters in a Tolkein-esque universe?

The answer is that such activities must. The reader must be able to relate to the characters on some level, else they lose interest completely and irretrievably. Which means they will place your piece of writing down, or close the book, or turn off the television, or walk out of the theater. They may shun anything with your name on it forevermore.

Such a reaction is not conducive to a career in writing. Knighthoods and royalties shall not be yours.

So allow your character to connect to the reader, if not physically, if not by locale, if not by job, then by thought or emotions. Let them buy the character is real, and thus, all could be real, if they but pause and read awhile......

No 3 - the brick house

Writing is not easy, and yet at times we soar. I write, and write, and write. Some is stories, some is poetry. Some poetry I shall affix here, momentarily. For now some briefest thoughts on writing.

Writing is what you do all the time, storing gems of fact, thinking how that mannerism could be added to, how the world we view might contract.

I want to know. I am happy if the answer is unknowable, but how did we reach unknowable?

A spaceship winning across the stars, to a clean crisp world, far from humanities short-comings, and as they land the computer electrocutes the entire human contingent onboard.

Because the computer knows, even if they do not, while they can seek a new beginning, a new world, they bring the seeds od destruction, the diseases of the old, with them in themselves. If they are no more, then the world has a sense of this.

Bit sobering to treat human race as un-fixable. Perhaps in a million years we will work together, without the need o be forced to do so by circumstances.

So a poem:

+ Homer and Tiger +
Your tales great are still sounded
Of journeys long and men hounded
By Gods and maidens seeking love
Of golden fleeces and cyclops above
The heroes then the same as now
Vain and skilled who could wow
The watching crowds with their powess
Send them into raptures with each caress
Of bow string or sword slice so
Those great heroes you did know
Feet of lead they always had
For so often misbehaved and grew bad
Our heroes now are not so dissimiliar
As we hear about them over dinner
Wives they leave in the lurch
With hubris drink fornicate and miss church
CNN and Fox play the chorus
Paparazzi unrestrained and raucous
And as with those of whom you wrote
We hold our breaths and strangely hope
These heroes set upon pedestals high
Who we pushed ever upward to the sky
After reflection and humility taught
May again rise strong and taut
Show us human weaknesses can be overcome
That we mere mortals to fate need not always succumb.

Two

Numbers in writing are important, they mark chapters, they indicate pages moving, the story flowing......and here is the second entry:

If you are a writer, it would appear you must be in need of a blog.

Oh d*mn I hear echoes of Austen here, as in “It is well known, if not universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a fortune, is in need of a wife” - or in this period of modern history, “a writer in possession of words, wishing to sell such words must, even if it is not universally acknowledged, create a blog to inspire readership, lure agents, and demonstrate the craft of writing”.

One without the other, writing without a blog, is in the manners of the “noughties”, unseemly.

Where once writers were seen as isolated creatures, to be kept apart, locked in attic garrets, or existing in poverty level conditions in tumbled-down country cottages; it is now expected writers be gregarious and outgoing. Writers are expected to be witty and friendly and understanding, with the "right" type of political views so as not to alienate the reader – even if they lust after their neighbour's llama. Writers are expected to promote, and market, and sell the wears of their imaginations as loudly, brashly, insincerely, as the most slippery cunning car salesman.

Thus I present to you, the reader, the glorious reader, the glorious reader from whom readership, and for whom the publishing of the books is concerned; this most humble blog on words and writing.

I shan't aim to limit this blog to merely my own writing, writings, or wisdom; else it be no deeper than this humble writer before you.

I am by birth Irish, by taxable residence Australian, and, by inclination, an internationalist. This probably falls back to both the place of my birth, and the country in which I now make my residence.

The Irish dispora, the great outflowing of the Irish across the world, has never ceased, those who would call themselves Irish have ever possessed wandering feet. Australia by population size, geographic position, and population mix, has always been an associate of great powers rather than the power itself – thus an open minded international approach to allies and foes has always been the Australian modus operandi.

I feel I am waffling already. Let me then say I am not yet a published author, I am merely a writer. I also have not, to the best part of my knowledge, ever killed anyone, and thus I am a writer of promise as yet unconfirmed.

I have written plays, and stories, and poems, and more than a few attempts at novels. For some less than sensible reason, known only to my own mind, I don't tend to write many short stories – my stories are half novel size or a few pages. I also write poetry, usually at least one a day, and sometimes several, and the quality of such poetry I leave to the judgment of the reader. I have been writing poetry for many years now. Many many years.

I am currently working on several novels, and going back over a few others, editing, and tidying, and addressing the voice, and considering the character – and......well going about doing the stuff of writing.

A question I think every writer should ask, is do they want to be published? Do you dream of seeing your book marked down from $20, to $10, to $5, to the three books for $5 bin?

Even the best writers suffer this fate, and unless you have the un-shakeable faith of Moses in your own ability – and this reflects the reality of your ability, it shall not be your fate to have the joy of seeing your written wares gradually reduce in value over their time in the marketplace....; for without faith it does not matter if you are good enough - for you shall not find someone willing to publish your novel.

You see, self publishing, whilst a way to promote your ability, and product, is not going likely to result in a writing career.

You need someone else, a money grubbing company run by Satan's minions to take your manuscript (or lengthy email, or libidinous blog), edit it, create cover art for it, set it in print, and bind it between covers – with your name somewhere thereabouts – and definitely their corporate logo; before you are properly published.

Before you can call yourself an author, rather than a mere writer. For many, many, many, are the writers in our midst, with their single story which, if they could but complete, would stun the world to silence, only broken by the turning of pages, or the click of fingernail to screen, to move the story, so brilliantly transposed, forward.

So that's is writing.

Why write. For immortality, to preserve your sanity, to earn money and pay bills, to gain fame; it matters not. One must just do and, in achieving, be rewarded.