Posted by: C.D. Reimer
on 30 Jun 2009
June has been quite a busy month for me as a writer. I finished the rough draft of my first novel at the first half of the month. I finished my vampire novella after two years of on-and-off work, wrote four new short stories, and tossed everything into a short story collection at the second half of the month.
The vampire novella was my first attempt to write something longer than 3,000 words. I struggled for the first year to make the story coherent but it didn't go anywhere. Before I started writing my first novel, I made a serious effort to get the novella into shape with the eighth draft coming in at ~120 pages and ~23,000 words. After spending a year writing 665 pages and 120,495 for my first novel that I wrote straight through without looking back (my first reader confirmed that the rough draft is a sprawling mess), I knew how to finish editing the novella.
For a marathon two weeks, I edited two more drafts. The tenth draft came in at 97 pages and 20,000 words. I had to trim back to reach that particular word count. There are approximately a half dozen print publications where I can submit a story of that length. If those markets won't accept the story, then I will find an ebook publisher where that length is a popular size. (I'm still somewhat old fashioned about wanting to physically handle the manuscript and see my work in print.) I learned more about editing in the last two weeks then I have in the last three years.
With the completion of the novella, my short story collection was also completed since the novella represents second half of the book. Since I had time to kill between finishing this and starting the rough draft of my second novel (tomorrow, July 1st), I had a creative burst to write four more stories of various lengths over the weekend. The collection has 27 short stories and one novella (251 pages and 47,550 words), representing three years of hard work.
A short story collection is like the bastard child of the publishing industry. If a best selling author has a collection, no problem. But if a new author is trying to shop a collection, forget about it. That's probably because the graduates of the literary writing programs are too busy shopping around their collection while floundering around to write their first novel. Since I didn't graduate from one of these programs, I'm not morally obligated to flog my collection around the marketplace. With only three stories published or slated for publication, I want to get more of my stories published first before the collection is published.
The purpose of my collection is to define a writing milestone I can look back on, and something I can give to an agent if I get contacted before I go agent hunting next year with my finished first and second novels.
Posted by: C.D. Reimer
on 26 Jun 2009
When the news that Michael Jackson had died broke yesterday, my initial response was in this tweet.
"Who wants to bet that Michael Jackson's death will push the Iranian election out of the U.S. news?"
Less than 24 hours later, the U.S. news media is saturated with stories about Michael Jackson. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
The real death yesterday was the Iranian election protest movement in the U.S. news media. The lead story was how the now illegitimate Iranian government was systematically shutting down the protest movement by beating, gassing and shooting protesters, arresting anyone who had shown support against the election result, and suppressing all news reporting in the name of restoring order. Today, in the wake of Michael Jackson's untimely death, you have to hunt for the lead story—if there is one—in the U.S. news media.
Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett both died this week. But neither one of them had the same paparazzi-fueled celebrity cachet of Michael Jackson to push the Iranian election protest out of the U.S. news media—and the American consciousness. Why is it that U.S. news media is so eager to switch away from a protest movement that might change the balance of power in the Middle East if given the opportunity to blossom, flourish and moderate the tone of an anti-Western government?
With the illegitimate Iranian government cracking down on the opposition news media, restricting journalists access to people and protest sites, and sending international journalists out of the country, there's no one on the ground to report the news. The traditional U.S. news media had to rely on the non-traditional sources like Twitter and YouTube. Technology that wasn't around during the Tiananmen Square protest movement in China twenty years ago (except for one video that made popular culture). Now Iranian citizens can bypass the restrictions of their own corrupt government to report the news to the outside world. Citizen journalism has always been regarded as inferior to traditional journalism for lacking the ethical training to report the story without bias (which seems to be an endangered species as the media companies promote controversies to gain market share and sell advertising), but citizens can get into areas of society where a government-authorized press badge cannot.
Not only has technology undermine the U.S. news media traditional role as gatekeepers of what is seen and heard in America, they can be shellacked into providing more coverage. Both CNN and MSNBC been criticized for not having relevant weekend coverage during the height of the protests when people wanted more news. With Michael Jackson's untimely death, who represented the best and the worse of American society, the U.S. news media can now conveniently switch away from the serious to the frivolous while the illegitimate Iranian government can breath a sigh of relief that they can continue to consolidate power without the harsh glare of the U.S. news media shining down on them.
Posted by: C.D. Reimer
on 20 Jun 2009
My family gathered today for an early birthday party for my great-nephew, Travis, who will turn two in July, and a Father's Day celebration. As Travis had learned how to run before walking, he already started in on being a Terrible Two to the dismay of his parents. Since his mother and three of her coworkers all got pregnant at the same time, there were four Terrible Twos running around the place. Only the adults with cameras outnumbered the Terrible Twos to prevent them from overrunning the neighborhood.
I gave my Dad a rough draft copy of my short story collection (23 short stories and a novella from the last three years) in a binder. He haven't read any of my stuff. When he saw what I was giving him, he said: "I don't need a binder."
That made me paused. My Dad is a very practical person. If he really needed a binder, he wouldn't hesitate to recycle whatever was inside for toilet paper. (He did install a new toilet in his trailer yesterday.) The irony was not lost on me as a writer. My work may very well be appreciated in other ways in my immediate family. The dedication page is made out to my mother. Her death from breast cancer in March 2004 helped me find myself as a writer. (No doubt some hidebound critic will criticize my collection as "therapy stories" or worse.) That alone should prevent my Dad from recycling the pages—or keeping only that one page before disposing the rest.
Posted by: C.D. Reimer
on 17 Jun 2009
You know when a technology company has gone mainstream is when "Weird Al" Yankovic makes a signature song from the company's main product. Below is the music video parodying Craigslist with music inspired by The Doors and a very 1960's psychedelic background.
Previous songs included "White & Nerdy" (Segway), "It's All About The Pentiums" (Intel), and "eBay" (eBay). The next obvious candidate for a parody song would be Twitter with the Iranian presidential election playing out in the background.
Updated 21 June 2009 @ 10:15AM: Added eBay to the mix (not an official Weird Al video). Video embedding been disabled. View the YouTube video here.
Posted by: C.D. Reimer
on 16 Jun 2009
A new graphic novel by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, "A Drifting Life," is a semi-fictional autobiography of the post-World War 2 manga scene, and perhaps the thickest (856 pages) I have ever read. Bracketed between the end of World War II in 1945 and the Peace Treaty in 1960, this story is about Hiroshi Katsumi learning to become a manga artist, his early work in magazine contests, working for a single publisher with shady business practices, working with other artists and multiple publishers, misadventures with women, and a political awakening that redefines a young man. At times brutally honest, startling and revealing about the human condition, this book is a masterpiece.
Most artists internalized their fears regarding their work. Although Hiroshi has his doubts from time to time, all his fears are externalized by his older brother, Okimasa. Both aspire to be manga artists but the younger brother is more prolific and constantly refining his work more than the older brother, creating a tension between the two that range from mild verbal sparing to outright abuse. Hiroshi is constantly escaping to get away from his older brother by being a substitute basketball player at high school, working on his manga at his aunt's place under the roar of American bombers flying out of the airport, or watching what would later become classic movies from America (Shane, Snow White, and Dumbo) and Japan (Seven Samurai and Godzilla) that would influence his work. He later moves to Tokyo to live with other manga artists and find better business opportunities.
What I admired the most about Hiroshi is his willingness to keep working from project to project to create a critical body of work to enable him to advance to the next level of his career. We see a steady progression from shorter lengths (four-panel on postcards) to telling longer stories (32-pages) to creating full-length books (128-pages), struggling and mastering each level along the way. Experimenting with new and different techniques for story telling and visual presentations from classic literature, hard-boiled detective mysteries, and movies to keep the stories fresh and interesting. Learning how to manage the business side with different artists, projects, and publishers. Being an artist is hard work and this book that took ten years to make clearly demonstrates that.
If you're an aspiring manga artist or writer, and want to know how to successfully manage your career, this book is a must read.
