The Curse of the Author Spotlight

[NOTE: Strange transformations going on with Blogger, so be patient while we see how it all plays out....]

This week I've been invited to be the guest and chief entertainment for a session of what those who invited me have dubbed "Author Spotlight". Now, as an author, I am also somewhat of an introvert; I prefer to express myself on the page rather than, say, face to face, especially when the other is represented by multiple faces. Worse yet would be no faces. But colleagues have assured me that they are giving their students extra credit to attend my dubious carnival act.

This Author Spotlight came about when a potential English major asked a reasonable question at an English major reception: "So do any of you do anything? Like write?" To which I immediately raised my hand and uttered the fateful words: "The third volume of my vampire trilogy just came out." Of course, I was then pressed upon to tell more. Any Book 3 requires divulging the whole story: Book 1 and 2, the impetus for the entire story, etc. That led to several other questions. 

My colleagues knew about the first book, A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, because it had been reviewed in the local newspaper, The Oklahoman, as part of a short list of Halloween-themed books. As it was set in Oklahoma City where I live and work made it all the more topical. It garnered enough curiosity, in fact, that the STEM-obsessed Dean of our Arts & Sciences School, mentioned it at an all-faculty meeting, even holding up a copy for all to see - as I slunk in my seat to keep out of view (the introvert thing). I then wrote two other books, unrelated to the vampire genre, and thought I was finished with vampires.

But the ending nagged me. I had to know what happened next, having ended the story in 2014. By the time I got the idea of what would happen next, it was already 13 years in the future in the story and 3 years in my real life. With a vampire as the main character and narrator, there were only two ways I could go with the continuation: treat him as a vampire, ugly and miserable, scraping by on the blood of peasants, or have him fit in somehow with polite society. Either could have been an interesting discourse, but I chose the latter and Book 2 was born: SUNRISE.

In the first book, I allowed my protagonist, Stefan Szekely, to get into conversations with God, who he jokes about initially then comes to blame for his worsening affliction. Thinking he has made a deal with God, he discovers to his horror that God has backed out on the deal, leaving him to his fate. In the second book, Stefan still converses with God - or believes he does - but it is a mocking diatribe this time, no longer taking God as a kindly grandfather but a spiteful menace. In SUNSET, the third book, when the situation demands another bargain be struck, Stefan believes it is being made with God. Unfortunately, it is with God's number one interloper, Lucifer, who sees the potential in him. In the third book, that potential is realized, much to the world's chagrin. Chaos and cruelty reign! 

Now, when pressed upon to be the featured guest at this campus function designed around a book series, I was immediately concerned with our well-discussed conundrum of our students disdaining reading long passages and how I might get students interested in reading my books. Of course I will read a short scene from each of the three books, something stand-alone and interesting in itself. There is a great deal of dark humor, irony and sarcasm in the telling of the story, so I worry they would not see it as a dramatic tale of man becoming vampire becoming holy terror personified. No monsters leap out of closets. Since part of the story is set in Oklahoma, I shall read one scene set there which involves our hero, Stefan, and a lowly grave digger - thereby allowing me to use my well-trained voice to affect the Okie accent. I may otherwise use my vampire voice while reading other parts. I've mastered how to speak the classic phrase: "Good Eeeeeving."

Other than reading short passages and telling how I got the idea for the books, I will likely talk a bit about my childhood interest in reading and writing. Then I should segue into how they should be writing something, starting with events in their own lives - perhaps change the names and call it a story. I want to get them to see the potential they have in expressing themselves. Sure, they can make videos, come up with songs and spoken-word poetry, share raps, but those are all short-form expressions. Can they create an extended form with a complex, layered narrative? I will challenge them. Perhaps my inspiring words will translate into better classroom productivity. Who knows?

Lastly, I shall take questions from the audience. I have no idea what they may wish to know. I will have explained much already, so . . . I must be ready for anything. I must deflect any questions about the Penny Park (pseudonym!) affair recounted in Book 1. Hopefully, I shall be done with the session before my glucose drops and my head goes foggy and my voice cracks. It is the author's equivalent of a marathon. And I have not been training much. The only thing that might save me, give me an edge, is that I will know some of the audience already. The other saving grace is that I sure do love to talk about myself!



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(C) Copyright 2010-2019 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

One Thing Never to Blog About: Reviews

You know how things happen when you least expect them to but they leave you with a feeling like you just gotta say something? 

Yes? Well, here's my something. It will read like a rant, for which I must apologize. However, I assure you that I was probably drunk at the time so it's not really my fault. I should probably blame Facebook, where it is so easy to post things you regret the next morning. In the end, I intended no offense to anyone, anywhere. Honestly.

One of these days I'm going to remember to promote my novels again. Until such a time, look me up at Amazon. And if you can add to my review tally, I'll send you the book of your choice as a Kindle gift to read. 

Top of Form

[Returning to that Facebook post the next day...]

Oh dear. Did I really post that? I thought I was drunk. 

But, yes, I had a fair number of reviews before the great Amazon purge, when they removed everyone's reviews, believing they were all fake. I only had two novels out at that time but lost about a dozen reviews.

Then I got lazy. For me, being lazy means locked in my own mental ward writing something new...which is always preferable to doing the promotion thing. Besides, I'm rather altruistic and introverted when it comes to promotion; hate to foist anything upon anyone. And there's no accounting for taste; sometimes a story is just not someone's cup of tea, no matter how well written it may be.

I've always written stories that interested me, following the axiom of write the kind of stories you want to read. I've been very good about following that idea. Whether others want to read them is, of course, another fair question. But, really, that is the lesser question because I have always, right from the start, written to entertain myself and gave little thought to what to do with them next. Maybe I'll be accused of coming to this conclusion after not selling massive amounts of books, like it's a kind of salve for the soul. Possibly; only a psychiatrist would know. Perhaps I came to this conclusion while deep in a meditative pose? Would that make it more or less valid?

At any rate, selling some and having the readers express enjoyment of them is the most basic measure of success to me. My only rule is that I will never make a book free--unless given as a gift to a specific person, of course. I believe "free" cheapens the product, and for what it's worth, I put in a lot of time and effort to produce a novel, as all writers do. It's worth at least the token 99 cents.

I must be drunk again to write a rant such as this. Never mind. I've got my latest novel, the vampire story, locked away for the two-week crap test. If it survives, I'll seek a gamma reader and go from there. Onward and upward. The day job awaits!

[And returning the following day...]

It occurred to me this morning as I was preparing to go to school for the summer class I'm teaching, that someone will remind me to consider the reader or some variation on that meme.

The quick and easy answer is I do consider the reader. I consider the reader during revision, editing, and proofreading. The first draft, however, belongs to me: I am trying to please myself and not really thinking of who else may one day read it. Only later do I take on the role of objective reader and try to shape the manuscript into something perhaps more palatable.

The longer and more complex answer is that there is a fine line between challenging the reader and, for lack of a better phrasing, making it easy for the reader. I see the dumbing down of education every day and I am swept along with that tide. One sign is the reluctance of young people to read anything which requires sustained attention and reflection. The Tweet is the perfect medium for these people.

So should an author make it easy for a reader? I'm sure if I tried I could boil down a novel into a paragraph, but it would necessarily lose a lot of deeper meaning, nuances, the beauty of the language, and heart and soul of the fictional people dealing with their crises.

I prefer to lean toward challenging. Not challenging in the way, say, James Joyce did with Finnegan's Wake. I want the text to be clear, certainly, and the meaning not obscured. But the story must flow with its own inner fire and sometimes that means the reader must meet the author half-way, at least.

In fact, what keeps a reader going? It's bizarre enough that someone willingly chooses to read about something he/she already knows is a lie. Fiction is a lie we accept for the sake of entertainment...and perhaps some kind of catharsis. So it's rather like a performance, a stage play: Here is the play which I have created. Sit back and enjoy it. If by the end, or somewhere in the middle, it is not to your liking, you are free to leave. It would not be the same medium if a reader could intervene in a novel.

Unlike the interactive video games available today, can we allow the reader to decide at any point in the story what a character should say or do, or how the plot should turn or twist, or who actually is killed in the end? No, it's already set, just like performing a play. You can have endless debates afterward, of course, but in the product itself (a play or a novel) the performance is already done and the reader must experience it as it unfolds according to the instructions of the author.

Yes, there's plenty of room for self-indulgence in the author's tasks, but most of us weed out those examples of purple prose and kill our darlings to a reasonable degree. (I wrote about this in a recent blog post.) But how are we as a society, as a civilization, as the keepers of literary culture supposed to go on without some maintenance of the standard, any standard, which assures our performance on the page is welcomed and ultimately appreciated?

New things always come and then, for better or worse, always go. Ebooks then self-publishing then whatever is next occupy our attention, but the imagination, the construction of texts never ends.

Sorry for all the literary criticism jabs. I was considering my readers when I decided to make short paragraphs and add blank lines between them to make the reading easier. 

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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.