Take My Advice: Don't.

And a bunch of other stuff from my glamourous author life.

• I have no plans to see The Odyssey. I guess I’m not a huge Nolan fan (although I love The Prestige). But I did see The Return with Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus, and I liked that quite a lot. Why? Maybe because it’s a smaller, less “epic” story about an epic.

  

• I see all types of writing advice on Substack. Most of it either repeats or contradicts what everyone else is saying. There’s so much advice I wonder why we’re not all bestselling writers already (or award-winning literary snobs. Did I mention I won the Uncharted Novel Excerpt Award last year? No?). And there’s that other thing where writers love to read all the writing advice everyone else gives and then comment on how much they agree or disagree with it. Sounds like a dull party to me. Carry on.

• Do I give writing advice? Oh yeah, often. In fact, nearly every day. It’s just that I do it at my job for my students, which I get paid for. And most of my undergrad students haven’t heard any of this before, so they get to ignore it for the very first time! I kid, really. But that’s why I don’t try to give out writing advice here. I already do enough of it all the time, and it feels like there’s nothing new under the sun.

• I’d much rather talk about my experiences in the business, which can also be painfully boring to other writers, who like to fuss about what a writer should and shouldn’t say about agents and Big Five (Four?) publishing, and who, unsurprisingly, also have lots of advice on how to get an agent who can then get you a Big Five-ish publishing deal. This is all, to me, a slightly less dull party because I have receipts I can show the partiers which will bring down the mood of the party to “ugh” while I remain thoroughly amused.

• Anyway, my advice to writers is to read good books (not “great” books. I mean obviously we have all read “great” books but trying to use those to help a person write is like telling people George Washington’s Presidential leadership style will be very helpful after you win the school board election) and read a few advice books but not too many because there comes a point of diminishing returns. I prefer Rick Demarinis’ Art and Craft of the Short Story, several chapters of John Gardner’s Art of Fiction before he goes on and on about those “great books” I mentioned, and James Wood’s How Fiction Works. Also, if you write fantasy, try to avoid making it sound “olde fashioned” while also avoiding contemporary quirks and cadence.

• Also, if you write fantasy, there’s enough of it. You can stop now.

• And drink better tequila.

• Onwards: I was waitlisted by the Rain Taxi Twin Cities Book Fair coming this November, so I now have no idea if that’ll happen or not. If not, then I’ll need to find another event so I can spread my work far and wide. Maybe as far as Mankato.

• I have realized the tipping point that will eventually push me off the ledge of small presses into self-publishing my own books, and that is lack of communication. I mean, I know the small presses are busy, overwhelmed, and fighting against apathy and bad business practices, but if you agreed to take on my books, don’t make it an extra chore to get in touch with you when there’s a need. I’m not going to constantly bombard you with questions or pitches or whatnot. But the three or four times a year I need to talk to you about something, how about we do that?

• Really, that’s going to be the thing. I’ve always been fine with the low infrequent royalties, the lack of distribution, and lack of advertising and other promo. Understood. But hey, let’s have a chat now and then. If not, well, I might as well be having those conversations with myself (and artists/editors I hire to help me).

• Over 20K on Shitkicker, and adding some words to No Bear now and then. I’m also about to get started on the script for the next zine, which will be somewhat like the America’s Worst Nightmare Lafitte re-cap, but for Slow Bear.

• I still have zines if you want them. What I don’t have is your address to mail them to you. Join the “1000 True Fans” Mailing List, named so because I’d like to build a list of that many readers who will buy every book I write, and who will receive my gratitude in the form of freebies like the zines, bookmarks, or other stuff we haven’t dreamed up yet. Right now there are 30 of you, and that’s grown tremendously over the past two weeks. Eventually, maybe when I get to 50, I might ask for something like 2.99 a month to help with postage and buying envelopes, but the stuff itself will be free!

• Alright, I’ve got writing to do, a bike to ride, tequila to drink, and a deck with a grill on it. A month and a day until classes start. Neildysseus has a quest to complete!