Filed under: Writers, controversy, Stephen King, Stephenie Meyer
07/02/2010 • 9:09 AM 0
Three Tips on How Writers Build Platforms
You need a platform, preferably a big one. You need a website that’s all about the magic that is you and what you have to sell. (Hint: that’s the same thing. You sell yourself first and all your products are secondary. If they don’t like you, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling.)
1. Be nice. (And if you can’t be that, go work on that. It is possible to succeed without being a decent human being, but I’m not going to be the prick that encourages that sort of nonsense.)
2. Your Facebook page is not the center of your empire. Social Media is a moving landscape. Facebook might not be there five years from now. You scoff, but people who poured their hearts in their Friendster and MySpace pages are scowling about it now. Your website is the center of your empire-to-be.
3. Have Oprah owe you her life, be a world-famous expert on the next hot thing, be a reformed-junkie celebrity or be born to famous abusive parents. If you can’t manage these things, you’ll have to grow your following the old-fashioned way: provide value and help people with their problems.
There’s plenty more to say on this subject. Read it in Christina Katz’s Get Known Before the Book Deal and read How to Become a Famous Author Before You’re Dead by Ariel Gore.
Filed under: Books, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, web reviews, Writers, Books for Writers, How Writers Build Platforms, Writers and marketing, Writers and promotion
06/20/2010 • 7:53 PM 0
John Irving on Novels
Filed under: Writers, writing tips, John Irving, On Writing
06/19/2010 • 12:10 AM 2
Stephen King On Writing
Horror doesn’t just describe a genre, but what the reader is supposed to feel. I took in a short gasp of horror when I read a sidebar in The Writer which blithely informed us that we’d learn more from Danse Macabre than we’d glean from Stephen King On Writing.
Everybody’s entitled to their wrong opinion but the casual dismissal of On Writing took me aback for the simple reason that Danse Macabre is broad and descriptive of the genre, but On Writing is prescriptive, beating the adverbs out of you and even giving a solid example (if not a template) for approaching agents etc.,…. I’ve read and reread On Writing and it bears reading and rereading. It’s useful in its instruction and lyrical in biography (though for no reason I can understand King denies it’s a biography.)
Lots of people–okay, I’ll say it, English Majors–have discounted King in the past, and too easily. They forget that not only has he been one of the most successful writers on the planet, he used to teach writing, too. If you are a writer, you must own this book.
Filed under: book reviews, Writers, writing tips, book review, On Writing, Stephen King
06/18/2010 • 12:04 PM 0
cHUCK pAHLANIUK: Relax!
A lot of authors come and go or are trapped in the midlist and never break out, soon to be dumped by their publishers and agents after having their hopes briefly elevated. Others soar briefly, but the brand doesn’t catch on and now industry insiders wink at each other, telling each other the has-been was a flavor of the month. (These same editors, agents and publishers were certain they’d discovered the next Philip Roth not long before.)
Jay McInerney, for instance, wrote three really good books I loved: Ransom, Story of My Life and Bright Lights, Big City (which was made into a very good movie starring Michael J. Fox.) I tried to read the author’s next work but I felt he was suddenly trying to write as if he was an English author from a previous century. His solid stuff exhibited a sharp post-modernist wit but somewhere between his experimental popular fiction and what he wrote afterward, he wandered off. He’s still a successful guy and writes about wine and has made it big in the magazine world. However, he’s unknown to a new generation of readers and so, has become a bit of a footnote. In the 80s, you had to read him. Now? Really optional. He’s got a new book out, so maybe he’s working on a comeback.
Which brings us to: In a recent interview Chuck Pahlaniuk said he still didn’t feel like a success. (Wha–?)
I have proof he is a great success. Of course he wrote Fight Club (and a great movie was made of the book which is so close to the book they lifted almost all the dialogue.) Choke was made into a movie. He’s written quite a few books now actually: Lullaby (liked it), Diary (loved it), Survivor (liked it), Rant (not for me), Snuff (okay), Haunted (okay) Invisible Monsters (not for me) and Stranger the Fiction (really solid and readable.) He could stop there and have about as much output in numbers of books as Kurt Vonnegut had. Nothing to sneeze at.
BUT HERE’S THE PROOF PAHLANIUK IS A SUCCESS:
In a review of Rant (which was laudatory, long and detailed) not once did the reviewer even mention Fight Club!
Chuck. You’ve made it into the pantheon.
Congratulations.
Filed under: book reviews, Books, Writers, books, chuck pahlaniuk, fight club
06/17/2010 • 10:08 PM 0
Dr. Phil Mistreats Wannabe Writer, Then Bathes in Cash & Cackles
Dr. Phil counselled some poor slob and his desperate wife since said slob was writing a book and refused to get a job and support the family. Of course Philacious told him to get off his duff and get a job. I was supposed to feel sorry for the wife and the family. Instead I thought “Wow. Way to stand up for the brand, Dr. Dreamkiller.” He’ll trudge back to work and maybe the book will die and maybe it won’t, but despite the doc’s assurances, the dude’s chances of publication just went down. You could see it in his eyes. The wannabe (as best-selling Phil so graciously labelled him) just didn’t have a lot more energy to spare. Your other job can feed your passion or suck the creative life out of you. Be careful what you choose.*
BONUS:
Phil made some fallacious comparison of fiction to non-fiction. He told the guy he needed to submit a proposal rather than a full manuscript. Not in fiction you ain’t! When submitting fiction, you must have the full manuscript polished and prepared. Proposals are for non-fiction only, no exceptions.
DOUBLE BONUS:
Dean Koontz’s wife went to work and gave him five years to make write. If he didn’t make it in five years, she reasoned, he wasn’t going to make it. He did make it, of course, and his books are a testimony not so much to his hacking talent as his persistence. If you have enough time and persistence, talent counts less than we’d like to think. Make the time to write.
*Yes, I’m saying, if necessary, divorce your wife, leave the kids in a ditch and run away. They’ll understand eventually that you did it for Art. Yeah. That’ll go over well.
Filed under: Writers, writing tips, Dr. Phil. time to write, writers
06/15/2010 • 7:06 PM 0
On Truman Capote Love and A-Team Hate
Truman Capote once said of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, “That’s not writing! That’s typing!” Yeah, he was a real bitch sometimes. However:
1. I admire In Cold Blood very much,
2. found his biography tragic yet inspiring,
3. loved both the Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Toby Young movies
4. and yearn for the good old days when a flamboyantly gay and genuinely wild character could be high on a nationally syndicated talk show and make Dick Cavett squirm.
They don’t build literary figures like Truman Capote anymore.
BONUS:
As Hannibal said, “I love it when a plan comes together.”* **
*If you catch the old reference, your childhood was wasted, too.
**If you catch the new reference, you’ve recently wasted a couple of hours at the movie theater.
Filed under: Writers, A-Team, Truman Capote, writers
06/15/2010 • 12:23 PM 0
Best Spin City joke ever!
Mike, upon learning somebody’s dating a writer:
“A writer? A writer is just an actor who’s too lazy to wait tables!”
Filed under: Uncategorized, Writers
06/15/2010 • 12:54 AM 0
Writing Tip: Can you say it?
I just finished listening to a CBC Radio interview with Clive James. He’s one of those fascinating writers who also speak in complete sentences and paragraphs, off the top of his head as if from a prepared text that’s informative, entertaining and engaging. He’s led a wonderful life and he’s been paying attention, it seems, to everything.
He said something that will stick with me: “Sayability.” In everything he writes, one of his tests for whether it’s worthy is whether he can say it, perform it, speak it to an audience and be easily understood.
Nice. It’s a solid standard and makes me want to check out his book Cultural Amnesia.
I can say that.
Filed under: Writers, writing tips, Clive James, writing tip
C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m 
