Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Faulkner– Ipse dixit

The writer’s only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is worth any number of old ladies.

An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn’t know why they choose him and he’s usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.

My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.

Writing is - Ninety-nine percent talent . . . ninety-nine percent discipline . . . ninety-nine percent work. ”

I guess you can’t do better than that.

This is part of an interview that took place in New York City, early in 1956.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Love 'em or hate 'em

Publishers get a lot of bad press – from writers, but where would we be without them?

Self Publishing

Way back when, when I was younger and even more foolish, I tried self-publishing – it seemed like a good idea at the time and the road to riches. I mean, the writing part was relatively easy, so how hard could selling be?

Don’t do it! Don’t touch it unless you have nothing else to do but promote your books and cold call every bookstore and chain from coast to coast. And even if you do sell them, there’s no guarantee you won’t get most of them back. You see there are damnable things called “returns”, which means if the bookstore doesn’t sell your babies in a reasonable period of time – reasonable to them, that is – they’re going to send them back and you’re going to write them a cheque, and your garage will be full of books no one wants.

There are vanity publishers out there, hundreds of them...most are honest and some who just want your money. But nevertheless, take my advice and go the regular route: find an agent, or find a commercial publisher; that way you can put your car in the garage overnight.

Take heed! Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) knew all about it back in his day when he wrote. “There are men who will make you books and turn ‘em loose into the world with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.”

Publishers, God bless 'em

Now Barabbas was a publisher.” (Thomas Campbell 1777-1844), and often wrongly attributed to Lord Byron. Which probably explains why he ended up where he did – Barabbas, not Byron.
But that’s beside the point. According to “Notes and Queries” there was a famous incident when Napoleon ordered the execution of Johann Palm, a German publisher who had been printing subversive pamphlets. Later, at an authors’ dinner, Campbell gave the toast, “To Napoleon!” Consternation reigned. Campbell went on, “I agree with you that Napoleon is a tyrant, a monster, the sworn foe of our nation. But, gentlemen – he once shot a publisher!”

Word Power

Every agent and editor has the power to reject your writing. But only you have the power to be, or not to be a writer.

Dementia Novella

Dementia Novella: The symptoms are a wholly irrational urge to get into print; so says the literary agent Frensic in Tom Sharpe’s “The Great Pursuit”. If that was true in 1977 when the book was published, how the disease has spread. It has assumed plague proportions that threaten the survival of the dedicated writer of fiction who might actually have produced something worth reading. No longer can you approach an agent or publisher with some expectation of at the least getting a hearing and a promise to read your offering: more likely you’ll get a polite form reply wishing you better luck elsewhere, or else be ignored.

I don’t blame the agents or publishers. I blame the disease that can be contracted by touching a PC or Mac with a word processor installed. Unfortunately, unless there is a massive worldwide power failure and writers are forced back to the dark ages of manual typewriters, I see no cure. The literary world is doomed to the continuing spread of this dementia.