If I had a dime for every character I’ve left stranded and underdeveloped in some story I started writing but later abandoned, I’d have enough money to make a good living as a writer.
It’s an awful feeling to bring someone into the world only to leave them high and dry in the middle of a wayward plot. Just ask Michael Lohan. Thank goodness we authors aren’t required to pay “character support” to all the fictional folks we create and end up dumping on the side of an unfinished manuscript. Otherwise, I’d be dead broke. Or a deadbeat.
A couple of years ago, I started writing a novel about an author whose unfinished fictional characters come to life to seek revenge on him, but, ironically, I ended up abandoning that story to write an entirely different one (my latest novel, The Exit Man). In other words, I abandoned several already-abandoned characters. Who DOES that? What kind of monster AM I?
The worst thing about abandoning fictional people is that, unlike in real life, the abandoned person can never move on. They’re just stuck in whatever locale and situation you left them in, for all eternity, with no hope for any personal growth or success or iPhone upgrades.
I can no longer live with the guilt. I’d like to offer a sincere apology to any and all characters I’ve ever created and left behind to rot in literary oblivion – even those who’ve existed only briefly in my head:
Dear abandoned characters,
I’m so sorry for what I've done to you. I had no right. You did nothing to deserve such a fate.
It’s not you, it’s me. I don’t always know what I’m looking for in a story or a character. Still, that’s no excuse for creating you and leading you on. If it makes you feel any better, I often end up killing off many of my characters in the books I DO finish writing, so at least you avoided that.
Maybe you’ll meet another writer who can give you a future or at least some sense of closure, though I highly doubt it, as I never share my unfinished manuscripts with anybody, and I don’t think my computer has ever been hacked by anyone besides the U.S. Government, and no one there knows how to write. I guess I could introduce you to some of my writer friends to see if there’s any interest, but let’s face it – nobody likes to be set up.
I know this hasn’t been easy on you. I abandoned many of you so early in the writing process, you don’t even know where you live or work, or who your parents are or if you have any siblings. Many of you don’t know what, if any, religion you follow or if you are gay or straight or what medications you may require. Some of you don’t even know your last name. And it’s all my fault. It’s no way for a writer to treat a fictional person. I know that, and I will never forgive myself for leaving you in such miserable limbo.
Most men spend the majority of their online time doing things like playing fantasy football and looking at porn. I spend the majority of mine researching how to quickly and discreetly murder people.
If you were to skim my recent Google search history, you’d find such entries as:
“cyanide poisoning”
“ricin poisoning”
“arsenic poising”
“easiest ways to kill”
“best murder methods”
“unconventional weapons”
“the CIA ‘heart attack’ gun”
While I quite enjoy conducting such research as a fiction writer, I’m also a little concerned that I’m afforded so much freedom to do so. I can’t help but think someone in the national security field isn’t doing their job. I mean, I’m not so well known a writer as to be given a free pass, carte blanche for gathering info on dark and deadly criminal pursuits. Stephen King, James Patterson, Stieg Larsson (if he were still alive), Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly – those writers should be allowed to bypass any and all red flags when conducting online research, but not little ol’ me.
It’s less likely I’m being given a pass and more likely my Google activity hasn’t even registered on any security agency's or investigative bureau's radar. But that’s even more concerning, as it leads me to assume there are plenty of other people getting away with similar disturbing Google searches for non-fictional purposes. I’m talking about people who intend on actually carrying out the same sort of sick and twisted stuff I merely intend on incorporating into a novel. There are a lot of really messed up people in this world, and the authorities need to realize some of those people aren’t even writers.
Just one call or letter or email to me from the FBI or the NSA (or even my local police department) voicing their concern over my recent Google searches would do a lot to put my mind at ease. Just one knock on my door from a special agent would make me feel safer and more secure. It would keep me from worrying about all the aspiring sadists and assassins and terrorists roaming free in our society with little or no intention of writing a book.
So come on, FBI and NSA, get with the program. Pay more attention to what I’m up to online – at least until I win a Pulitzer Prize or the PEN/Faulkner Award. Then perhaps you can let down your guard.
It’s generally assumed that writers are tortured souls, but the truth is most of us are just sensitive and self-obsessed babies. Struggling to complete and/or sell one’s books does not a tortured soul make. Nor does agonizing over which image to use for your latest blog post or how to get new “likes” on your Facebook author page.
The truth is, we writers today could use a little more torture. Many could use a lot more. Now, I’m not suggesting the general public go all Abu Ghraib on our asses and physically torment us every chance they get. I’m merely suggesting a little psychological and emotional warfare to wake us up and shake us out of our comfortable discomfort zone. A sort of, “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” approach. It might even rile us up enough to produce something better than 99% of the sh*t currently labeled a ‘best seller.’
And with that I give you 10 ways to do some much-needed damage to a writer’s psyche:
1) While reading their published novel in front of them, make a face and say, “Ooh, another typo” every now and again. It is said that Oscar Wilde died not of cerebral meningitis but rather of psychosis caused by a sadistic friend pointing out 11 egregious errors in the pages of The Importance of Being Earnest.
2)Tell them you have a friend whose debut book got accepted by the very first big literary agent he/she queried. The writer you tell this to will politely smile and say, “That’s really great.” And then blood will trickle down their chin, as typically occurs when one has bitten clean through their lower lip.
3)Insist that “irregardless” is a word. Just because Merriam Webster recognizes ‘irregardless’ as a “nonstandard” form of ‘regardless,’ use of it can cause a writer to suffer serious emotional distress and, often, the shutdown of major organs.
4)If the writer is your spouse/partner, tell them you’ll be withholding sex until they read 50 Shades of Gray from cover to cover. This is extremely torturous for a writer, as it forces them to choose between celibacy and destroying their soul.
5)Tell them you’re not buying their book because you’re waiting until it’s made into a movie. For enhanced results, be sure to add a nice, “I mean really, who actually reads anymore?”
6) Ask them, “Why can’t you write more like THIS?” while holding up a copy of one of the Twilight books. Before you do this, be sure you are wearing fire-retardant clothing to protect you from serious burns in the likely event the writer combusts.
7) Send them a fake rejection letter telling them you would have accepted their manuscript if only they had used a different font. “Close but no cigar” incidents are excruciating for writers. Just ask John Kennedy Toole, whose novel A Confederacy of Dunces was rejected by a major publisher in the final stages of publication consideration in 1966. Sadly, this contributed largely to Toole’s suicide a couple of years later. The good news is the award-winning novel was eventually published in 1980; the bad news is Toole was still dead and thus couldn’t celebrate or sign any copies.
8) Ask them to write a synopsis. For an author, writing a 300-page novel is a piece of cake; writing a formal and concise synopsis of that novel is painful and terrifying. Asking an author to try to condense their masterpiece into four or five pages yet still capture the full essence of each complex character and plot twist is crueler than waterboarding the author or making them use “irregardless” in a sentence.
9) Ask them to pay for dinner. Pretending to forget your purse or wallet when dining out with a writer is one of the most sinister things you can do, considering their entire last royalty check went toward buying a new pen cap. To keep this form of torture from going too far, just before they hand the waiter their credit card – which is already maxed out on fees they owe their website designer, book publicist and psychiatrist – “find” your purse or wallet and pick up the bill. Then promptly perform CPR on your writer companion. 10) Walk into their writing space and talk to them while the prose is flowing. This is perhaps the most deadly of all the torture methods listed, only it is likely you who will end up dead, not the writer. When in the groove, writers deal with interruptions about as well as Oscar Pistorious deals with noises coming from the bathroom.
There are plenty of other ways to torture a writer, and I encourage you to explore… irregardless of how other writers may feel about this.
Mind-altering substances needn’t always come in the form of a pill, plant, capsule, tab or tincture. Sometimes they come in the form of a book.
We’ve all read novels that have transformed us, creating a prodigious shift in our perspective, mindset or mood – even if only temporarily. Getting high on literature is not only more natural and organic than getting high on drugs, it doesn’t require you to deal with any dangerous or shady suppliers to get your fix… unless you buy your books on Amazon.
At the risk of sounding like a librarian making a public service announcement, the next time you feel the urge to pop an upper or a downer, or to trip or roll, consider reading a strategically chosen novel instead. Below is a list of some of the most popular types of drugs and medications – each followed by three books that will help you experience the same or similar effect as you would with the substance in question.
Drug type: Antidepressants Intended effect: To help one feel like life isn’t as cold and hopeless and alienating and miserable as it is. Books to try: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Little Prince, Oh The Places You’ll Go
Drug type(s): Amphetamines (as well as cocaine) Intended effect: To make one feel highly exhilarated and invincible yet still functional enough to pass the bar exam. Books to try: Fight Club, A Clockwork Orange, American Psycho
Drug type: Painkillers Intended effect: To create a feeling of euphoric numbness and detachment, as if floating just outside of one’s own body or onto the stage to dance your shift at a strip club. Books to try: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Trainspotting, Trout Fishing in America
Drug type: Hallucinogens Intended effect: To make one’s mind laugh in one’s face and remove the blinders installed by one’s mother and the government. Books to try: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Gravity’s Rainbow, Cloud Atlas
Drug type: Sleep aides Intended effect: To help one to, as Samuel L. Jackson would say, “Go the f*ck to sleep.” Books to try: Middlemarch, Remembrance of Things Past, Pilgrim’s Progress
Drug type: Erectile dysfunction drugs Intended effect: To enable men to enjoy themselves immensely just before having a heart attack. Books to try: Delta of Venus, Tropic of Cancer, Vox Drug type: Laxatives Intended effect: To help one lose one’s sh*t. Books to try: The Haunting of Hill House, The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby
Of course, this isn’t even close to an exhaustive list. Surely there are some books you’d like to add to one or more of the categories mentioned above. Feel free to do so in the “Comments” section below. Then go get high on lit.
Oh, and speaking of books, I’m honored to announce that my latest one – THE EXIT MAN – was just nominated as one of seven finalists for Underground Book Review’s ‘Best Book of 2014’ award. If you’d like to vote for me/Exit Man, you can do so via UBR’s Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Underground-Book-Reviews/207947205943383?ref=tn_tnmn
Citing famous quotes is one of the best ways to appear witty, sophisticated and eloquent while simultaneously helping you fill the space of a blog post without having to do very much work. As an added bonus, most people love to hear/read famous quotes, so everybody wins.
Below are my all-time 25 favorite quotes about writing – from writers who are renowned not only for their craft but also for not having to rely on the quotes of others to appear witty, sophisticated and eloquent:
1) “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” –W. Somerset Maugham
2) “Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.” –William S. Burroughs
3) “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” –Ernest Hemingway
4) “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” –George Orwell
5) “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” –Muriel Rukeyser
6) “I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.” –Roald Dahl
7) “The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.” –Robert Benchley
8) “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” –Harper Lee 9) "Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers." –T.S. Eliot
10) “Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.” –Robert A. Heinlein
11) “I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind.” –Patrick Dennis
12) “Get your facts first then you may distort them as you please.” –Mark Twain
13) “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” –Mark Twain
14) “The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.” –Andre Gide
15) “Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” –Annie Dillard
16) “I almost always urge people to write in the first person. …Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.” –William Zinsser
17) “Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.” –Ray Bradbury
18) “You don’t have to say everything to say something.” –Beth Moore
19) “Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté." –Margaret Atwood
20) “Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite – getting something down.” –Julia Cameron
21) “Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.” –Virginia Woolf
22) “Good human beings save the world so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal. If you read this after I am dead, it means I made it.” –Charles Bukowski
23) “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.” –Elmore Leonard
24) “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” –Madeleine L'Engle
25) “A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity." –Franz Kafka
Now it’s YOUR turn to seem witty, sophisticated and eloquent. What are some of your favorite quotes about writing, or about books/literature in general? Feel free to share them in the ‘Comments’ section below. (If you can’t think of any brilliant quotes, you are welcome to cite something I said in one of my previous blog posts.)