Writing

Posts about writing.

How do I know I’m close to being nearly famous? Because the Internet says so (and the Internet never lies).

/ Scott Nagele / 2 Comments

A funny thing happened while I was Googling myself. What, you don’t Google yourself? Whatever. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I keep track of myself online, because well, really, who else is going to do it?

Anyway, the results were pretty standard stuff: links to my blogs, links to my books on Amazon, the web site that will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about me (or a guy with a very similar name) for a small fee, and a link to my senior picture in the 1985 St. Johnsville Central High Yearbook.

If he had only known about Wikipedia back then, he would have dressed for success.

If he had only known about Wikipedia back then, he would have dressed for success.

There was a link to Berkeley Fiction Review (BFR). They published one of my stories about 10 years ago, so that made sense.

Then there was a link to the BFR Wikipedia page. Why, I wondered, would a search of my name bring up BFR on Wikipedia? I clicked it.

I scanned the page of information about the whys and wherefores of Berkeley Fiction Review. There, in the middle of the page, was my name, listed with about 40 others under the heading, “Notable contributors.” I am on the same list as Charles Bukowski. I confess, I don’t recognize most of the other names on the list, but they must be of some minor renown, as the majority of them have links to their own Wikipedia pages.

I don’t have my own Wikipedia page, but at the rate I’m going, I figure if I keep Googling myself, one will eventually show up for my troubles. And then I’ll be “big time.”

Who knew old Issue 27 would supply a notable contributor to ranks?

Who knew old Number 27 would supply a notable contributor to ranks?

I understand users are allowed to edit Wikipedia entries, but I promise I had nothing to do with putting my name down as a notable contributor. For one thing, I’d be too afraid of crashing the entire Wikipedia empire to attempt making  an edit.

Worse, what if they had a way to trace it and found out I was the one who put my own name on a list of nearly famous writers? That’d be awkward.

I don’t know how I got on the list of “Notable contributors,” but I sure am tickled to be there. I thought about adding a signature line to emails I send that says: “Scott Nagele, Notable contributor,” but then a wave of humility (perhaps it was envy) swept over me. After all, I was one of the minority whose name showed in plain, black font, not one of the specials in the inviting, blue, “link to my personal Wikipedia page” font. My static, disconnected name leads nowhere.

Still, among the many hundreds of BFR contributors over the years who are not notable enough to merit their own Wikipedia entries, I must be among the 20 most notable.  Either that, or somebody just picked a few random names from a past issue in order to fill the holes in the list of blue-fonters. Either way, I’m mentioned on Wikipedia. So how ‘bout them apples?

 

You don’t have to rewrite the good parts

/ Scott Nagele / 6 Comments

My wife is my initial beta reader. Like me, and in a strange coincidence, she also has three young children. Together with her many jobs and responsibilities, these children make it as difficult for her to find time to read as they make it for me to find time to write – probably more so. Consequently, I must be patient and find something else to work on while awaiting the initial feedback on the latest work.

Lacking a suitable idea for a new project, I am left with the daunting notion of revisiting some old projects. I have four unpublished novels in completed draft form. That is to say there are four that come to mind; there may be others my subconscious finds too painful to contemplate.

Of the four, one can probably be fixed to meet my standards for publication. Another might have potential, but needs serious structural work. The other two are long shots. All four need lots of attention.

It’s difficult to get motivated to do the amount of rewriting that even the best of them would require. Rewriting doesn’t touch the good and the fun parts very much. The peaks are fine; it’s the dark, grimy, stinky valleys that beg rewrites. Your brain gets dirty and sweaty at the very bottom of the pit.

I know I eventually have to put on my overalls and get down into the dirt of the salvageable novel, but I’ll still find excuses to put it off. As for the others, I may just save those for when I’m famous, and also dead.

The After I’m Dead (AID) novels will be my last embarrassing legacy. My money-grubbing great-grandchildren will bring them to light for a quick payday. People will shake their heads at the poor quality, but do so quietly out of respect for the departed. Since I will be famous (play along with me) and also dead (couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy), morbid curiosity will turn these into my best-selling books.

-"And now, sweet grandchildren, you must promise that you will never bring this sub-par manuscript to light." -"We won't. We swear on our grandfather's grave."

-“And now, sweet grandchildren, you must promise that you will never bring this sub-par manuscript to light.”
-“We won’t. We swear on our grandfather’s grave.”

My great-grandchildren will buy 10,000 square-foot homes in Malibu and I’ll roll over in my 12 square-foot grave.

Perhaps I should really get to work on rewriting the AID novels after all. I like to keep still when I’m sleeping.

I guess I should start with the salvageable novel first, because nobody gets to live in Malibu if I don’t get famous before I croak. On the other hand, I don’t want to live in Malibu and, at this rate, my great-grandchildren don’t deserve to.

So maybe I’ll just keep procrastinating. Maybe I’ll even write some more meandering blog posts as an excuse to avoid the hard work waiting for me.

Maybe I’ll spend the time with my kids, teaching them lessens they can pass on to their children and grandchildren about how not to be mooching, greedy bastards.

Who knows what I’ll do. At any rate, I most likely won’t become famous.

That’ll teach ‘em.

It depends on your definition of Horror

/ Scott Nagele / 4 Comments

I haven’t written about my Work In Progress in a while. And since I’ve got some time to kill while I wait for my last book to become a Best Seller, this might be a good time for an update.

My WIP is a collection of three novellas. It’s probably more accurate to call them two novelettes and a novella, but that takes more words to say, and who’s counting anyway? The genre is horror, kind of. It’s more psychological horror than anything revolving around chain saws and slack-jawed yokels. There’s really not much bloodshed in it at all, which is why I put the “kind of” after horror. I might call the novellas psychological thrillers, except I always think of spies or mobsters when I think psychological thriller, and there are neither of those, so I’m back to horror, kind of.

Poe. Not really his style of horror story.

Not really Poe’s style of horror story.

Then again, genre confusion is nothing new for me.

Whatever they are, I’ve finished the first drafts of all of them.

Yay!

Okay, party’s over; let’s get serious.

I had my first chance to read through them.

The two shorter pieces are entertaining, I think. They are not earth-shattering additions to the genre, whichever genre they happen to be, but I can see readers enjoying them as quick reads.

Definitely not Lovecraft's kind of horror.

Definitely not Lovecraft’s kind of horror story.

When it comes to the longer story, the feature presentation, if you will, I feel as if I’ve provided myself with good news and bad news. The good news is there are parts I think are quite good. The bad news is good parts are not enough to make a good story.

It’s not that the story is bad. It’s not, but as is, it’s not good enough.

What’s wrong with it? Well, for one thing, it’s probably too confusing. Confusing your readers is never good, unless you are an established post-modernist or something like that. In that case, confusing everyone just makes you a greater genius.

But I am neither a post-modernist nor a genius. At best, I am an adventuresome writer, playing with supernatural subject matter for the first time, and I may have gotten the Play-Doh colors all mixed up.

More in line with du Maurier's type of horror . . . but not really.

More in line with du Maurier’s type of horror story . . . but not really.

The fun thing in writing about unknown forces is that you get to make your own rules for what’s possible. Nothing is bound by the laws of physics we know. The trouble can be in remembering your new rules and applying them consistently. Plus, you’ve got to let the reader know the rules; they can be difficult to convey, without explicitly explaining them, when they are counter-intuitive to commonly known laws of nature.

Can this book be saved? I don’t know. I may be going too hard on myself, or too easy. I’ll have to get a second opinion, and then a few more after that.

All I know for sure is that I won’t even consider publishing it until I’m confident it’s a good quality, entertaining book, all the way through. How I get there from here will be my own horror story.

Why I stopped submitting short fiction to literary journals

/ Scott Nagele / 8 Comments

When I first got serious about sending short fiction to literary magazines, I didn’t realize the difference between getting a story accepted and actually having the story published. Those were callow days.

Before electronic submissions, you printed a copy of your story for each prospective journal. Each copy needed a cover letter. You had to remember to change the journal name on each letter and put the right letter into the right envelope if you didn’t want to embarrass yourself.

Each mailing contained a stamped, self-addressed envelope (SASE) for the reply letter. You carted off your stack to the post office. If you were productive, the trip could be expensive.

It felt good to get a bundle of stories out. That feeling faded as the waiting game began. Still, walking to the mailbox every day held a little extra drama. There was always a journal that responded quickly, with words that meant: we didn’t bother to read your story; nonetheless, we’re sure we didn’t like it.

Over time, the rejections trickled in. They were terse, rarely requiring a full sheet of paper. Some editors scribbled a note in the margin to make it seem more personal, but rejection was rejection. NO was enough.

I began expecting all SASEs in my mailbox to contain rejections. One day I was opening a rejection when the strangest thing happened: I couldn’t find the word NO. The letter said Yes, as in, Yes, we would like to publish your story. It wasn’t a famous magazine, but few literary journals are. I put the letter on the refrigerator to show the world (or the part of it that passed through my kitchen) my success.

I knew it would take several months for the publication of the story, but it would be worth the wait.

I waited, and waited, and waited.

After several months, I emailed the editor. I got no reply.

I sent emails to everyone associated with the journal. Finally, someone replied. The magazine didn’t exist anymore. The non-profit publisher ran out of money. They wouldn’t be publishing my story, no longer having a vehicle for publishing stories.

This disappointment was superseded by other events . I got another story accepted and published by the first journal to which I sent it. They worked quickly and did an excellent job with the presentation.

Then I got a story accepted by the journal of a well-respected university – a name everybody would recognize. The story was published in a timely manner, but the presentation made me hesitant to hand out copies to everyone I knew.

They’d requested an electronic copy. When they converted it to a different format, some punctuation appeared as random symbols. They didn’t catch this, and it was printed with the odd symbols.

Soon after, a story was accepted by another university journal. It wasn’t a big name, but I was still happy to celebrate any success. That story has never been published. It never will be. I can’t tell what happened to that journal. It just sort of disappeared.

I don’t submit to journals anymore. Not because of the uncertainty or the disappointment. I stopped because of the modern ease of self-publishing. In 2011, I gathered my best short fiction: stories published in literary journals; stories accepted but never published; stories never accepted; and stories never submitted. I put them together and self-published the book: A Smile Through a Tear.

The roller coaster ride of journal submission eventually led to this.

The roller coaster ride of journal submission eventually led to this.

It was a great experience. I controlled the content, the timeline, and the appearance. It’s a modest endeavor, but it’s all mine. I hope to add many more books to my little self-publishing catalog. But if my projects fail, at least I won’t have to wait months for somebody to tell me about it.