My Guest: Seumas Gallacher

Today I kick off an occasional series of posts written by fellow writers.

Who better to launch this new venture than friend

Seumas Gallacher

Seumas and I share three things in common: We are both long-term Ex-Pats, we both write thrillers, and we both wear skirts! But enough said about that! Without further ado, I leave you in the capable hands of Seumas:

…throwing a spammer in the works…(or, letting it all hang out there…) 

My pal and fellow scribbler, Eric Gates, him what’s let me loose on his virtual space without so much as an Interpol disclaimer or an Alsatian dog-handler present, has asked me to give some insight into life as an author in the Middle East, given that many of *us/we/us (*delete whichever you can’t grammatically handle) professional expatriate souls ply our trade in similar far-flung foreign fiefdoms (try saying that six times swiftly with a dram or three aboard.) Specifically what, if any, restrictive impact there may be creating a marketing presence for our books.

Let’s bear in mind the motto ‘when in Rome do as the Romans do’. This applies to every part of our lives when we choose to live in someone else’s country (we are still guests, after all), so it shouldn’t be too difficult to understand that any material which would prove offensive in local terms should be avoided. Here in Abu Dhabi I presented each of my two crime thrillers to the National Media Council for pre-approval prior to publication. I found the process simple enough, and was pleasantly surprised by the courtesy and professionalism I met. Suffice to say that one small bedroom scene (three tiny paragraphs) had to be removed, altering my story line not one iota.

Then I was set to go.

What next then for the swashbuckling author-y pioneer?

I decided to invest a modest financial outlay as part of my business campaign of creating reader interest, in pretty much the same way that any of us might do in Weymouth, Peebles, or Swansea. I hired a hotel banquet area to formally launch my masterpieces (both at once---get me, Mama!) and invited anybody daft enough to accept my free wine, beer and finger foods. (Amazing how that little word ‘free’ does help). Having local magazine columnists at the ‘freebie’ was a given, and Hey Presto! print inches appear, bedecked with pictures of my kilted frame (Braveheart, eat your heart out!)

Next on the agenda was bugging the ears off the local large book distributors to carry the tomes (which I’ve had printed myself), letting them know that these two have attracted an aggregate of 40,000+ downloads on Kindle in the last year. Clincher! They smell money. They’re now smelling my books on their shelves. The first lot was delivered to them yesterday, courtesy of Master Gallacher’s Delivery Haulage Service. So, fingers and all other digits and pieces crossed, they’ll haunt the local best-seller charts in sharp course.

Short summary of all of the above is quite simple for me…if you wanna see your books out there, get yourself out there, do talks, guest speaking engagements, signings, push, push, push. It’s no longer appropriate for authors merely to write, If you’ve got it, flaunt it.

Seumas' crime thriller novels:

Amazon link

   Amazon link

UPDATE: Seumas has been named 'BLOGGER OF THE YEAR' - this is his first step to World Domination, of that I'm sure. Soon we will all have to wear skirts; not sure if I've got the legs for it! He's also published a collection of his fantastic blog posts, humourous and entertaining even if you are not a Blogger:

Amazon Link

When Seumas isn't writing great thrillers, he can also be found here:

Twitter: @seumasgallacher

Blog: seumasgallacher.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/seumasgallacher

Email: seumasgallacher@yahoo.com

See you next time.  Click for Interpol Disclaimer

Eric @ www.ericjgates.com

“I think I want to write fiction. What should I do now?”

This morning I woke with the idea this was going to be a normal, productive, writing day. I knew I wanted to add a couple of things to my website, and I had some non-writing stuff to get out of the way first, but my main idea was to sit down in front of my computer and write for ten or twelve hours. 

Well, things didn’t quite work out that way.

I did my non-scribbling things hastily, driven by the need to take up the current novel where I’d left it last night. Then I spent an hour on my web update. Then the day-changer happened.

I e-mail with fellow fiction writers and my own readers fairly frequently. I spend quite a bit of time responding to the latter group. Hell, if they have taken the time and made the effort to write to me, I should do the same. So I innocently opened my e-mail accounts and worked my way through. Halfway through the last account (my web’s Contact Eric feed) I came across this…

[WHOA! Don’t worry, YOU! I’m not going to reproduce the whole mail, only the subject line]

“I think I want to write fiction. What should I do now?” !!!!

(the exclamation marks are mine…here’s a few more !!!!....!!...!)

What the ….???!?

Suddenly, all dreams of writing my novel until my fingers bled were swept from my mind.

Hell’s Teeth!!! What an opportunity!!!!!

The poor misguided soul who had posed the question was playing with fire here!!!!!

(Sorry, the exclamation mark key now has a mind of its own!!!!!!!!!!!)

Here’s my answer, YOU. (This is going to be a loonnngggg post, but please bear with me – I hope it will be worth your persistence).

If you’re thinking about writing fiction, DON’T (write, I mean, not think.)

If you find yourself unable to sleep at night because you are mentally writing huge chunks of exciting prose; miss your stop because you’ve concentrated on solving a plot point; tuned-out in a meeting because you’ve just had a breakthrough about how to put an incredible twist into your narrative… if you are irritable with your loved ones; don’t return phone calls; have withdrawal symptoms when you’ve not written something that day… THEN, you’re ready! Not before.

Novels feed off passion – your passion. Your emotions pass through the words in a sort of literary osmosis straight into the readers mind, stimulating images and excitement therein – or at least that’s how it should be. If you don’t experience the passion, stick to writing shopping lists... Please.

So what’s next?

There’s a humongous amount of books, blogs, courses, etc. out there telling you ‘all’ you want to know about writing. Some of it is glib and useless, usually written by ‘established’ authors who have forgotten the pain and sacrifice of their humble origins (How to win friends and influence people – chapter 47). Then there’s advice, often well thought-out and presented, from experienced writers with true altruistic motivation who want to help other aspiring writers. But, quite a bit of this is centred on the ‘old paradigm’ of ‘traditional’ publishing. While that doesn’t mean it isn’t relevant, it can be unintentionally misleading, and is often deliberately biased. Then there’s people who are passionate about this whole business, and sufficiently down-to-earth to take an objective approach. These are the most useful, in my opinion. I hope, when you reach the end of this massive missive, you’ll class me as one of the latter.

What would I suggest? I’ll try to make it as simple as I can. 

1. Write your novel! Just get it down on paper! Don’t bother about spelling, grammar and the rest of that stuff; concentrate on telling your tale. How? We’ll this in of itself is another mind-blowing question. My simple answer? Read at least 2 of James N. Frey’s books: Read the generic “How to Write a Damn Good Novel” (Amazon link: http://amzn.to/QdiDeF) and the nearest genre-specific one to what you want to write (‘How to write a Damn Good Thriller’ was and is one of the best investments I have ever made.) James has a no-nonsense style of explanation; his books are chock full of superb pragmatic advice. You can do no wrong here, bro.
2. Write until your fingers bleed. No, I don’t mean that literally, but writing isn’t something you do for ten minutes every other day, when it’s raining, and the dog isn’t clamouring for a walk.
3. Make constant (every ten minutes) saves of everything. When you get to the end of a chapter (or end of a day’s writing) make at least one copy on a thumb drive and keep it on your person – that way if your PC overheats (through writing so much) and sets your house on fire, you won’t lose months of work. That has happened to me, minus the resultant house fire, though.
4. Don’t discuss your story with anyone at this stage. That includes the wife/husband/lover/co-worker. The only exceptions? The dog (or cat). If you find yourself listening to their advice – for God’s sake, take a break!
5. Once you’ve written your tale, run it through your word processor’s spell-checker, with all the options turned on. Take your time over this; don’t blindly except the suggested corrections – think about them and learn.
6. Then run it through some self-editing software, such as Stylewriter (well worth the investment – link: www.stylewriter-usa.com). Again, make sure all the options are switched on; especially check that it is set on Fiction (you’re not writing term papers now!) and that the correct English set is selected (US, UK etc.) This will also take some time – probably days. It’s well worth it – again think before making ANY changes.
7. You should now have a decent First Draft. Good, but this is the start… Print it out, double spaced, single-sided (yes, on paper. Seriously) and switch off your computer. I said unplug it!
8. Go do something non-writing related for a couple of weeks. Snail-wrangling in the Peruvian mountains is a personal favourite.
9. Then, find a quiet room, away from your PC. Lock yourself in; no interruptions. Read your First Draft aloud – interpret the dialogue, live the words. Make changes, add stuff, cross out whole paragraphs/pages (painful, isn’t it?)… EVOLVE your work! You’ll pick up things that don’t work; dialogue that sounds stilted; tangent storylines that go nowhere; pacing that doesn’t do what you want (if you’re yawning, imagine the hell you’re putting your readers through) and a long etcetera. This is one of the best and most productive steps in writing a novel; believe me – do it once and you’ll convince yourself.
10. When you have finished reading the whole manuscript, not before, go back to your PC (it will have cooled down by then) and apply the changes. Don’t worry if you find yourself changing even more stuff as well – that’s just creative juices flowing.
11. Repeat steps 5) and 6). Now you’ll have a Second Draft.
12. Find some people and coerce, threaten, blackmail them into reading copies of your tale and providing you with DETAILED comments and suggestions. Tell them, in no uncertain terms, you will never speak to them again, babysit, walk their dog or whatever unless they give you a no-holds-barred critique. If what you’ve written is crap, they should say so – AND tell you why! Real friends will reveal themselves at this juncture in your life.
13.  Read through all their suggestions – apply those you think will improve your work. Don’t discuss what you are doing, even with the dog! (at this stage it's got its own agenda!)
14. Repeat steps 5) and 6) again. You’ll be seeing the text in your worst nightmares by now with stuff highlighted as infinite corrections dance before your eyes. Good. That’s progress.
15. Find a professional, experienced Editor, ideally with several books under their belts in the same genre as your own– this will give them a better feel for the market segment and how to tweak the text to home in on your potential readers. This is expensive; the good ones aren’t cheap. They usually charge by the word for a full line edit, so if you’ve written a 150,000-word epic or a five-volume fantasy you want to publish all at once, prepare yourself.
16. Apply the changes you feel warranted. Remember, editors will help you polish your prose, make it more efficient and acceptable to Joe Public, but they won’t have your passion for the tale.
17.  Repeat steps 5) and 6). Yeah, I know: by now you hate the book. Good. We are almost there.
18. Repeat steps 7), 8), 9), 10) and 11) – now you’ll have a Final Draft.
19. Now it’s decision time. How do you want to publish it? Basically if you want to get your work out to a paying public, you have three options:   a)   Self-publishing, or the Indie route, b) Traditional publishing, or the patience route or c ) which is a while waiting for b. If a) is your choice, then find a reputable, experienced platform (many of the good ones are free) that have tools to help you get covers designed, text formatted, etc. If it’s b) then Patience. Start sending out Query letters to Literary Agents. Patience. Send out more query letters. Patience. Try to find an agent that works in your genre. Patience. While waiting, do step 22). If it’s c, read on.
20. Decide how you want to market your book. You’ll need to do this irrespective of which route you took in the previous step. Check out the options. Note: it’s never too soon to market. I’m already writing about ‘the CULL’ and it’s not out for 2 months yet and ‘Leaving Shadows’ and that’s not out until May of next year! Generate some undercurrent today! “But hey, I chose route 2 – don’t the big publishing firms do your marketing?” you say. Simple answer; NO! Complex answer: NO, not with the passion you’ll put into it!
21. Take a blank sheet of paper. Write out your expectations for your novel (copies sold, royalties, anything else you want). When finished, burn that page! Take another sheet of paper, halve the previous figures, then halve them again. Lastly, halve them! That’s reality, babe! Any improvement on what you have now, is GOOD NEWS!
22. Write another book!!!!!!!!!!!! (damn, it’s happening again!!!!!) Here’s a super, secret, highly confidential marketing tip: Books sell books! (Don’t tell anyone!) Yeah, you’ve got it. You find a writer on Amazon; never heard of them (that’s you, now). One book to their name. Okay, you’ll give them a shot. Great read, want more, but… Take a look at the bestseller lists – most have multiple titles to their name. Plus, to become a better writer you need to write often. What’s your objective here? Simple: you want your readers to love you, not just [insert the title of your only novel]. Remember, people talk about Lee Child’s latest novel, not about another book by that guy who wrote whatsitsname. They call this Branding – personally I hate the phrase, but the idea is sound.
23.  One magic day the postman will deliver a parcel, or maybe you’ll log on to Amazon and download it to your e-reader. It will be YOUR NOVEL. There’s nothing like that feeling! You’ll only get it once, so savour it. Even when it’s book two, or three, it won’t be quite the same.
24. Another magic day will come. Again the postman with a letter this time, or maybe, if you’re lucky (yes, this is a friendly dig at my chums at Amazon KDP) it will be an EFT transfer. It is your first royalty payment! It won’t be much, but it’ll have an emotional value greater than Pure Gold!
25. Grab your loved ones (remember them,? You’ve been ignoring them for months now; they may not even be on speaking terms anymore; they may have even moved house.) Take them out for a celebration – blow the royalties cash that day –all of it! They deserve it – hey, and don’t forget your writing partner – the dog!
26.   Repeat 1-25. Welcome to the Writing Life!

More tips on my website!

      Eric @ www.ericjgates.com

What the **** is a Thriller, anyway?

SPOILER ALERT – In the following I do reveal a few secrets about my novels. Just a few. Not enough to spoil them for the reader. But if you want to be totally surprised by my tales, then please don’t read any more! STOP, NOW!

One of the most frustrating questions I am asked from time to time is ‘what kind of novels do you write?’

I normally stick to a nebulous ‘thrillers’ and hope the interrogator will settle for that. Alas often ‘what kind of thrillers?’ is the next thing I hear.

You would think it was an easy question to answer. I am, after all, the bloke who has spent months and months writing the beasts; surely I must know where they slot in in the general gamut of the thriller genre? Yet I do find that a complex issue to resolve.

Thrillers, as a genre, is really a collective description for a style of novel rather than a specific type. I like James N. Frey’s description, in his excellent book ‘How to write a Damn Good Thriller’. There he states that “writing a thriller is like riding a bobsled down Mount Everest. You can let your imagination run. You can make up wild and crazy characters and stuff them into woodchoppers. You can blow up cities. Lop heads off. Sink ships. Go to Mars. In the world of thriller writing, anything goes—as long as you thrill your audience.”

That description says it all. There are references to sci-fi, horror, dystopian, disaster and terrorist themes in that description. So why bother about sub-divisions. Isn’t it just about thrilling your audience as he states?

He goes on to quote the “American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language” which defines a thriller as fiction "that thrills, especially a sensational or suspenseful book, story, play, or movie." He makes references to pacing, to emotional rushes, to suspenseful sensations and to exhilaration-driven narrative. What he doesn’t say is that they are sci-fi, romance, horror, chick-lit, psychological, paranormal, YA, or any of the other popular categories.

Why’s that?

That’s an easy one to answer: because a thriller can be ANY of those. Thrillers are more about the way you write your tales than the kind of tales themselves. So we could have a Horror thriller and a Technological thriller side by side and although their story lines would be radically distinct, their essence, thrilling their audience, is the same. Yes, I have just compared Robert Bloch’s ‘Psycho’ with Tom Clancy’s ‘The Hunt for Red October’. Why not? They are both outstanding thrillers.

So back to the question ‘what kind of thrillers do I write?’

If pushed I will say something like ‘contemporary thrillers with a paranormal twist’. Sounds good, doesn’t it. 

Contemporary (present-day, dealing with 21^st Century issues) and paranormal (weird things that happen in our world). For me, that just about covers it. After all ‘2012’ deals with the End of the World brought on by a fanatical Spanish businessman with an imminent war between China and the United States over oil resources as a backdrop; ‘Full Disclosure’ is a covert Special Operations caper with drug trafficking overtones, set at a moment when the US President announces contact with extraterrestrials; ‘the CULL’ is about the tracking down of a serial killer, set in a world where real vampires exist, products of genetic mutations; and ‘Leaving Shadows’ involves the kidnapping of a high-level spy and weather warfare. 

So yes, contemporary and paranormal.

Although I usually end up giving that answer, I’m not happy about it. Why? Simple really. As we all know, the whole writing business is going through a complete shake-up and reorientation at the moment. E-books don’t just mean a new support for the reader but greater opportunities for the writer. My argument is that now is the time to break moulds, to try out stuff, to do something new. In short, to push the limits of preestablished labels.

So, you out there! Yes you! The writer! The one cowering behind the manuscript! Don’t follow the herd. Find your own path. Do something different. Werewolves and space monsters? Why not? Romantic spies? Go for it! Be original.

"Stick labels in your pipe, and smoke 'em!"

When I power up my PC, for a brief instant a few words flash onto the screen before Win-doze chimes in. These words are my favourite Einstein quotation: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” He also said “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

So to all of the aspiring thriller writers out there: ignore labels, go embrace the entire world! Let your readers put labels on what you write if they want to. If you’re lucky, they’ll call your novels “the books I love to read” rather than…

 Eric @ www.ericjgates.com

How to avoid the 50-page Burn-out.

I’ve spoken to hundreds of people over the course of the years, all of whom had one thing in common. OK, two – they were all frustrated and they all classed themselves as ‘aspiring’ writer. Why aspiring? I would ask. Those of you who read my occasional blogs know that my position on this is either you write or you don’t. I think it was the Bengali philosopher and poet Rabindranath Tagore who said “You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”

Palmeira, Galicia, Spain - a first step

Their confusion with my posture is that they confuse ‘aspiring writer’ with ‘published writer’ or ‘famous author’. Hey, wake up! While they’ve be lamenting their lack of writing success, the World has moved on. This is a different paradigm. Many of the ‘traditional’ obstacles in ‘Traditional Publishing’ have ‘traditioned’ themselves out of the game.

But wait; this is not yet another rant against the Old Way of publishing. No, today I want to provide you with a tip. Before I expound on this, remember my often-quoted martial art Master’s words: “use what is useful, throw away the rest.” So if what I’m going to tell you helps, then go for it; if not, then you’ve lost nothing by reading this blog other than a few minutes.

The above mentioned ‘aspirers’ usually have great ideas for a novel, sit down at their keyboards and peck away furiously as they race to force their creativity onto the page before the well runs dry. But then, about the 50-page mark usually, the tale they are writing just fizzles out.

Writers’ Block, they say! It happens to all of us, they say. But this isn’t writers’ block, my friends. It’s something far more insidious. I call it the 50-page Burn-out.

Hello, my name is Eric and I have always had the 50-page Burn-out.

What! you say. You write 90,000 word thrillers. That’s one hell of a lot more than 50 pages!

Yes, I respond, but I found the answer.

Over my strange and rather unconventional life I’ve done quite a lot of training in survival techniques and put much of it into practice. One basic technique for survival in any environment is that you need to have your priorities clear at all times. Is it shelter, fire, water, food etc.? But from a psychological standpoint you always need to have an objective! Always! And just getting through the day isn’t it. That gets you ‘aspiring’.

The objective is a medium to long-term goal that you need to make steps toward every single day, whilst you are ‘surviving’ (or writing). The survival tricks then have a context and a purpose.

Back to my ‘aspiring’ friends. How do I usually respond when they manifest their 50-day fizzle? I usually ask them one simple question: how does your tale end? I’m not looking for a generic answer either. I want to know if they could write the final chapter NOW. Okay, it will be a draft, and will almost certainly evolve, change, mutate as the preceding pages are produced. But that’s not the point. Are they just going to make a primitive home in the jungle, somewhere to stay until the water runs out and they die? Or… is the plan to find a way out of the dense vegetation, venomous snakes, crocodiles, wild pigs and whatever and back to ‘civilization’?

This is how I write my 90,000 word thrillers: I start at the end!

The King of Hearts in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is often referred to, by me, as the World’s first computer programmer. Why? Do you remember his advice to Alice when she was asked to testify in the trial scene? “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” While this may be great advice for a witness, and a computer programmer, it is useless for most writers: it will lead to the 50-page Burn-out as sure as Hatters are mad! (Note: the mad hatters are an historical fact – they used lead-based glue in the manufacture of their headwear and this resulted in poisoning which produced their occupational hazard – so if you’ve stuck with this blog up to here, you’ve learnt two new things! Don’t say I don’t give value for money!)

Alright, so you now have an ending. Should you now do a Cheshire Cat and start disappearing at the tail to end with just an incorporeal smile? My answer is yes and no.

Once I can write the ending, I figure out the beginning (forget the feline form in between for the moment). I write thrillers and I firmly believe these should start more with a bang than a whimper. They need to grab the attention of a potential reader whilst raising questions, creating intrigue and laying hooks so they will keep reading. That gives me the broad parameters for the start. The content must always have something to do with the main storyline; otherwise you are cheating your readers. Okay, it may not be evident initially – for the novel I’m working on now, ‘the CULL’, many who have read its opening chapters have commented that the first chapter is written using a style and tone that contrasts sharply with the following chapters, which are more fast-paced; it’s almost as if the first chapter came from a different book. Why did I do this? The opening chapter is about the main story line – exclusively. In the following chapters there are no other references to that story line because we shift to follow what happens to one of the protagonists, but not the one featured, albeit very briefly, at the start, and her first bloody encounter with the novel’s prime antagonist. (I should have yelled SPOILER WARNING – I’ve just given away one of the novel’s early secrets). I wanted to make the first chapter the ‘Intrigue’ chapter – Who the hell is this? What’s going on here? Who’s that under the bed and why? Plus, I couldn’t resist including a ‘Wink’ (my name for the hidden secrets in my novels) right on the first page this time. [What’s the Wink about? Sorry, you’ll have to wait to read the explanation on my web when the novel’s published. (More intrigue!).] To highlight this brief opening, it’s a little more than half a page on my word processor screen, I used a marked style/tone change so the reader won’t forget it. But if all you are reading is an extract, it does look strange, that I will admit. So, put yourself out of your misery and buy the novel when it’s published in December.

But the important issue is that I had the opening clear, shortly after having the way it’s all going to end equally defined.

Now you have a start and a finish. Filling in the middle depends on your genre, your story arcs, your tale structure, the message you want to convey. But the good news is, as though by magical artifice, the 50-page Burn-out problem has disappeared. You are no longer surviving from day to day but now you have a clear objective: write that last scene or a version of it, at least.

It’s a simple trick, as most good tips are. It works for me and has done so for many years. I’ve applied this trick not just to my fictional output, but to the innumerable presentations, seminars, articles etc. that I’ve written in the last thirty-five years.

So as Tagore says, don’t aspire to cross the sea, imagine what you’ll do on the other side and stick your foot firmly in the water!

More tips on my website.

Eric @ www.ericjgates.com

Hell, I'm a Writer! ...for all aspiring writers out there.

I’ve wanted to write fiction for as long as I can remember. I actually started over forty years ago with a novel (thankfully buried) and a couple of hundred short stories. Then life intervened and I found my writing oriented more towards technical papers and magazine/newspaper articles. No, my fictional aspirations were not completely abandoned – I started (note the word) well over a dozen novels, whose premature deaths after a hundred pages or so only served to make me even more frustrated. What was I doing wrong?

It took me a while to figure it out.

I certainly had the time.

My job kept me continually travelling, seemingly between international airports and sterile hotel rooms around the world, and this provided me with huge doses of ‘dead time’ that I could devote to writing. Yet it didn’t happen because usually I’d use the airport/flight time to prepare for meetings and the hotel time to crash and recharge batteries after 16 hour plus days and time-zone differences. What about the weekends, you may ask. Well, often I was returning from ‘somewhere on a different time-zone’ on Saturdays, and Sundays I was teaching free martial arts classes to a bunch of kids in the morning, leaving me only with the afternoon for family – with inevitable consequences.

I had the ideas.

Not only do I have an extremely fertile mind for generating storylines, I have also been formally trained in an inordinate number of sophisticated problem-solving techniques by some of the best – and still use many of these tricks to plot my novels today.

I had the motivation.

It’s in my blood; I can’t really describe it any other way. When I completed my new novel in 2006, it was like having discovered the Holy Grail – I felt liberated, soaring at dizzying heights only meant for eagles.

Yet, before then, I wasn’t writing.   

Why?

I realised much of the cause was subtle, insidious procrastination, also known as FEAR. I have always excelled at my job, being able to consistently come up with out-of-the-box solutions for my clients’ problems usually under considerable pressure, and at my martial arts, achieving fourteen high-grade black belts in different disciplines. Yet writing eluded me. Was it because I was afraid I wouldn’t make the grade?

Never one to back down before a challenge (and, boy, has this got me into trouble over the years!) I turned the problem on its head. Not, ‘why can’t I write?’, but ‘what’s stopping me from writing?’ 

At first glance, the same question, yet there’s a fine difference in the wording which programs the mind to answer differently.

I quickly realised that, really, the answer was… NOTHING!

Next step? Address my fears.

Not good enough? Then become better! How does a writer do this? There are only two ways: learn technique from others, and WRITE!

I live in a country where it seems you can only be considered an author if you write essays or dense, introspective ‘literary’ fiction (preferably about the Spanish Civil War). Screw ‘em! Ignore the critics – as I remarked to a friend recently, envy isn’t always green; it’s often black and white! I don’t care what they think, and labels have only ever served to slow down progress. I wanted to write to entertain! Nothing more. I wanted my novels to be chosen by people looking for a dose of evasion in airports and hotels while away on business, or lying on a beach somewhere when vacation time comes around. At a pinch, even for a long train journey! A simple-enough objective, but one I wanted to do well.

I have a life philosophy based upon three simple premises: one which I developed and use as a basis for my martial art lessons (learn the mechanics – internalise them [i.e. adapt them to yourself] – and forget them [they become you]); one which a martial arts GrandMaster told me: ‘use what is useful, and throw the rest away’; and finally: never go to bed without having learnt something new. These in turn are all tempered by ‘Don’t take yourself too seriously!’

So I applied this in earnest to my writing.

I didn’t try to write. No, that’s a BIG MISTAKE. Trying implies you are allowing for failure. 

Don’t try, just Write. Write for yourself not an imaginary following of millions of fans. I’ve had a very complex life, full of strange, even dangerous, always ‘interesting’, events which now fuel my tales. Writing about that stuff, even though it’s hidden behind a cloak of deliberate obfuscation, is FUN! Not only is it cheaper than a Psychiatrist, it makes me feel good every time I finish a writing session. I decided to get ‘hooked’ on that feeling -  a mixture of satisfaction and pride; of accomplishment and triumph over whatever obstacles the day presented.

My biggest discovery was that there is no such thing as an Aspiring Writer.

Either you are or you’re not a writer. It’s all in the (your) mind.

So, to those ‘aspiring’ writers out there, and anyone else who might be thinking about taking the plunge, I say the following:

Do it!

Do it TODAY!       

‘Aspiring’ ain’t going to get it done, bro!

                                                Have FUN, above all else!

The Chinese have a saying, half curse, half blessing: 'May you live in interesting times!'

These are 'Interesting Times!

Eric @ www.ericjgates.com

A Dream Realised

When CERN Director General Rolf Heuer announced last Wednesday morning “We have discovered a new particle; a boson; most probably a Higgs boson”, many people worldwide stifled a yawn. Yes it was yet another undecipherable scientific discovery that the layman could not appreciate.

Yet amongst the international audience a single figure was moved to tears.

Caught on the cameras of the global news agencies, this white-haired gentleman removed his glasses and wiped away the liquid evidence of unbound emotion. He was probably feeling a mixture of joy, sadness, validation and pride.

The joy is understandable; something he predicted in 1964, that subatomic particles gain mass by way of a then undiscovered field or particle, since called the Higgs Boson, has been proven. And what’s more, it’s been proven during his lifetime. Peter Ware Higgs is now 83, and the joy of July 4^th will remain with him for the rest of his life.

Sadness? Nobody but Higgs understands the sacrifices that have been made over the years as a result of his theory. These were personal and professional, all felt deeply by this physicist.

Validation? Science and scientists can be very closed-minded. If it can’t be repeated and measured, it doesn’t exist. This is a tenet that rules their lives. Some, however, dream. Even when bigger names in the Theoretical Physics world, such as Stephen Hawking, decried his theories, he stood by his guns. It cost him dearly in his personal life; professionally he was on the fringe.

Everything changed on Wednesday.

Paul Padley, a particle physicist at Rice University, said “the reason why we care about it, is if the Higgs boson doesn’t exist, then we have absolutely no physical understanding of why we exist. You can’t explain the universe.”

The confirmation of Peter Higgs theory has been likened to the discovery of DNA.  Yet in one fundamental aspect it isn’t. DNA was first isolated by the Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher in 1869, yet it was James D. Watson and Francis Crick who produced, in 1953, what is now accepted as the first correct double-helix model of DNA structure and received a Nobel Prize for their work.

Here we have a man, working against the dominant thought in his field; fighting to make his theories heard; clamouring against many voices raised in opposition; and above all, willing to forfeit a normal life to expand Humanity’s knowledge.

Peter Higgs is a proud man today and deservedly so.

Yet in his unassuming manner, he comments only the following: “It is an incredible thing that it has happened in my lifetime.”

How will this discovery change the way we live our lives? Only the immediate future will answer that. Yet one thing is certain; change there will be, and in ways we cannot imagine today.

For Peter Higgs, recognition should be the next step. A Knighthood; a Nobel Prize; public acclaim. Write to your MPs, the Nobel Committee, your newspapers; tweet and blog all you can. Although the acknowledgment of a Nobel pales in comparison to the cost in his personal life, let’s join forces to ensure his dream is rewarded.

"Don't be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so." - Belva Davis, journalist.




Eric @ www.ericjgates.com

Pride

No, I’m not going to write about a bunch of large felines – I just like big cats.

No, I’m going to address the other more important meaning of that word, unless you are a lion that is.

It’s one of those words that have lost their meaning.

Not in the same way that FaceWeb degraded the meaning of the word ‘Friend’ to such a degree, when it’s used in its original context, we have to add qualifying statements. (Curiously though, when we use it in the FaceWeb sense of an anonymous someone who clicked a button on an Internet page, no such clarifying comments are needed – what a sad World we’ve made!).

No. ‘Pride’, as a word, suffers from Bad Press.

Even more curiously, the bad-mouthing starts with the dictionary definition.

Take up any dictionary, electronic or paper. Look up ‘Pride’. You will encounter three basic definitions. The last, probably, unless it’s a dictionary written for big cats, will state its use for a gang of lions. It’s the other two that are interesting.

The first will be something like “something such as an achievement or possession that somebody feels especially pleased and satisfied with.” Nothing wrong with that, right? Pride is something everyone feels at some point in their life – such as when you finish writing your first novel, or father a child, or learn how to fly a plane. So it’s a good thing, a pleasant, if transient, experience. Hey, Life can’t be all black, white and greys.

Keep reading…

...“a haughty attitude shown by somebody who believes, often unjustifiably, that he or she is better than others”

What?

Yes, we’ve done it again – used a word in the English language that means both good and not so good aspects of a person. Worse! We’ve laid out the ground for ambiguity!

“Surely, any ambiguous use of this word is cleared up by the context in which it is used?” you might ask.

Unfortunately not.

“Pride goes before a fall!”

Whatever your beliefs, I’m sure you’ve heard that one. It’s in the Bible, they’ll tell you. Er, not quite; it’s actually a mis-quote. The Bible states "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall." (Proverbs 16:18). Still the essence of pride being a bad thing is clearly there.

Thomas Jefferson said “Pride costs more than hunger, thirst and cold.” Same use; not a good thing.

How about the old Jewish saying “Pride is the mask of one's own faults.” Once again, bad news.

So what happened to the “sense of achievement that you are especially pleased with”?

Well, look around – we are doing are best to scrub it from our actions (note the last word – it’s important).

We, in the Western World, are in a terrible state, of our own making, everywhere. We could try to help ourselves by ‘going that extra mile’ and doing things better – I’m not an American, so don’t ask me about Republicans and Democrats, but when Obama used the “Yes, We Can” slogan in his electoral campaign, I felt good. Could this mean we are trying to give our best, not just to our ‘friends’ but to complete strangers through our daily, if anonymous, interactions? Is the laudable definition of the word making a comeback?

If you go to my web page www.ericjgates.com, and scroll down to the bottom of the page, over on the left you’ll see a blue box with text that says I’m a Proud Member of the Indie Writer's Network (http://indiewritenet.com). Is that a bad thing? Am I about to fall from grace? No! I'm just pleased to have found a group of like-minded individuals who, for the most part, are making the effort to help one another as writers. Check out my previous post about the Network here:  http://my-thrillers.blogspot.com.es/2012/02/long-and-winding-road.html

Look over to the right, on my web’s Home page and you’ll see an animated link for SiteGround (http://www.siteground.com/). I pay them, not the other way around, for allowing me to put that on my web! Why? I pay them to host my site, and that’s my way of thanking them for the outstanding service they provide. Outstanding? Surely they are just doing their job?

Let me tell you briefly about how I came to be hosted at a web-provider in a different continent from where I live. I am, probably, a difficult client for any computer-based business. Why? Look at my Bio: I was writing Operating Systems for some of the World’s largest and most complex computers over forty years ago. I see Information Technology only as a tool – I’m not obsessed by it, as so many today. I am, however, fully aware of its limitations and possibilities. ‘Blame it on the computer’ is an excuse I will not tolerate when people screw up. Computers are dumb (Hell, they only work with 2 values - zero and one -  and will continue to do so until Quantum Computing is a reality). That makes me dangerous to an Internet service provider, like the German one I used before. I wanted to use my web to do certain well-defined tasks, which I knew it would be capable of doing. That pushed their envelope, and they didn’t respond well. I dumped them.

I spent a short while looking around, and, almost by chance, came across a small outfit who had been running for a few years and seemed to care about their customers, according to several testimonials I found on other people’s blogs. This wasn’t the ‘care’ that new companies show – you know, the we’ll-do-everything-possible-to-make-you-a-happy-client care that evaporates as soon as they grow a little. No, this was, and IS, the we’re-with-you-on-your-journey care, the we-go-that-extra-mile care.

(At this juncture, I’m reminded of an old UK TV series, “The Prisoner” and its famous phrase “I am not a number!”)

I decided to try them out, asking for something, hidden pages that were a prize for the diligent site visitor, that I knew was technically possible, yet unclear how to implement using the tools they provided. In less than 12 hours, the Hidden Treasure I wanted to create was a reality. That’s service! That’s Pride!

Hey, but this is the 21^st Century – we are all self-interested s-o-b’s. So why bother?

That’s just it. Having Pride in what you do is not some altruistic New-Age meme. It’s not another smile that goes no further than the lips in the tradition of “Have a Good Day”. No, Pride will give you a momentary flutter in your heart; a real sensation of feeling good. Priceless, real emotion.

So let’s fight to recover the original meaning of the word.

Let’s find ways to be proud of what we do. They don’t have to be big things. Just something that leaves us with a smile on our faces in the knowledge that we have achieved something through our effort that will make someone else happier.

Let’s form our own Pride and change the World, one PROUD act at a time!

 Eric @ www.ericjgates.com

Review the Reviewer – a Writer’s (and Reader’s) guide to Book Reviews

As writers, we are all aware of the changes happening in the publishing industry. These changes are, for the most part, very positive: never before, in the history of the ‘printed’ word, have so many books by so many new authors been available so easily to so many readers. This exponential explosion is a good thing in that it promotes evolution: in the way we read; the way we write; in how we communicate ideas; in how literature, of all types and genres, evolve. Never have there been so few obstacles to trying out something bold and new – it’s an opportunity to rival, perhaps even surpass, the Renaissance period.

However, whilst authors are beavering away getting their tales out to their new audiences, there are other events happening on the periphery of this new publishing paradigm that should not be ignored.

One of these is book reviews, or more precisely, book reviewers.

Now, at this point, you might be mistaken for thinking I’m about to embark upon a rant against book reviewers – you would be wrong. If you keep reading, you will understand why I, as a novelist, feel that book reviewers need to adopt a somewhat different posture from what is rapidly becoming the norm, before they lose their credibility.

First, I intend to use the word ‘novel’ as a generic substitute to simplify the following, when referring to any piece of fiction from poetry to full-length blockbusters. I choose to do this for two reasons: one, it’s the medium I’m most familiar with, and two, its complex construction possibilities allow mention of distinct aspects in a coherent whole.

Just as the number of people writing and publishing their work in electronic format has grown exponentially in the last few years, so have the number of self-proclaimed reviewers. Sounds a bit harsh, I know, but bear with me; I am not berating all reviewers at all, just a minority that are growing and are tainting the waters for those who take the task seriously.

For a writer to produce a novel, they have to come up with the theme; develop it into an interesting story with a beginning, middle and end; populate it with intriguing characters that the reader can root for or hate; create believable, coherent backdrops against which events and the characters can do their thing; then… craft this into a form the readers will enjoy (or to put it in Kurt Vonnegut’s words – “Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.”)

The key word in the above is ‘craft’.

As all writers know, irrespective of their experience, writing is a constant apprenticeship. You just don’t sit down at the keyboard and paste words together – if that were the case, for some time now, novels would be written by computer software, probably employed by the big publishing houses.

Crafting involves the constant polishing and learning of a myriad of skills which all live under the global banner of ‘writing techniques’. Only very rarely, almost never, do you encounter a writer with a natural gift for their art, from the first day they pen their first word, such that publishable prose is produced seemingly without effort. The rest of us have to work at it… hard, constantly, dedicatedly, ever seeking to improve; practice, practice, then… more practice – slowly we improve. It takes time; years usually, not just to produce a single novel, but to improve our skill set.

In contrast, and please remember I’m not talking about all of you book reviewers out there, in the ‘new’ e-book reviewer era, labelling yourself a reviewer, setting up a web and proffering your opinions on others’ labours can take as much as… five minutes! That’s just not right!

Please note my use of ‘opinions’ instead of ‘review’ in the previous paragraph – it’s important as you will see.

Reviewers need to develop a ‘professional’ approach.

Do I mean you need to get paid for your reviews? No, but if you’re good enough to receive financial reward, good on you. It shows you’re probably trying to do it seriously.

Do I mean you need to have studied Creative Writing or English Lit? No again. These, and other learning sources, should have provided you with tools in your toolbox, but, if you only ever use a hammer… And there are other ways to reach the same knowledge levels.

No. Professional reviewing is an attitude of mind and discipline, and above all, honesty.

STOP!

Let’s take a step back for a moment and ask a couple of basic questions before continuing: What should a review be all about? Who is a book review aimed at?

The last question first: there are two, yes two, clear targets, each with their own needs.

The first of these, and for ‘un-professional’ reviewers often the only destination, are the potential readers. People want info about their future literary purchases. Yes, there are those who only populate their virtual shelves with the top twenty best-sellers, or giveaways, without any other criteria, but these are the minority. When I, as a reader, encounter a novel from an unknown (to me) author, I’d like to know if it’s worth investing my time or not (remember Vonnegut). If the opinions of other readers, on the book’s web page perhaps, or in blogs or review sites indicate that it might be interesting, I’m more inclined to give it a try, even if its subject matter isn’t initially to my liking.

That’s where surprises come from – I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve reluctantly started to read a book, because nothing else was available where I was, only to discover an author whose work I would then follow faithfully for years, or a tale so original and intriguing, it impacted the way I think about the World. I still remember Isak Dinesen’s (Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke’s pen name) ‘Out of Africa’, plucked off a dusty shelf in a house in Nairobi many years before Streep and Redford turned the tale into a two-hour romance on the screen, solely because it was the rainy season; the heavens having opened that morning depositing a dense downpour that defied any attempt to leave the house. Two paragraphs later, I was transported, in time, although the place was much closer. In a respite the next day, I drove to Karen’s farm in the Ngong Hills; the novel having given me ‘new eyes’ and many questions. That was thirty-five years ago, and I remember it like it was yesterday. That’s the impact a surprise can have.

The reviewer might have said “a collection of anecdotal incidents; a jumble of characters; a rambling memoir without a clear direction. Bad women’s fiction.”

Perhaps, if I had the misfortune to read that beforehand, the thin volume would have remained on the shelf as the home of the bright green spider I disinterred, rather than enrich my appreciation for that marvellous country.

That’s one target; the obvious one.

The other is… the Author.

The instant gratification mode imposed by Internet book selling often conditions the reader into buying a book, downloading it, reading it, then forgetting about it with no time added to pen a few words about what they thought of the novel, or even tick a box on an evaluation chart. And it’s in this vacuum that many e-book ‘reviewers’ have emerged.

When a writer receives a review of their work, their first reaction should be “thank you, person x, for taking the time and making the effort to let me know what you think of my novel” rather than “is it a good or bad review?” Bad reviews, if written professionally, can be extremely useful to a writer, because they can draw attention to aspects of their writing technique or even the tale itself, that the intimate proximity of preceding months prevented the author from assessing objectively. Good reviews are often not that useful.

Yes, I confess, when I read a reader review of an extract from my Work In Progress, ‘the CULL’, last week, I had a fleeting moment of gratification. But, words aside, I quickly set about ‘investigating’ the author of those comments. Fortunately the review was on a review site where some information about the reviewers is available; so basic demographic details, gleaned from the reviewer’s profile info and perusing their own submitted extracts, provided me with much more interesting insights than their kind words.

The novel is my take on vampires. I have deliberately gone hard-line thriller on the subject; nary a shadow of romantic overtone. My reader audience, at least in my mind, will probably not be fans of the “Twilight” saga, or “True Blood” et al. There are no mythical morphing beasts either; just genetics, DNA, uncompromising real scientific facts, bound together with screwed-up characters and a particularly callous serial killer. Shaken vigorously; not stirred. So the demographic information from this review, added to that obtained from several other recent reviews, is helping me draw a picture of what kind of reader is really enjoying the way I’ve treated the subject, and who isn’t and why. Fangs very much to you all.

That’s an example of how a writer should use reviews.

However, keep in mind the reviewers on this type of site are, for the most part, and without any slight intended, amateur reviewers. Most are fellow writers who have taken the time to read the extracts published and provide structured feedback.

Now I’ve introduced another word; ‘structured’. What do I mean by that? Well that speaks to the first question, which to save you pounding on the cursor key was ‘What should a review be all about?’

A ‘professional’ review should, first and foremost, be unbiased; untainted by personal preference. Or put more clearly, if you, as a reviewer, live and breathe Chick Lit for example, don’t decry something that obviously isn’t just for that reason. At least be honest about your bias: of the over 100 reviews received prior to publication for my last novel, ‘Full Disclosure’, some of the most useful ones started with phrases similar to this: “I wouldn’t normally read fiction in this genre but…” That’s honesty. To continue with my fictional analogy, don’t pretend you’re reviewing objectively when anyone can see you always give ‘good’ reviews to Chick Lit and crappy comments to everything else. Nobody is forcing you to do the review, but at least be honest and open about it. Give me, and the potential readers, value, not just a soapbox opinion.

Then, write about the novel in a structured manner: talk about its themes and ideas; its originality; its settings and characters; the dialogue; the novel’s pace, rhythm and flow; the narrative voice; and of course its plot, and any of the many other aspects of the writing process that you feel of note in this particular instance. Of course you don’t have to reproduce a checklist; but what transposes an opinion into a professional review is the overt use of reference to writing techniques. Look up several ‘professional’ reviews in respectable journals (such as the New York Times literary supplements, The Sunday Times etc.) and you’ll quickly see what distinguishes a hack from a professional reviewer

An (almost) final word: there’s nothing worse than an un-professional reviewer with an agenda! For example, someone who is trying to become the e-book equivalent of Hedda Hopper (if you’re less than 70 years old, Google the name), by instilling FEAR into all and every authors’ work that comes through your hands – that may have given people unwarranted power back then, but today it is too easy to see the overall game plan. And never shotgun-blast copies of your reviews to any and every website you can find; it will show you for what you are; someone craving attention by attacking others, rather than a would-be serious professional.

So, as a final message to all writers and readers out there, I say the following:

Read reviews, please.

Good ones, bad ones; it doesn’t matter.

Read more than one if available.

Check out the reviewers (even Googling their names will tell you more than you think).

Review the review, and its author, in context.

Then…

Make up your own mind. Surprises may await discovery.

Eric @ www.ericjgates.com