Monday, September 30, 2013

Day 267 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

THINK LIKE A PIT BULL AFTER A PORK CHOP!

OR

"NO" ONLY MEANS NO UNTIL THEY SAY YES!

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Last night I mentioned that I have a fair number of projects out to different journals, magazines, and ezines. I mentioned thirteen or fourteen pieces submitted for consideration. These are out to a total of seventeen different venues.
 
Some of them are single short stories. Some are from three to five poems. In the short fiction, there are examples of Crime Noir, Satire, Sci-Fi, Slice of Life Vignette, and the good old Pulp Genre. The poetry is free verse in a style and voice I have spent decades honing and perfecting. Some are out for the first time and other selections are seeing their third and fourth submission. Of those that have gone out more than once, a few were rejected by earlier houses, and one in particular had the bad timing to be accepted only to have the publication fold and then get high praise from another whose debut has been significantly delayed.
 
So what's the point? Tenacity, determination, and doggedness is the point. One of the hardest things to get around is the disappointment of rejection or bad luck. You start thinking, "Maybe I'm not good enough?", "Maybe I don't know enough about the market place?", "Maybe I don't know enough about the protocols?", or "Maybe I should put in an application at some fast food joint?"
 
The last one is the only one with definite prospects. At least you can stay clothed and fed while you're launching yourself towards exhaustion writing in your free time. And in that last thought is the key!
 
Yes, there are those annoying tales of how some complete unknown sent in their first real manuscript and a star studded career resulted. Can you say, "One in a million"? That's the odds. Most of us go about it the old fashioned way. Submit, re-submit, get whopping drunk, re-submit, cry on a sympathetic shoulder, re-submit. Notice that there is only one action in that sequence that repeats.
 
Unless you know someone and they have become familiar with your work before you ever thought about sending it out, the likelihood of a quick kill is slim to none. Does that make you a failure? Nope, just a writer. What will make you an author is the discipline and understanding that this is a big field with a lot of competition. If you stay with it and make an effort to improve your art and craft, your knowledge, and your acumen in presentation and professionalism, you will eventually become an AUTHOR! (All right, so it may be more like author.) The key to it all is to outlast the competition and your own doubts until this happens.
 
The Editor-in-Wife put together a really useful Excel spreadsheet for me to keep track of submissions. I know what went to who, and when. I also know when I have a reasonable chance of hearing back so I can make inquiries if they become necessary. I also have a space for the disposition of the submission. Was it accepted, rejected, or turned back for other reasons. These can include suggested reworks, corrections, or the occasional act of the deities.
 
The one thing the spreadsheet definitely gets me to do is to turn anything that comes back right around. Sure, this or that particular editor or reader said no. But the next one might not. It's kind of like speed dating without the chance of any gifts that keep on giving. No, I do not feel like a slut! I expect to get paid.
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write.
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Day 266 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

SHIFTING GEARS

OR

THAT'S WHY I DON'T LIKE BEING PIGEONHOLED BY ANYONE.

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All right. At this point I have some thirteen or fourteen pieces out for consideration. They are, for the most part, evenly divided between poetry and short fiction. I have a novel length piece that goes in fits and bursts, and three more short stories I'm editing and prepping to send out. Throw this daily blog on the fire and I am not burning my candle at both ends, I'm applying a blow torch to the middle and admiring the resulting conflagration. So, in the midst of all this, what else can I find to stress over?
 
Simple, nothing! I have hit the point where I'm getting a little toasty around the edges when it comes to the fiction work. Not that I don't keep coming up with ideas, or can't pull my stories together, but there's a certain staleness to my thinking. I'm not having as much fun as I should, and I damned well refuse not to have fun at this! The answer? Shift art forms before the dreaded burnout can occur.
 
Oh, I'm not abandoning the written word, nor even short or long form fiction. What I'm doing is ratcheting back the time and commitment of artistic and emotional resources to those so I can spend a bit more time (MAKE THAT A LOT MORE TIME) working on my poetry for now. It's the strategy I've put out before. When it isn't quite happening, go do something else for a while. And in the great tradition of, "Physician heal thyself", that's what I intend to do. In between times, I'm picking up the guitar more frequently just so I can get my fingertips back in shape.
 
As far as readings and all that goes? If I get there, great. If I don't, great also. I'm not doing any of this for the rest of the world. Not even this blog is really for you. This is me doing what I do to be better at that very thing. Anyway, there's less than a hundred days left of this particular effort and I figure it's time to stop taking me, you, or anything else, that damned seriously.
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, LAUGH, and write.
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author.
 


Saturday, September 28, 2013

Day 265 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

I GUESS IT COULD BE REGARDED AS A CIVIC DUTY, NOT THAT IT WILL MAKE ME ANYMORE CIVIL.

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I was invited. I went. That's about the best spin I'll put on it. A few months ago I posted on this blog asking readers impressions on the whole Poet Laureate thing. I understand a national title. Even states, I guess, are entitled to their claim to having a distinguished poet to come up with unobtrusive verse to cover certain functions. The dedication of a ball park, or dam, or dog run. What have you.
 
Now we are seeing more and more county, city, and township posts being created. Hell, as far as I know, they might extend down to the settlement or crossroads with more than two structures. I attended an event tonight that was part Laureates on Parade and part cheering squad for the creation of yet another such position. This one has the unique quality of not being supported by the local government, thus no funding is provided, there is no recognition outside of the local Arts Council, and, being a county-wide concept, has little or no visibility and endorsement outside of the aforementioned august body.
 
Really? Look, I'm all for a higher profile for poetry. If you can find a way of pulling that off outside of the cyclical rise and fall of artistic trend I'd love to hear it. My true belief though, boys and girls, is that this is the way it has always run. For a half a decade or so things are smoking hot, and then you better hand out the long johns and mukluks because the trend has left the building.
 
But I did my duty. I showed. I applauded at the seemingly appropriate places. I even rubbed a little elbow here and there. Then I got out of there promptly and with little adieu. Guys, I'm a writer, not a friggin' laureate candidate or potential appointee to the position. I'm behind the keyboard, which is where writers belong. The rest of it is window dressing. But, good luck with the Crusade. Somebody's got to carry the banner.
 
Just my humble opinion.
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write. Leave the laureating to the usual candidates, college professors with time to kill.
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Non-Laureate and Author. 

Friday, September 27, 2013

Day 264 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

ARE YOU WRITING SCARED OR SCARED TO WRITE?

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There's a real difference to this one. It starts with a simple enough premise. When you think about it, do you end up writing scared? Or are you scared about writing?
 
Think about it for a moment. Do you sit down to write about things that you normally wouldn't open up to? In your stories, or poetry, or the ideas you explore in essays, do you confront emotions and issues that are raw areas in your heart and mind? Do you ever look for that sympathetic notion in your antagonists? Do you ever explore those places where you might be considered a failure to your family, community, or humanity in general?
 
When you find those places, do you ever say to yourself, "No one wants to hear about that. It's too open. Too primal." Or do you, instead, think, "I've never seen this take on these feelings. Let's see where they go!"
 
If the first thought is your path, then you are giving in to your fear about saying what you feel. This can be true in your honest portrayal of emotions you harbor in yourself, or being able to find that empathetic necessity, that true understanding, of even the characters you want your readers to despise. It can come from any number of directions. The fear of exposing your own deepest wants, needs, fears, and hatreds because you don't want others to know those things about you. Or the worry that, if you are overly empathetic with the evil in a story, it may be misconstrued to be your own emotions coming through.
 
This leads to stunted and anemic portrayals and plots. It is the weakness in our heroes, and their ability to overcome it, that makes them human, and therefore reachable and real. It is that kindness or sensitivity in our villains that sucks us in and has us trying to understand why they are the way they are. Think of Hannibal Lechter's sharp mind, his artistic talents, his love of fine (and not so fine) foods. Were he only presented as the evil cannibal without this backdrop, why would we care?
 
If you write scared, you are opening up a pantheon of color and texture in your work. You are providing your readers with an enormous palette from which they can fill in the blanks. Many of these you won't have thought of and will wonder how anyone got to that point with what you gave them.
 
That's the true beauty of taking on and using those things we find in the dark corners of our psyche. The raw nerve we expose in ourselves becomes the same one in a reader. The fear we invoke in an antagonist by making him a little bit like the strange guy we see in the park or out in the warehouse at work, transfers to the emotions of the audience - sometimes with devastating impact.
 
I've used the analogy of ice skating in earlier blogs. We all can be entertained by the figures cut across the smooth, translucent surface of a pond or rink. But it is when we are taken to the dark depths where a body floats just above the bottom, or an otherwise unimaginable horror lurks waiting, that we we stop being JUST entertained. We are drawn in! Why? Because the writer has tapped into our fears and dreads. They have found the doorway into that room where we hide our daily anxieties, that place where the thing under the bed still lives.
 
It is by unearthing and utilizing these emotional triggers that we create memorable stories, not just another forgettable tale in a prolonged and predictable series. I know, agents and publishers like to know you have more than one book in you. But why does it have to be the same damned book? By breaking new ground and giving yourself permission to write out there on the edge, you can find ever broader and seductive horizons to tempt your audience.
 
Bradbury, King, Clavell, Wolfe. All big names in the literary world. All of them capable of bridging the fictitious worlds they created with our very real emotions and feelings. All of them more than able to bring their insight and the postulated feelings of their characters into our very real understanding.
 
So, are you writing scared, or scared of writing?
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write. Occasionally in the deep end of the pool. Sink or swim time, kiddies.
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Day 263 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

THE DEFINITION OF USELESS ENDEAVOR IN THE POST-MODERN AGE?

EXPECTING A RESPONSE TO A DIRECT QUESTION.

 
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So yesterday's inquiry was as fruitless as the situation it was meant to help alleviate. I mean, really, not even some pointed sarcasm? But that's to be expected. I see it every time someone tries to enter into a serious analysis or critique of so much that passes as art, inquiry, or conviction. The crowd behaves the same way it did in middle school, all the toes of the shoes pushing imaginary dust around on the floor and the eyes avoiding even accidental contact.
 
I understand that it comes from the wish to avoid having to answer the original question for fear it may lead to more and deeper probing questions. But, if no one's noticed, it is discomfort and inquiry that leads to the production of the best of art. Anything else is interior decorating or more re-runs of Seinfeld.
 
It isn't until you look into your own heart and mind in such a way that the questions cause you to squirm and worry that you are on the true path to creation. Of course, there are the lovers of Thomas Kinkade, EL James, and Yani. Me, I prefer the likes of Camille Paglia, Pete Voulkos, and Frank Zappa. But personal tastes are nothing if you cannot incorporate them into your search for meaning in expression.

Too often, the only thing obvious in modern artists' endeavours is the need to kiss enough public ass, in a polite and unobtrusive way, to garner a paycheck commensurate with any other high-paid hooker. I'm sorry, was that harsh? Ah, well, suck it up.

There is a rampant tendency to equate the praise garnered on this digital podium with validation, when it is more a case of wanting to appear as trendy as possible. The horror is that the recipients can't get past that communal fawning. It really is enough to make me glad I've never been anybody's icon. Mind you, I've had my successes, none of which I'd trade, but they have always caused me to question even more stringently the things I espouse and the audience's perception and admiration. (Frequently at the inconvenient moment when they would most want to bow before what they perceive as talent.)

Is this the way I prefer to be viewed? The quick and dirty to that is, YES. It minimizes the bullshit back and forth and keeps the fakes at bay. It also reduces the amount of time I have to spend dissuading the sycophantic types in the crowd. I write what I feel and believe, not what I think you might really like to read. If we share a bit of time in the course of that, great. If you actually get it, even better. If you're just fucking dumbfounded and would rather not get into it with me, see you later.

You might say, that's my alternative to a manifesto. If you got it, good. If you didn't - and want to go into it, get in touch. If you don't give a damn, well, me, too. Have a nice day.

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Meanwhile...live, love, write, and allow the room for some real discomfort.


Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.

Tomorrow,

Dane F. Baylis
Author.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Day 262 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

OR

DOES ANY OF THIS MAKE A DENT?

 

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Over the last several months I've tried more avenues than I care to think of to generate a little give and take through this blog. Most of the time I feel like I'm walking around in one of those post-apocalyptic movies where the main character is in a major urban center all alone. I've tried asking direct questions. I've tried polls. I've tried giveaways. Contests. Picking a fight. I've posted my own work, and yours, and have managed to generate nada, zip, zilch!Even the one thing I really don't like, Schmoozing!
 
Most of this lack of response I tend to think is due to the platform, which is why, in a little over three months I am going to move over to Wordpress and purchase a domain of my own. The results can't be anymore dismal than they've been here. As something of a last resort I thought I'd ask if anyone out there has any suggestions for ways to improve what I've been doing? Honestly, I'm about out of ideas and have begun to take a dim view of the whole thing.
 
That's where pit bull determination kicks in, I guess. I hate to think that I've wasted close to a year in this challenge. But, when you're the last man standing (and that includes the organizer), there starts to be a certain, "Oh, well" to the entire endeavor. But I hate to just putter through the last three months of this thing without at least trying to solicit some ideas on where I'm going wrong.
 
Mind you, I would like to see some CONSTRUCTIVE feedback, not just, "You fucking wanker!" So, if you have a moment and would like to contribute your thoughts, pop to the bottom of the page and let me hear from you. If you're worried I'm compiling names for some kind of e-mail barrage, don't. I hate that trap as much as you do. This is a sincere request for input.
 
Thanks,
 
Dane.
 
P.S. Would like to hear a quick impression of a project concept. Bradbury's, "FARENHIET 451" meets Joseph Hellers, "CATCH 22" with a sprinkling of Charles Bukowski for perspective. Thoughts?
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write.
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 
 Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Day 261 of the 365 Days of Blogging

The author, Dane F. Baylis

WHY I DON'T EXPECT TO BE A MAINSTREAM DARLING

OR

ONCE YOU'VE LIVED IN A CAVE LONG ENOUGH, THE CROWDS ARE JUST A PAIN IN THE ASS!

 

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The Editor-in-Wife is one to remind me that networking is an enormous must these days. The contacts made, in whatever form they take, are de rigueur if you're going to have a wide reaching impact. But, and this could be just my hermit nature, there is such a thing as too much time spent attending, organizing, and schmoozing.
 
I am often regarded as a consummate socialite, nothing could be further from the truth. It takes enormous restraint, most of the time, not speak my mind. This results in a lot of, what I hope, passes for contemplative silences. That ruse isn't always successful, but there are some people I don't mind pissing off.  
 
I am blatant when it comes to guarding the time I have to sit at this keyboard and write. After all, the last time I checked, that was what a writer was supposed to do. However, today's publishing industry is pushing more and more of the promotional duties on the writers who are supposed to be turning out the grist for the mill. This, in terms of success, means that if you really want to get seen, you had better hire someone to navigate through all the hoops and hurdles you'll encounter. That, of course, is more money out of the writer's pocket and less out of the publisher's. This puts the writer in a position of having to ramp up production to meet this commitment. Which, if you're turning out formulaic serials, can be accommodated for a while. But even there the burn-out factor is increasing.
 
If you're going to do something, hopefully, original, it's going to mean that you need to put a higher value on your time and your product. If you don't, you will be faced with the reality that your time becomes the company's time and your product becomes a stale repetition of itself. So, is there some kind of alternative?
 
First, thank everyone who wants a piece of your life and remind them, if there is a good reason for you to be some place, say some promotional advantage or arranged encounter with someone who can be of real benefit, you'll be glad to attend. As a matter of fact, you'll make a point of it. If it's just to be "seen". Well, unless the being seen is focused on you and not on a room full of aspirants and hangers-on, thank them nicely and remind them you are in the middle of a difficult passage that really needs your full attention.
 
Can this actually work? Lets take Thomas Pynchon for example. The publishing world waits on a virtual recluse to release each book. Why? Because he crafts incredibly complex and unique work that cannot be done in the pressure-cooker of constant salesmanship. He has had to tell the world that he is willing to jeopardize some brand recognition for the space to create an individual brand unlike any other.
 
Do I expect to be a writer of Pynchon's stature? Well, maybe a little. What I really expect is to create that which is mine and unmistakable. That requires the time and space to accomplish the work. If it finds a market - terrific. If not, I'm still me, and that's really the whole point. That's success in my book!
 
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Meanwhile...live, love, write.
 
Want to follow or subscribe to this blog? There are gadgets for that on the right side of the
page. You can leave comments in the form below. I can be reached directly at dbaylis805@gmail.com . You can also find links to some of the sites I visit from time to time on the right. I'm also looking for submissions to the Your Work/Your Love page. Authors retain all rights.
 Tomorrow,
 
Dane F. Baylis
Author.