Lawnmower Ideas

I detest mowing. Not just because I went into cardiac arrest doing it a few years ago, I hated it before that. I could have just as easily had a heart attack doing something I like. Well, one thing, anyway: could have been having sex. That's about the only thing requiring any physical exertion I care to do. Don't mind walking, prefer it to driving, but would do neither more than I had to.

I digress. It's what Lobsters do.

Curiously, I get my best writing ideas while mowing. Or showering, basically almost anything that isolates me from distractions without requiring any mental focus on the task. No, sex doesn't qualify. I can't ever recall getting an idea about writing while doing that. Does that mean I think too much during sex? Dunno, but another digression.

I got an idea while mowing that may put 'Wealth Effects' on the back burner. Regular visitors to this blog who haven't already been through their commitment hearings are probably aware: I'm writing a novel. I've started many of them, this is the only one I've finished a draft of. Very rough, but a draft. And very long. I've been at this sucker for years, rewriting, adding and replacing stuff.

I'm not even 100% sure when I started it. The first 60,000 words or so was lost to a combination of computer glitch and an author stupidity. Since I'd never finished a draft, who'd have known that the one I'd lose my initial chapters for would be the one that I didn't get disenchanted with entirely by the third chapter.

Not quite true, I reached that point at the usual juncture. But I'd been reading more author interviews, and came to find out that most of the authors I have respect and admiration for hit that point too. And then some. Chuck Palahniuk, who's peaks ('Survivor,' 'Choke,' 'Lullaby') make up for his valleys ('Haunted,' 'Invisible Monsters') has said he goes through as many as 30 rewrites before he'll show a book to an agent. Craig Clevenger put his number at 20. And authors who don't rewrite tend to be ones who roll a single sentence around in their melon for days before committing it to paper.

I'm not counting sloppy authors with huge egos who refuse to be edited for anything but spelling. I've developed an allergy to most of that crew, who take up far too much of the retail market. I won't say that a 'bestseller' is an 'avoid this' for me, but it certainly doesn't convince me by itself. I don't share the 'too many notes' thinking of some, that if it can't be said in 300 pages it isn't worth saying. 'The Contortionist's Handbook' was excellent, and only 200 pages. 'The Magic Christian,' another favorite of mine is even shorter. But I love 'A Confederacy of Dunces' (my trade paperback is 394 and that's with a terrible book design featuring wide margins but small type, with the 'Big Chief' segments even smaller), loved 'Mason & Dixon,' which weighs in at 773 in hardback. I prefer 'Flags in the Dust' to 'Sartoris' (the same book, but sharply edited for length by Faulkner's publisher, who had reason to be skeptical that this guy was ever going to sell through an advance).

So I've been wrestling with this manuscript, often making things worse instead of better. I've participated in three online writer's workshops, which have helped me find more angles to attack it from.

Thematically, I sometimes think it's very simple. 'People get things wrong.' 'Money won't make you happy.' 'Never underestimate the capacity of smart people to fool themselves.' 'Information cannot be communicated without distortion.' 'You can't know someone, even yourself.'

Other times, I think it's all these themes and more.

On the surface, it's a crime novel, but in its current form I have over 100 manuscript pages without the major crimes being much more than hinted at. I could move the bank robbery to the front, that was the way I had it at one point but I felt that left an Elmore Leonard expectation for the reader. And Elmore Leonard doesn't bother with anything he can't say in 300 pages. Though if you take his complete works, you'd have, what, 12,000 pages??? Most of which I've read.

Anyway, I've referred to my novel as my 'get poor quick scheme' for a long time. I really don't expect to make money off it. The original plan was to go through the traditional agent-editor-publisher route. The Big Six, a 'real' contract and advance.

A book tour.

That's the Holy Grail for we, the unproven. We want to be put on planes, separated from our families and our soon to be obsolete 'day jobs.' We want signings, radio interviews. We want to go on Larry King or even better Oprah and pimp our books, basking in the glorious fame of it. We want to get huge royalty checks that prove our advance was under-estimated and get book awards we have publicly scorned.

Or maybe that's just me.

But no, there's lots of clowns like me. We want our voices heard. We get a tad desperate about it. We have the probably fallacious notion that we have something to say. And if we can't get an agent, what do we do?

If we have money, maybe an inheritance (or even fake money, like a Visa card issuer out of their senses), we self-publish.

What's that mean?

Traditionally, it means you do your own license requests for copyrighted material you quote. Even that cute quote at the front of the book, if it ain't public domain, you better get a license from the copyright owner.

It means you've got to typeset the thing or hire that done. Frank Herbert had a huge investment in 'Dune,' which he self published when he couldn't interest an agent. He didn't even do the traditional thing of hiding his self-published status, he published it under 'Frank Herbert, LLC' if memory serves.

It also means you probably want to hire an editor. I've typeset three self-published tomes by other authors, and two were by a guy who'd made his living as an editor for ten years. You can question the content if you want, but the guy didn't publish a bunch of txpos. The other was by a lawyer who had a legitimate area of expertise to exploit. Shit, he had something like 100 orders where people just heard the rumor he was putting a book out and wanted a copy. They'd send checks for $20 or more and say 'send me a copy as soon as it's printed; if this is enough for more than one copy, send all you can. If this isn't enough, let me know, I'll send the difference.'

And of course there's distribution channels. Some require inventory, others (Amazon for instance) only require a ridiculous discount.

Today, you can self-publish using print on demand technology. I've been getting the PODi newsletter via email for five years or so, and it's finally starting to live up to promises made back then. For the uninitiated, the idea is to take the economy of scale out of the medium-length press run. I've you're printing 5,000 to 15,000 copies, you can get a way better unit price using a commercial printer. POD uses Indigo and similar color printing technologies with DocuTech and similar one-color printing technologies, and marries them to a bindery. The trade shows I went to in 1999 and 2000 showed the model of a kiosk that could be put in a Barnes & Noble or Borders. Tell them the book you want, go order a mocha latte, and before the coffee is done, your book is printed.

Hence the term 'print on demand.'

It's a beautiful concept in so many ways. What right have I to buy 'Mason & Dixon' new and unread in first-edition hardback on acid free stock from Foozle's who bought it as a remainder at auction? Especially since the $7 I paid is less than the cost of producing the book, no matter the economy of scale. The binding, the quantity and quality of paper, I don't know of a printer who could deliver this for $7 no matter how many I bought.

Or did I get it for $5? I forget.

*While I don't exepct 'Wealth Effects' to make money, I won't lie: if it makes money, that's awesome. If I benefit, all the better.

And no, I won't publish with the Pynchon attribution without clearing it. I'm of a mind that few authors have enough juice to kick up sales of any book. And since I can't see TP reading the book to begin with...