Mirror, Mirror

 

 Venus in Front of the Mirror
Peter Paul Rubens, 1613/1641



I am haunted by mirrors.

It took thirty-seven years, seventy-five pounds gained and lost and countless hours of angst (and therapy) to realize a simple truth: I do not look into the mirror at myself; I am looking for myself.  What does this mean for me as a writer?  Everything.

In a chapter titled Finessing Fear of his book The Courage to Write, Ralph Keyes includes a quote from Jill Robinson’s memoir Bed/Time/Story:

…The advantage of not knowing who you are is you can attempt to be all things to all men… or women.  My mother saw me always glancing in every mirror, every window;  in the gleaming blades of knives.  She said, “Jill is vain.”  She did not know I was looking to see who would be there this time.

Jill Robinson was in my head.  I had found a kindred soul  and, all at once, understood myself in a few inked pages. But there was no “Ah-Ha!” or joyous whoop, only a hot and stinging gathering of tears . 

 

Mirror, mirror,

On the wall, 

I don’t know you.

Not at all.



 Girl at Mirror, 1954
Norman Rockwell

This morning I looked hard into the mirror.  I looked past the tired mom, past the hurt friend, past the overwhelmed adult and blocked writer.  I searched for the faint outlines of what made me unique.  I caught a glimpse as the light shifted, but it was gone as quick as it came.  Fleeting, the girl with  sad eyes.

What does all of this have to do with writing?  While watching my reflection I realized my troublesome main character asks the same questions: Who am I beneath all these expectations, these labels?  Am I good?  Am I worth while?  Am I lovable?  Do I even care? 

She too is haunted by mirrors,both the mundane reflective surfaces and the metaphorical ones - the reflection of who she is in the faces of people around her.  Both of us are haunted by the terrifying "What If.".  What if, beneath it all, there is nothing worth finding?  What if, in finding HER, I will find ME?  That is Pandora’s box.  No wonder I can’t write her.  I am afraid of her.

I am a writer.  As such I require two things: something to say; and someone to hear it. What if, beneath it all, the struggle to write a novel, to find my voice, to see myself, there is nothing worth writing, nothing worth seeing, nothing worth reading? 

I write not only to tell a story but to also discover more about myself.   I put it all out there - my fears, my hopes, faults and strengths - for people to read and judge. 

 “Who am I? What do I think?”  asks Writer, me.

 “Who cares?  Why is it important?”  asks Reader, you.

It all comes down to judgment.  Writers write.  Readers judge. 

A reader’s time and money are precious.  It is a writer’s job to earn a share of those commodities.   Judgment Fest begins with the first read of the editor and culminates in sales.  Yes, writers write first for themselves, because they must, but we all need to pay the bills.  Ideas are free, heat and electricity are not.

Enter the independent publisher.  

Long maligned as a superhighway to clog the market with bad writing, independant publishing, otherwise known as vanity press, or self-publishing is gaining a foothold among new and established authors alongside smaller, specialized independent presses as well as the traditional large publishing houses. 

In a recent press release Amazon.com, Inc., announced Amanda Hocking, published through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, has joined eleven other authors in the Kindle Million Club, having sold over a million paid copies of her novel in the Amazon.com Kindle store.  She joins such authors as David Baldacci, George R.R. Martin and Stephenie Meyer as well as fellow independent author John Locke.

Self-publishing platforms such as Amazon.com’s Kindle Direct Publishing allow authors to bypass typical obstacles of traditional publishing. The danger?  A glutted market full of careless and inferior writing.  The benefit?  Higher profit margins for authors and an evolving, diverse literary marketplace more representative of a rapidly changing global society. 



Echo and Narcissus (1903),
John William Waterhouse



This idea of independent publishing is gaining momentum within the writing community.   International Thriller Writers now include seminars in self-publishing and marketing in their annual conference.  Writer’s Digest Magazine, a prominent resource for writers, is currently promoting the 20^th annual Writer’s Digest Self Published Book awards, a competition held exclusively for self-published authors and their books.



The face of publishing is changing and like any evolving entity there are bound to be growing pains.  When the time comes for the literary world to take a long, hard look in the mirror, what will it see?  For me, for my character and for the publishing industry, the story is still being written. 

Put on your seat belts folks. It could be a bumpy ride.

Ted Krever, author of Mindbenders has first hand experience with the highs and lows of the  self-publishing world.  I hope you enjoy the third and final installment of my interview with Ted Krever as we discuss the changing climate of the writer’s world.

Part One: Mindbenders

Part Two: On Writing

Part Three

Publishing today with AuthorTed Krever

RM:  We met at ITW - International Thriller Writers conference - ThrillerFest.  There were so many amazing authors there, new and established.  It was a bit overwhelming for a newbie like me.

KREVER:  It was an interesting conference.  The most interesting thing for me was the response when I told people I was a self-published indie writer.  It was like I was the correspondent for Al-Jazeerah. Everybody there was either 'published' or seeking publication from a traditional publisher. I seemed to become the emissary from the scary future.

RM:  Everyone is realizing the publishing industry is changing but no one knows what that means- exactly.  There were a number of Indie publishers there, StoneGate Ink being one I remember.

KREVER:  I'm not talking about independent publishers. I'm talking about authors publishing themselves.  There were a few of us there.  You have to do it all yourself- no mommy or daddy to hold hands with.

RM:  Self-publishing or independent publishing is gaining a corner of the market though.  I have seen it gaining speed over the past few years.  Even Writer’s Digest is recognizing the trend with articles, how-to’s and contests.

KREVER:  Yeah, but I was really surprised and taken aback by the response I got. I'm used to writers being very supportive. These guys were uncomfortable with me. I scared them.  Oh for sure, it's a new world and a big one. But it's scary to contemplate. It is scary.  These people wanted nothing to do with it.

RM:  In a "don't talk to the guy with the pencil protector and the liverwurst sandwich" kind of way or in the "Gee, I am on the bus he just launched himself off of...should I stay or should I go now?" kind of way?  I seem to remember one of the Big Guys saying he self-published his first novella this year at a session at ThrillerFest.  That same guy also cautioned to never, ever give up rites to epub without an expiration date.

KREVER:  [David] Morrell said he would never sign a publishing contract these days until publishers made major changes to rights and ebook pricing.

RM:  Ahhh. That is it.  I think the biggest issue with self-pub is the editing process. Writers want to keep the writing intact but sometimes an editor can make a big difference in a million small ways.  I think skipping the editing process with a professional editor is not only foolish but suicidal.

KREVER:  No question. There's an infrastructure to traditional publishing that indies are going to have to find a way to emulate. And right now there just aren't sensible alternatives. But they'll emerge as the market matures. In the meantime, I think the lack of gatekeepers is an issue too. I think reviewers will emerge who people trust. They won't be national names but you'll find two or three whose taste you agree with and they will be your guardians, the ones who let you now who is worth your time and money.

RM:  I can’t help thinking that novels we consider classics today might be labeled as “not relevant” in today’s market and would subsequently remain unknown.  Do you feel like the self-publishing trend along with independent presses could be the remedy for a seemingly finicky and capricious market?

KREVER:  I had a really good agent tell me about eight months ago that she loved ‘Mindbenders’ but couldn’t take me on because she didn’t ‘do’ paranormal. I said, “Great—tell them you don’t like paranormal but you like this” and she answered “That’s not how it works.” And it isn’t. First of all, I don’t like the labeling—the marketing department runs the publishing company now. What ‘genre’ is ‘Huckleberry Finn’? I’m certainly not comparing myself to Twain but I’m saying the tail is now thoroughly wagging the dog.

I think the solution involves another step in technology. Right now, you have publishers—traditional or independent—who can’t afford to sell an ebook at a competitive price. And you have indie writers like me who can’t get paper books in bookstores nationwide, at least not in an effective way. Someone is going to have to put print-on-demand machinery in 5,000 independent bookstores around the country—the local independent bookstore will thrive as the chains go under—so that a customer can walk into the store, browse titles in a kiosk or on their own laptop or iPad , make a selection and walk out with a printed copy of the book all in one trip. The technology certainly exists, it’s just a matter of someone making the investment. It’s just a matter of time and industry politics.

RM:  So, Mr Krever, what is next for you?

KREVER:  The (first) sequel to ‘Mindbenders’. If aggravation is a sign of quality, this is guaranteed to be a great book.

~

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.  ~George Bernard Shaw, Poet  

To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.  ~Charles Caleb Colton, Writer~

Ted Krever’s books can be found at Amazon.com, at Goodreads.com and  BarnesandNoble.com

For more information about Ted Krever please visit www.tedkrever.com

Ralph Keyes and his book The Courage to Write  can be found here. 

More about Jill Robinson and her work can be found  here.

Find the Writer's Digest's self-publishing contest here. 

Live to Write or Write to Live?

Balance 2011

The writing life is a strange and mercurial one.  When the muse is talking there is no greater high.  When that capricious lady clams up, well, life can be a bit sticky for a while.  But like any compulsion, I can’t stop.  Believe me.  I have tried.  So how do I live with the ups and downs that come with creating?  The business of living any Life, a creative life included, comes down to balance.

Osmosis, The law of Conservation of Energy, Feng Shui, the idea of finding balance is elemental and omnipresent.  But is balance attainable? Is a work/life balance  a reachable goal or  catching lightning in a bottle- the luck of the draw?



During his years as a paramedic, my husband, George, chanced to meet an elderly couple, married 75 years.



 "I just got married," George told the couple.  They smiled at him and then at each other. 

"Ah, new love," said the woman, her gnarled hand patting her husband's across the stretcher.

George smiled back.  "What is your secret?"  he asked.  "Seventy-five years and you obviously still care very deeply for one another." 

Herb (that was the man's name, Herb) looked at his wife.  A moment passed between them before he answered my husband.  "The secret, son,  is to never fall out of love at the same time.  Someone has to fight to keep it together and someone has to be allowed to doubt, if for only a little while."



Sisyphus by Titian, 1549



In other words, they took turns pushing the boulder uphill.  Like a teeter-totter, husband and wife took the highs and lows, ups and downs, balancing one another through the years.  They kept faith in a belief that what goes up must come down, and then go up again.  They found their balance.

Balancing writing and life with four children and a marriage is a challenge. With the demands of both career and family pressing in from all sides, I am learning what it takes to balance my time with family with a compulsion to create. 

Living with me isn’t easy in the best of circumstances and terrible (I suspect) in the worst; but I am a lucky girl.  My family doesn’t seem to mind the moody irritated writer who sometimes goes by Mommy or Rebecca or Honey, or at least they take it in stride.

Ted Krever, author of Mindbenders understands what it is to live a writer’s life. In Part Two of our interview, Krever and I ruminate on the ideas of craft, routine and chasing that ellusive balance between an artist’s internal world and an external life of family, second jobs and social interaction.  I hope you enjoy a glimpse into the inner workings of a writer's effort to live to write and write to live.

Part One: Mindbenders

Part Two
On Writing: Life and Craft with Author Ted Krever

RM:  As a writer, we pull from our past experiences. What are some of yours you feel most influence your writing?

 KREVER:  David Morrell said at ThrillerFest that if you read his books, they were all chapters in his emotional autobiography. I'm paraphrasing but I think accurately.

RM:  Yes, I remember that.

KREVER:  So it's not so much pulling from the past for me. It's discovering, through writing the books, what I'm struggling with now.  I know myself through my own writing; it's my best guide to my subconscious. And I work pretty hard to keep the subconscious instead of the conscious mind in control as much as possible. Of course, this is something Renn and Tauber deal with a lot in the book.

 RM:  When I was at ThrillerFest, I heard many different approaches to the work and craft of writing.  Everyone seems to have their own process, their own ritual.  What is your writing process?  Do you have a set schedule?

KREVER:  I write constantly, whenever I’m able.  If I can pull out a book or pad or laptop, I’m writing.  Some days, of course, staring at the blank screen in frustration is also considered writing. When I finish a book, I take a day off to pat myself on the back and start another.  They don’t always get finished, but I am always working.

RM:  Wow. A whole day?  Isn’t that a little extravagant?

KREVER:  I’m a hedonist, what can I say? When I have vacation days, like I will this weekend, that means more time to write!  This is something I need to do.  I’m a psychotic mess if I don’t deal with all these voices in my head.  This is lesson #27 I leaned from Neil Young: the more you throw away, the more you have.  If you write constantly and just keep putting it out, you keep finding more.  If you’re cautious and only write a couple of sentences a day, it gets harder and harder. You can't let any piece of the process get too important.

RM:  I think I know the feeling.  The Innerworld, the places and people and situations inside your head need a way to get out.  It creeps up on you and comes out in weird ways if I don’t get it out—like Alien dreams.  But we are talking about you.

KREVER:  It is the overall that matters.

RM:  So, don’t over-think the process of writing then, or the writing itself?

KREVER:  Don’t think, if possible, at all.  Put fingers on keys and go.  Fix it later.

RM: I am frustrated when my typing doesn’t move as fast as my brain and allows that internal critic to voice an opinion.  What do you do when your conscious mind gets in the way of your writing mind?

KREVER:  I’m talking, really, about first draft, where I want the story to come from as unconscious, subconscious a place as I can. Let it come together in rough form and then I’ll refine later. Which is why first draft usually takes me five restarts to come together— very inefficient but useful in other ways. In every book I've ever written, I slogged to within thirty pages of the end of the first draft and I'd write a sentence without thinking and look at it and go "Oh, that's stupid" and then look a second time and it would explode on me.  I've just told myself what the book is about.  And then I have to go back and the second draft is writing the story so it leads to that line

RM:  You surprise yourself. I do enjoy that part of the writing. When you read something from yesterday and think "Really? Where did that come from. I didn't know that!"

KREVER:  Because you never know what the book is truly about until the end of the first draft.  I'm just telling a story. But I think conscious is for later drafts. Unconscious for the first, for the story

RM:  To paraphrase Stephen King:  Write with the door closed and edit with it open.

KREVER:  Because that's the level [the unconscious] the reader should react from.  That is where character and story are the same thing. 

RM:  While in NYC, you accompanied me on a research field trip for my novel.  How do you approach research for your novels and at what point do you begin the fact finding?

KREVER:  Research for me is strictly answering the needs of the story. I don’t start researching until I need to know something or understand something and that’s all I do, though I’m open to whatever I find that’s interesting. I’m always open to being sidetracked because, again, it’s that element of being surprised. It only richens the mixture. And with a book like this, I researched a lot looking for limitations. What would be the limits of Renn’s mind power? What would get in the way? If you don’t have limits, you end up with Superman—all-powerful and essentially pretty boring.

RM:  You mentioned thriller writer David Morrell a moment ago.  There were many fantastic writers at Thrillerfest and all of them gave out advice of one sort or another.  What is the best writing advice you have ever gotten?

KREVER:  Joe Papaleo, my writing teacher, told me a novel is a gross form. Just throw everything on the page and cut back later. Unfortunately, he was dead by the time I learned how to cut back properly.  That's the other hard part. Learning to edit yourself.

RM:   What was the worst piece of advice?

KREVER:  That's a tough question. I guess it was the implied concept that you can learn to write by studying literature.  Literature is great but it has no relevance to the story that's inside you. You just have to let that out. Where it stands in terms of literature is for other people to figure out later. 

You want the best piece of advice that I offer? Don't know whether I made it up or heard it from someone.  C'mon...you've gotta give me permission so I'm not a pretentious little shit.

RM:  Ok.  Tell me.

KREVER:  Write what hurts.  If you write what hurts, you'll be into your subconscious. You'll be into what really matters to you, automatically. So you don't have to worry about what's at stake for the characters.  There's something major at stake for you so there will be for them.

On Living a Writer’s Life

RM:  How much does your writing life effect and or influence your living life, your relationships and day to day living?

KREVER:  I have no life.  I write and my relationships have to fit in with that.

I had no idea what a monk's life writing was until I committed myself to it. It takes everything you have.

RM:  I think it takes a very special person to partner a writer.  There is a general attitude that living with a writer is a tough business.  Would you agree?

KREVER:   Anyone who gets involved with me has to understand some part of me is always humming away in another dimension.  Yes, I think that is hard to accept.

RM:  I know that I become very frustrated trying to live in two worlds- the one in my head and the one where I have kids and bills and laundry. I never feel like I do either very well. Do you have any advice for writers trying to balance life and writing.

KREVER:  I'm no role model. I gave up on life for ten years. I lived for writing and my son every other weekend. Now I'm trying to develop a balance; if I develop any success at it, I'll let you know.

RM:  What do you think the ultimate spouse or significant other would be for a writer?

KREVER:  Just understanding that our madness is our strength. That we can't function without this other world in our heads. If you can deal with that, then it's a normal relationship. But it's understanding that I'm in love with other women that I’ve made up and I am many different men and women all day long. And that my triumphs and failures almost all take place inside.  That's a lot to ask. 

“To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.” -Robert Frost, poet.

“We work to become, not to acquire.”- Elbert Hubbard, author.

 Author Ted Krever and I discuss the business of publishing in part three of our interview

Ted Krever’s books can be found at Amazon.com, at Goodreads.com and  BarnesandNoble.com

For more information about Ted Krever please visit www.tedkrever.com