I love this feeling. It’s an awesome sensation, one I hope I never outgrow as a writer. One thing I love about my craft (and any artistic craft, really) is the constant sense of discovery and pushing boundaries. Always learning, always growing, constantly challenging yourself, forcing yourself to new heights.

I remember the first DUH moment I had a year or so ago, that changed my prose in fiction almost immediately. It was the realization that poetic prose does not need to be complicated, flowery prose. I took a page from the Beat poets, from other minimalist writers.  Great prose can be simple, direct and easy to understand by anyone and anything, yet still contain a rhythm and beautiful complexity.  Poetic, lyrical, and emotional writing didn’t need to be ornamental and complicated to work. It could be simple, direct and purposeful.

Once I realized this I think I stepped up to a whole new level in writing. The other duh moment I had recently was the concept of scene construction. Of getting it RIGHT for once, damnit. It was such a simple realization, but such a complex one as well. It was about seeing how scenes were constructed, how they fit into the puzzle of the novel itself. How each scene needed to be a mini-story, with it’s own focus, rising and falling action, all that stuff.

How to keep it simple, to avoid bridging scenes (scenes that only exist to get the characters from point A to point B- completely unnecessary these days), to keep the focus of the one scene primary.  Each scene had to have a turning point, an axis that changed both the character and the plot.  These were the focal points, and everything in the narrative had to beam in on it, like a laser.

This completely changed how I did my writing. It completely changed everything.  I love these moments.

An ending were everyone dies (and most are eaten) adds to that sense, that damnation, that emptiness. It fits in well with what we think a horror movie should be, what the function of a horror movie is- that is, to drag us deep into a sense of fear, loathing and unquitude. Horror is supposed to unsettle, disturb, bother us.

I think that might be why horror is out of vogue. I’m wondering if the whole nihilistic despair angle is losing it’s touch, is no longer relevant to what we need as a society, as a humanity. That we don’t need that catharsis, that longing for loss. I know, I know, my two books I have out right now are explorations in the classic horror frame of mind- meditations on despair, loss and melancholy.

But I think as a writer I’ve written past that. I don’t need to talk about that anymore, and I don’t think people need to read about that anymore. I think Zombie Land is the new face of our stories. I think the rise in Urban Fantasy literature is a part of this. Urban Fantasy has the tropes and guises of horror, it wears the masks, does the tribal horror dance with it’s stock monsters (werewolves, vampires and zombies, oh my!).  But it takes the teeth out of them, plays them not for horror but rather for a scenario of intense thrill.

This is a good thing. I think catharsis can be achieved more through pushing all hope down, to making it seem like everything is lost, that nihilism has won out, that our world is despair and longing and nothing else.  And then, then, at the moment when the shadows devour, hope avails.  There is more release in that moment than in any moment of despair winning out.  There is more emotional purging in that moment than a thousand moments of tragedy and horror.

It’s not escapism. It’s life. It’s a different part of it, a different place where it comes from. But still, life.

Going back to melancholy for a moment- it’s a feeling/emotion that contains no context if it was not for the hope it also brings. Nostalgia is not just a useless pining for the past, it’s reconnection of the past to our current selves. It’s a continuation of our internal narrative. This does not need to lead to frustration and despair, but instead to a celebration of life.

Returning, a moment, to the film. Zombie Land is not just a pointless comedy, it comes with layers that are wrapped around the characters.  There is despair here. There is loneliness here.  There is melancholy and nightmares and horrors abound. One character lost his whole world. Another never experienced a childhood, even though she is still a child.

These feelings of loss drive the characters. They push them towards a relentless pursuit of what they lost, trying to regain it and return back to a life they thought they would never have.  These moments, these points of searching, of looking for a return always end in tragedy. And yet, the movie is not tragic. It’s not nihilistic. It’s not about never going home again.

It’s about the search of a return to innocence, and the need to keep going on, to keep searching, no matter what tries to stop you. No matter what tries to destroy you.  It is this, this rise in human strength to overcome it’s anguish that marks this film as amazing. There is not only hope, but joy and love. Even when they are surrounded by death, even when they are constantly reminded of those they lost. They still fight.

Even if it means destroying everything they come across in a glee of violence and release.  When they break, smash, batter, kill and break they are not doing it out of nihilistic fury.  They are doing it out of anger, out of a need to let out their pain and misery, to reclaim who they are in a world that had tried to usurp it and destroy it.

In the short of it- cool ass film that really made me rethink a lot of stuff about writing in general, and what it means to write about ideas and thoughts and characters.  The need to wallow in despair is a common angle for any writer who writes about things horrific or tries to be thought provoking. This movie showed me a third way. A better way.  A way that celebrates life, even when it is being consumed by death.

I don’t think I’ll ever write anything the same way again.

PS- Fast zombies suck. Slow zombies rule.

So, you hear a lot of thoughts on writers and advertisement, and building your own platform and your own brand. And - how do writers do this? And- can new writers use these great new tools to sell themselves, to get a book deal? Can twitter advance your career?

I say yes, yes it can. But you have to remember one important rule: be interesting. If you want to blog and tweet, don’t do it just to sell a book. Do it because you have something interesting to say, something interesting to share with other writers. Trust me, if you try and pimp yourself out and you’re not interesting, it will do you more harm than good. You need to be creative, clever, fun and memorable. You need to be cool, exciting, and say stuff that turns heads and makes people jump up and down and retweet you and link you and friend you.

If you think that’s hard, well, just don’t do it. Social media is not a platform that takes kindly to poseurs, to people who put up a cardboard facade in order to sell something. We don’t take kindly to spammers, no sir, no how.

And you know what?  You’re creative. You’re a writer. If you can’t find something interesting to say in 140 characters or less, how can you shove it into 100k for a novel?

Anyway, so I kept wondering why did people side with Amazon?  Then I realized it’s the same reason people side with the GOP, even when everything they say is wrong, and facts counter-act the evidence, and their opponents show the reality in a calm, dignified and intelligent manner.

Amazon has framed itself as a populist narrative. It created a line in the sand: us versus them. Then it took the same basic narrative (they think they can take you’re money!  they think they’re entitled to what you own!  they think they’re better than you!  Those snooty authors and publishers!) and then framing themselves as Robin Hood (they can’t get away with it!  we’re on a mission to destroy them!) but without giving the actual facts.

Readers fell for it. I’m not sure why they did, but I have a feeling the inelegance of the way it was stated on the forums actually propelled the argument to the readers- making Amazon feel like some small timer who is fighting against The Man.  When in reality, Amazon is pulling the same bullshit Walmart does that everyone rallies against and Calls Evil.

It’s interesting how well narratives and stories can effect our psyche, especially an emotional one like this, that was proven to work in the media/political environment.  People eat this shit up.

Heinlien. Asimov.  At the latest, Orson Scott Card (but mostly just for Ender’s Game). I don’t see anyone ever looking for something new. Something released in the last 10 or 20 years or so.  I would think this was maybe an isolated incident to the city I live in, but I don’t think so. I keep hearing talk of looking for a list of classics to give to newcomers- and you know what?  That’s not what we need. We don’t need an SF scholarship. We don’t need newcomers to go to our backlist and read all that crap.  We need people buying new stuff, because that’s what keeps the genre going.

This is why SF is spiraling downward in sales. It’s fans just aren’t buying it anymore. I’ve got mixed feelings about this. I love Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, etc. so I don’t mind that it’s popular and selling. But some part of me wonders- is SF meant to be kept in the past?  Is that why Steampunk is so popular right now, because it’s an emulation of the past?  I’m not sure. But this is a problem.

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/02/mind-meld-books-on-the-top-of-your-to-be-read-pile/

http://pauljessup.com/wordpress/2008/06/glass-coffin-girls/

First off, they aren’t part of some indie underground revolution. Not at all. There already is an underground, indie book publishing industry. It goes from small presses to single one woman/man publishers that crank out zines and chapbooks. It lives in the cracks, and performs the same crazy outsider art feeling that punk rock can give you.

What Author’s Solutions is doing is slimy. They’re not providing a voice to the common unheard writer. That’s LuLu. What they’re doing is monetizing on other people’s hopes and dreams. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be joining up with publishers and giving rejected authors the offer over pay us a grand and we’ll publish you. This is about as slimy and predatory as the crappy loans that got us into the whole economic crash of 2008.