Rumble In the Jungle

It seems for every right, there is a wrong. For every left turn, someone wants to swing right. For every change made, some folks cling to the status quo. I read an article recently about some neighbors who were complaining about those little free libraries that have popped up around the country. One old goat was quoted as saying: “They’re a distraction when I’m driving by and who knows what kind of riff-raff they bring into our neighborhood.”  It’s NIMBY at its most ridiculous.


Now the contrarians have hit the world of writing. Actually they’ve been trying to upset the apple cart for some time now. Back in the Sixties, they waged the censorship war and lost.

Leading the charge against censorship, publishing entities such as Grove Press and Evergreen Review began to question our collective take on the issue of morals. These literary first-offenders opened a frontal assault with books such as ‘tropic of Cancer,’ ‘Naked Lunch,’ ‘Story of O’ and ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover.’ While none would be considered great works of literature, they were testing the freedom of expression in this country and abroad. ‘Howl’ by Allen Ginsberg and ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac took readers in directions they had never gone before. It was the 60’s and politics and culture and new views of American society were being offered up to the American reading public.



Now Indie publishing has upset that apple cart once again. Struggling to nurture and master the craft of writing is like trudging through a jungle full of hidden perils and challenges. There are more than enough financial hindrances and distractions along the way. Now some gnat has decided (for the sake of selling magazines, I assume) to challenge the notion of what it means to be an author. But he certainly isn’t the first.

Back in the 80’s there was a protracted battle going on over the legitimacy of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek.’ There were those writers who didn’t think this new take on space adventure fit into the science fiction genre. Then another argument arose over whether fantasy was even a legitimate genre. Most agreed that ‘slipstream fantasy’ (the kind of story where you can’t tell if the fantasy is something that really happened to the character or something that he misinterpreted) was legitimate. But the rest of the genre was left up to debate.

But it got even sillier as time progressed. Some female writers of romance novels hated the idea that a man would dare write in the romance genre. One well-known male writer in the mystery field said that women shouldn’t be writing mystery novels at all. Then there were those mystery writers who held in distain others who wrote ‘cozies’ (like the stuff Agatha Christie wrote) and even other authors who felt that hard-boiled writers such as Raymond Chandler were destroying the genre with their gore and unnecessary violence.

This gnat in question recently published an article about writing and publishing.  His essay asked the question about who gets to claim the title of author in this brand new world of self-publish-ing. It was an article obviously meant to generate discussion among the New York literary elite as well as Ivy League coffee house patrons as to what really constitutes the auspicious title of author.

According to this small-minded elitist, there is a ‘stark contrast between being a writer and being a professional author.’ The problem with his argument is that most of my colleagues who write and publish don’t pretend to be professional authors. We want to make money with our writing but that isn’t our main goal. Instead we share the pure joy of story-telling.

That author in question would like to ‘see the process simplified, in which you are either a writer or a professional author. If you earn your living from our writing, you are a professional author; anyone else is just a plain old writer.’ He’s even come up with a financial threshold of one thousand dollars as an entrance fee.

The main problem with his lame argument harkens back to the question of who gets to bestow the title upon whom.

If a student in high school or post-graduate studies makes a film, is he or she a film-maker? Or do they have to wait until they’ve sold their film to Hollywood to earn their title. If a person paints a picture do they have to sell their work before they’re considered a painter? If I speak at toastmasters, am I not a speaker even if I didn’t get paid for my presentation? If I take a picture with my camera, do I have to sell that photo to be considered a photographer? If I write and publish a novel do I have to wait for a certain amount of sales before I get to call myself an author?

It’s my observation that the majority of these silly disputes are really about change. The problem arises when new writers, fresh to the field, start to believe these arguments and are indoctrinated with all kinds of ‘shoulds’ and rules and guidelines created by other writers to guide their own vision of any particular genre. In short, it’s a failed attempt by some of the elders to control the creativity of the newbies.

In the past, traditional publishing exercised almost total control over the creative process and kept the doors locked to anyone who didn’t conform to their own vision/version of publishing and creativity. But now Indie publishing is allowing the creatives to break out of that artificial world and to explore a brand new world of writing and publishing on ‘their own terms.’ The gate-keepers of old have been pushed aside and they’re fighting back.

That gnat seems to take the moniker ‘professional’ as the only righteous title one can carry if one wants to write, paint, sing, act, make films or do practically anything else of an artistic nature. There are enough come-ons, book shepherds, advice traps and money-pits that a novice in this jungle has to avoid without having to think about one’s proper title in the process.

To quote from an article I recently read (with apologies to its author who remains unknown and thus can’t be given him/her credit.)

‘Writing isn’t about doing what everyone else tells you to do. Writing is about doing what your creative voice wants you to do.’

Amen to that.

Den of Thieves

This season I want to expand my den of thieves.

By their very nature and genetic makeup, all writers are thieves. We steal snatches of conversations everywhere we go.  In our minds eye, we paint a tapestry of scenarios happening all around us and store them in our memory bank or imagination vault. We grasp fleeting emotions that we have seen, felt, heard or observed. We peruse life around us with a relish and create our own life stories for people we don’t even know. We abscond with the memories of our relatives, parents, friends, lovers, associates and all kinds of fleeting friendships. Then we lock them away in our memory vault to be retrieved later on in life in some supposedly fictional world.

My den of thieves are a colorful cast of characters although they would probably not like to be called characters but rather a more mature crowd still searching for ways to find more life in life. Together we’re all still wondering ‘what is our life story’ and then examining others about theirs.

 

It’s different from the Paris crowd that gathered around Hemingway’s table for drinks and song. It’s different from Ginsberg’s eccentric group that gathered most San Francisco evenings for a salon laced along the ragged edges of drugs, sex and booze. Or my own Snow White and the Seven Seekers all gathered around a breakfast table in Brussels, exchanging cigarettes, small talk and grand expectations for the life ahead.

This is a more subtle crowd that does most of its exploration alone or in small hunter-gatherer packs. But it’s still a group of literary-bound wanderers seeking answers instead of redemption.

                                  Palm Springs Writers' Guild Facebook Page

Cat is one of them. No one calls him David or Mr. Cohen…just Cat. It’s kind of like those hard-core hikers of the AT (Appalachian Trail) who all have trail names instead of their real ones.  Cat has his loveable Stella. Everywhere the Cat goes his pit-bull is sure to follow.

Carol is a blogger and her husband at 92 is the reigning chocolate king of the valley and has several cookbooks to prove it.

Judy is the Hope Mother and its author.

Bob still teaching and learning. I hope he’ll be my mentor for screenwriting. I know he is a great class facilitator.

Sunny has a disposition that matches her name.

Jim has a novel about cyber-crime that seems to have hit its timing mark exquisitely.

Lynn is another woman whose focus is mid-life changes for women. Her novel seems to have hit a cord with a lot of readers.

Ed, whose third book will show readers How to Survive Your Vacation.

John…ad man from the east coast…is heading up the Desert Writers Expo again this year.

Paramount in my quest for their secrets to success will be the Palm Springs Writers Guild and the Desert Writers Expo this March. There are a ton of very talented folks in town. Not just retirees from the coast or ex-pats from the East Coast. There are also a lot of skill wordsmiths and artistic craftsmen from all over the country who have found a safe and comfortable haven in our community here. There are playwrights to stage a meeting and songwriters to share a chorus with. There are screen writers whom I need to share plot structure and dialogue with.

They’re all this wonderful diverse eclectic crowd of artists who might be seen as a bit strange anyplace else but are right at home here in the desert. Musicians, song-writers, novelists, screen writers and playwrights that I want to hang out with.

They are true artists of any and every ilk. Each and every one of them is very talented. I hope we can share ideas and steal a few if need be. You can’t copyright an idea and I’ll grab every thought, action, pause or whiff of anything that catches my fancy. Then attempt to craft those parts into a storyline of my own.

It’s stealing, sharing, and gleaning the best from the best.  There’s a lot going on in this city. I need to stay on top of it and perhaps add my own two cents once in a while.