The Fountain Pen

I grew up with stories; when I learned to read I consumed as many stories as I could. Somewhere along the way I wanted to tell my own stories and write them down. Somehow that goal was never quite true, for I also wanted my stories to be complete, and somewhere I got it in my head that a story is not complete unless it has been published. I am beginning to question that: what does publishing do?

I used to think that publishers were a sort of filter but I have books on my shelf that flagrantly violate the rules of grammar and I’m utterly shocked; I was taught that we should use complete sentences, and every sentence must have a verb. Some authors and publishers disagree. So this cannot be true: bad books get published.

I have also caught myself thinking that publishing in some way validates a man or woman as an author. Put another way, you aren’t a “real” author until you are published. Does publishing validate the writer as an author? Am I something less if I never sell a book to a publisher? Does self-publishing not count? Does self-publishing only count if I function as both a publisher and as an author, and publish authors other than myself? And if publishing does validate, does a small-press count, and if so, how small can I get away with? Here’s a good one: do you have to publish to paper, or can you publish electronically?

Some time ago I concluded that being published means only one thing: your particular story is marketable. If a story is published that means that some person (or persons) believed they would be able to sell the story for a profit. It does not guarantee a fan base, although it probably does guarantee that a few people will at least read your manuscript.

As someone who would love to call himself an author I really only care about one thing: I want an audience. I’ve given up on the idea that I’ll ever make a living at writing. I have a day job, and that is consistent with all the writing advice I’ve ever heard. So if I only care about having people read my writing I’m seriously wondering why I still have this pipe-dream to one day be a published author, although I now no longer know what that means, nor what it would mean.

What does it mean to be published, and what does publishing do?

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A thought struck me tonight. Most writers understand that few will be able to write full-time and pay the bills. It seems to me there might be some corollary about not writing for money (or writing in the expectation of money), for it is not likely you will earn enough money from your writing to satisfy you. Stated another way: We only have a finite amount of time per diem, and in order to allocate more time to writing one must be compensated enough so that one need not consume time merely earning money.

I will state for the record that I am not interested in writing as a business. I write stories that I want tell, not stories I think I can sell. Granted, I would love to have a wider audience, and I acknowledge that people read published material more readily than “unpublished”. There is a balance in there somewhere, but if I am ever to make money at this little hobby of mine, that will be a bonus, and probably will not affect anything in my life.

What I really wonder, is how all this will play out in the future. The Internet is full of vast possibilities, and if I were happy with an audience of 100 faithful fans it seems all to trivial to accomplish that in light of the Internet. This of course needs more thought.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got this crazy idea while working on a story. What if we were to think of our stories as a sequence of conflicts which in turn serve to resolve The Conflict of the story? Sounds like a no-brainer to me; in fact it sounds like the way we tend to write stories; I’ll go further and say we do write stories that way, but rarely so consciously.

So now I wonder how my stories would differ if I were to think of my stories as a series of scenes, each one having a conflict that drives it, and each scene resolving it’s conflict and progressing to the next.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve had a couple of potential writing exercises kicking around in my head, only I don’t like them much. One would be to take an “underwritten” (one that lacks much detail or dialog or whose pace is too fast) fairy tale (hopefully somewhat obscure, so as not to hurt any fan feelings) and use it’s outline and re-write it. The other would be to take a fairy tale (again probably not a popular one) and re-work its atmosphere so as to make it more of a ghost story than a fairy tale.

I have two reasons for not liking either of these. The first is this sounds more like work than fun; in this case I’d be working on the craft and not the art of writing. The second is my general distaste for re-tellings; be original for crying out loud.

This does not mean I won’t do either of these, the second one appeals the most as it seems the most helpful to me, but it does mean I probably will not share them and will despise myself at some level for stooping so low. (Can we see why I don’t write much?)

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This topic is huge; I still can’t get my head around all the various aspects and angles. I’m not sure what it would take to exhaust the subject, but I’ll do my part and toss in a little something. I will not answer the age old question “How does one get an audience” for I have already asked it once before (under a different context) and I still don’t have an answer. Instead I want to lay out a dilemma I have created.

In the world of fiction I have only encountered a scant few reasons to be an author. The most obvious, and the most failed, is to write as a way to make a living (although I imagine most settle for making money). The next most obvious is to be famous, and again this isn’t all that likely. Another reason to be an author is so you can just tell stories regardless of making money. I fall in that later category.

Now it seems to me there are two basic modes of writing, and it all has to do with intent. You can write with the intent to share the story, or you can write to sooth your inner writer and forever keep your stories to yourself. Of the first kind you have those who intend to share the story via publication, and then … to share without publishing, or rather to share without getting into the business of publishing and selling stories.

If only I were the kind of writer who could content himself with writing stories for myself, or even only sharing them with my wife and any future children we might have. Unfortunately I want an audience, and yet I don’t want to publish my stories in the traditional ways. For me I write stories (or fragments in my current condition) because I want to create written art, and if I am to toil over my stories the way I tend to (perfectionism: learn to love it or hate yourself, it’s your choice) I want to share my masterpieces with the world.

I am fussy about my stories. Like most people I have a hard time taking criticism in regards to those things which I care greatly about. With the exception of my novel I have put much of my heart and soul into my stories, and often they say exactly what I want them to say and in the way I want to as well; any attempt at editing my stories is often met with hostility, which makes me an unpleasant author to work with for sure. It might be different if I cared less about the art and cared more for the craft, but I still haven’t been able to do that just yet.

Bearing this all in mind I have thought long and hard about audiences. If I want to share my stories with people I have to put them in a place where they will read them. Until I build up a name for myself I cannot expect people to find my stories if I just post them on the Internet. Thus it seems I will have to suck up my pride and submit stories for publication and take my licks, working toward that day when I can quit publication and just post my stories on the Internet. Funny isn’t it? I don’t care about the money, I just want the audience, and to me that seems much harder to come by than the money.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I love living on the West Coast of the good ‘ol U. S. of A. I especially love living in the western part of Oregon where the weather is mild and the Pacific Ocean is just an hour’s drive away. If I were an anthropologist or a sociologist I might be able to give some sort of authoritative treatise on how the West Coast is different from the rest of the nation, and from the rest of the world (though it would be even more interesting to know what areas of the globe the West Coast culture is like). Alas I am but a poor Bible scholar cum author (seasoned with computer programming) so I’ll have to just conjecture and blather on.

Recently I’ve decided to try my hand at writing a gothic tale. Think Walpole meets Poe and you’ve got an idea of the tone I’m aiming for. I think I’ll have a good time with it, and I might actually write a story I would love to read. There is a bit of a problem though … I don’t have exposure to anything approaching gothic. Out here if a building is more than 100 years old its either a dilapidated barn or a farmhouse, and I don’t find those particularly haunting, chilling, nor gothic (though how odd would it be to have a barn with flying buttresses and gargoyles?).

I went “back East” once, when I was a child, to tour some of our great American points of interest, namely Revolutionary War locations, Civil War locations, and D.C. I didn’t go there on a writer’s holiday, so I fear my impressions are biased and skewed based on the historical nature of the visit. However, I do know there were a number of buildings, locations, and narrow streets that are a result of the original colonies. There are features of the landscape and architecture that are impacted from 200 years past. I know this is even more true in Europe.

So I’m trying to write a gothic story, and to get the feel and flavor I want I can’t just take a stroll downtown like Poe or Lovecraft might have been able to do. I’ll have to dig around picture books, troll the Internet for pictures and videos, and generally rely on not being there and creating a composite world for my story. So, can an Oregonian write a gothic tale that doesn’t involve a haunted barn? We’ll see.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was talking with my sweet little missus last night, inundating her with all kinds of conjecture, ideas, and much conversation. I fear the poor little woman couldn’t get a word in edgewise (note to self: refuse all future “energy drinks”). Somewhere in the middle of the rabbit-trail like conversation I hit upon a series of “What if” questions that sparked my writer’s imagination.

What if there was a genie who granted his master some wishes, in return for praise and public acknowledgment? What if there was a succubus who visited a young man in the night and granted his desires (though maybe not herself, but just arranged it). What if there were supernatural beings who desired worship and adoration and had it within their power to perform “miracles” (i.e. demons)?

What if the seminal genie was a demon? In exchange for some wishes he got praise and it has lasted the test of time, we still talk about genies. What if a great number of these type of mythical beings are based off of some pact made with the devil or a demon? Seems plausible enough to me for at least one or two stories.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve been told and I’ve read that telling stories is inherently solitary. One person tells one story and that’s it. So why do we have traditions of collaborative story telling like the good old campfire ghost story activity? Why do we still pursue this illusive dream if it’s either impossible, improbable, or ill-advised?

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was browsing the documents about Writing Inform 7 games and found this:

“Installing Inform can be a little like buying watercolours, brushes and cartridge paper from an art supply shop, getting them home, setting up an easel - and then thinking: now what? Still life, portrait, landscape, abstract? What makes me think I’m an artist, anyway?”

My first reaction when I read that: “Hey! Someone actually understands what I feel like when I attempt most things creative or artistic!!” There is nothing I hate more about myself than when I have a blank canvas in front of me and nothing to do with it. It has happened with my writing, with my feeble attempts at drawing, with my calligraphy, and even with my programming.

Posted by Seth Croston Barber at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)