Fiction Advice

Making a fictional character is often difficult. We want them to be complex and to have interesting personalities, but we can sometimes have trouble coming up with those personalities. Without complex characteristics, we don't have a complex character. For my fiction, if I rely on my own imagination, I start spinning out very similar characters. They are guilt-ridden, sour men who often have good hearts under their tough exteriors. That character is only so interesting.

Well, I found a personality generator. If you go to http://www.kabalarians.com/ you'll find their Name Analysis. Type in a first name, and you will get personality traits that people with that name should have. You see, the Kabalarians believe that your name dictates your personality. The Kabalarians also believe that if you change your name (yes, change your name) you can change your life.

That aside, it's a great place to go to generate extra personality traits for your character. It gives interesting, complex traits, and you could even see where conflict would come out of many of the traits. In fact, you could probably cook up a short story just by typing in a name.

Say for instance, my character is named Ted, and I'm finding him a little lifeless on the page. Well, let's see what the Kabalarians say about Teds.


Although the name Ted creates an active mind and a restless urge to explore new ideas, we emphasize that it causes procrastination, lack of confidence, and the inability to realize your goals and ambitions.

This name, when combined with the last name, can frustrate happiness, contentment, and success, as well as cause health weaknesses in the solar plexus, and fluid systems.

The name of Ted has given you a very imaginative, creative mind.
You always have new ideas, but too often they are for an easy way out of a difficulty, or an easy way of making money.

You are not inclined to apply yourself consistently to a job and to reach the fulfilment of your goals through perseverance and hard work.

The influence of this name has caused you to feel unsettled emotionally and mentally.

You are never satisfied with conditions, because your feelings and desires are so changeable.
Hence you seek change in order to have the opportunity for travel, new experiences, and new friends and associates.

There are people in your association who could influence you unfavourably and thereby mislead you; disillusionment, embarrassment, and bitter experiences then become your lot.


Wow -- look at that! There's a lot to work with to develop a fictional character.

I'm going to try this with my students tonight. I hope it helps a few people.

Monetary Report: Week Four

Yup, we're four weeks into the new year, and week four was no loser for me as a writer. I made money, baby. Oh, yeah. Get ready . . .

I made $1.85 in profits.

I sold two books, but I sold both at such a discount that on one I made a dollar, and on the other I made . . . well, you guessed it (or figured it out mathematically) 85 cents.

I'm not sure why I often give such ridiculous discounts. The buyers don't ask for them. Like with my novel . . . I should have made six bucks profit. But, when the person, a friend, asked how much it was, I said 10 bucks rather than 15. Why? I don't know. He even followed up with, "Are you sure it's that cheap?" My answer -- "oh, sure, ten bucks is fine." When I buy copies of the novel from the publisher for 9, selling them for 10 isn't getting me very far.

I'll need to work on that.

Well, the grand total for 2008 is now: $18.83.

I've been writing for fifteen years. I have seven books, albeit from small presses. Please don't tell me that I average $18.83 a month in profits.

We'll have to see what the weeks ahead bring.

Monetary Report for week 3, plus a few other things

Okay, I didn't sell any books this week. However, I did get a royalty check from Bottom Dog Press. Get ready . . . it was for $14.63. But, that's pure profit. No shipping. No envelopes. Just cashing the check, baby.

Ah, yes, my writing life on the D list.

So, $14.63 + my original total 0f $2.35 means that to date in 2008 I've made $16.98 in profit from my writing. Yup, you guessed it, I'm pretty close to turning in my letter of resignation at work!

And, finally, don't forget this upcoming event:

On Saturday, February 2nd, The Creative Spirit Center in Midland (1517 Bayliss St.) will host An Evening About Love, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Psychotherapist and poet Ken Meisel will begin the night with a short talk on the neurobiology of love and romance, and what are the necessary ingredients of sustaining a relationship. Then, afterwards, Meisel and Delta College English professor Jeff Vande Zande will conduct a workshop on how to write a meaningful Valentine's poem for one's sweetheart. Meisel and Vande Zande will end with a short reading of their own poems. Those with questions can email Vande Zande at jcvandez@delta.edu.

Cost for event: $10.00

It'd be dishonest to hide the so-so ones

Into the Desperate Country received a mixed review at the Adirondack Review.

Check it out, if you'd like . . .

http://adirondackreview.homestead.com/Book65.html

My Chair

Over Christmas holiday, I have way too much time on my hands. I watched a show on PBS about artisan chair makers, and then I got this crazy idea for a chair of my own. What you see above is what happens when an English major gets a 4' x 8' sheet of oak, a jigsaw, tung oil, and about forty unspoken for hours. Maybe I should have been writing, but I'm pretty proud of the chair.

Of course, don't let this keep you from my rambling post below.

Rambling Thoughts (and second-week monetary report)

First, really quickly, the monetary report. Well, ahem, I made nothing. Not a book sold.

Onward.

Well, I’m close to finished with John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse. It’s a pretty wild ride, and I can see why it was ground-breaking at the time. I did like many of the stories – including some of the meta-fictions. “Night-Sea Journey”, “Water Message”, “Petition” and “Title” were among my favorites. Interestingly, the two longest stories are at the end. “Menelaiad” is from the point of view of Menelaus, and he’s explaining what happened with him and Helen after the Trojan War. It’s funny and playful, but it makes me wonder, too. Why write a story that, before you can read it, you have to be quite familiar with the Iliad? Why do that? Part of me thought that it was smarty-pants posturing – a “look at how smart I am” kind of thing. But, as I thought about it, I decided that Barth wrote it because that’s what he wanted to write. That’s what he was inspired to write. And, thusly, that’s what he should have done – and did. It doesn’t make it great literature (and I don’t think it is), but it makes it true to what Barth needed to do at that time.

Of course, “Menelaiad” was never published in some great magazine like many of his other stories (Esquire, The New American Review, Southwest Review, Atlantic Monthly, The Yale Review), and I can see why. The story is over thirty pages long and not as experimental or new as the others. “Anonymiad,” the last story (which I haven’t read yet), weighs in at 29 pages and, given the title, I’m guessing that it’s more of the same. No magazine ever published “Anonymiad” either. Of course, without “M” and “A,” Lost in the Funhouse would only be 125 pages. Were those stories tacked on so the thing would look more like a book? I don’t know.

What I do think now is that it’s good that Barth wrote them. He obviously needed to, and the care shows that he did not write them hastily. They meant something to him – and maybe to a few readers. So, yes, experimenters press on. Be odd. Be cutting-edge. Be obscure. Of course, at your own risk. Just because you’re experimenting doesn’t mean you deserve an audience. I hear many lament the state of fiction, but given the state of fiction, I’m not surprised that it’s suffering. Experiment all you want – I still think it turns most readers off. Still, you gotta do what you’re going to do (unless, of course, you’re only doing what it seems like everyone is doing – and many are doing it, except for no real readers). Writers writing for writers. Much of what’s out there is Menelaiadesque. Meaning, it meets few reader’s needs and, also, it’s really no great shakes to begin with. No meat. Often the experimental and stylized writing is empty, where the simple and plain-told just gets at more. Not always, but often. The experimental just looks and feels like it’s doing something new but, underneath, there’s no “there there”.

That doesn’t mean don’t write it. Of course, write what you have to write (as long as you’ve explored all the options and know that what you feel you have to write is actually what you need to write). But, do it. Just don’t expect an audience. Being cutting-edge and getting read (really read) is rare. Barth was rare. Honestly, Lost in the Funhouse probably wouldn’t be published today -- only because it would be competing with its own children, who seem sassier by comparison. Barth was just doing something new (and doing it well) at the right time. Kind of like Pollack. He wasn’t just dripping paint – he was doing it well. Those who have studied Pollack’s paintings in depth have determined that he was probably a mathematical genius, which is why his dripped paint looks so damn good.

But, do keep experimenting, and cutting edges. Just don’t expect much to come of it.

In the most recent issue of The Spoon River Poetry Review, there’s an interview with Ted Kooser. He talks about how the workshop environment gives young writers a false view of the world. In workshop, their stories and poems are taken so seriously (even if they’re horrible), and Kooser feels this gives students a false sense of how their writing will be received in the “real world”. Having other students discuss your poem or story for a half an hour gives one the sense that the writing warrants the time – when the students may only be discussing it to fulfill the requirements of a grade. Kooser ends with, “Intentionally obscure or obfuscatory writing may be accepted in creative writing workshops, where the attendees are rewarded for being there to ferret meaning from what may be nonsense, but it won’t find a single reader among those hundreds of men and women breezing past the classroom door.”

“Well, I don’t want those hundreds of idiots reading my work, anyway.” Okay, that may be your answer. But, like Pollack, I think in the end the majority of us crave an audience – an audience that goes beyond our little cluster. (Clusters of like-minded thinkers . . . artists of any kind really shouldn’t spend much time in such clusters – virtual or otherwise.)

So, do you have to write to the average American? No. The average American doesn’t read. Only twenty percent of us ever even buy a book in a year. So, the average reader is probably pretty smart; I mean, they do read after all. You can still write some complex, important but also ACCESSIBLE stuff.

Or, don’t. Experiment. Stylize. Write from right to left. Do what you feel you have to do. Seriously. I mean, be true to yourself, but go into it knowing that it probably won’t be well-received, nor should you expect it to be. You’re going into writing just begging for a small audience.

Anyway, if you read this far, thanks for reading.

Monetary Report #1

Okay, so it's been nearly a week since 2008 began. And, I'm happy to report that I actually made some money on my writing. Someone ordered a copy of my book Poems New, Used, and Rebuilds. The buyer in question sent me a check for $13.00.

So, yippee, $13.00 earned!

Well, not quite.

Keep in mind that I am reporting profits only. I have to buy copies of the book from my publisher at a 40% discout -- that is if I want copies in hand to sell at readings, etc. As an upper lower-class writer, most of my sales happen face-to-face.

So, each book costs me $9.00 with the discount.

Okay, so my profit is $4.00.

Wrong.

I also had to ship the book, which cost me $1.65.

So, my first profit report is actually a grand total of $2.35. Staggering.

And, honestly, that's not completely truthful. I could factor in that I had to pay to have a box of books shipped to me -- which actually means that each book was a little more than $9.00. I could factor in the cost of the yellow envelope that I had to put the book in. I could factor in the cost of gas that it took for me to get to the post office (although, I did build the post office run into a number of errands that I had to do).

But, I won't factor in those other costs. I'll just say that I made $2.35 at the end of week one of 2008.

Stop back next Sunday or Monday for another report.

Ken and Jeff in 2008

Here's a press release I sent to the local papers. Hope some people can make it out.


On Saturday, February 2nd, The Creative Spirit Center in Midland will host An Evening About Love, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Psychotherapist and poet Ken Meisel will begin the night with a short talk on the neurobiology of love and romance, and what are the necessary ingredients of sustaining a relationship. Then, afterwards, Meisel and Delta College English professor Jeff Vande Zande will conduct a workshop on how to write a meaningful Valentine's poem for one's sweetheart. Meisel and Vande Zande will end with a short reading of their own poems. Those with questions can email Vande Zande at jcvandez@delta.edu.