Tag: HarperCollins

Listen, writers, this is gospel or my name’s not John Doe

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing2 Comments

A Facebook friend of mine claims that every story you want to write is sitting “out there” in limbo or maybe Topeka waiting for you to discover it, copy it into a DOCX file, and send it off to HarperCollins for $1000000000000000.

Does that sound crazy or what?

actorsFar be it from me to dispute it because the gospel truth is stranger than fiction. Working writers use meditation, dreams, magic, quantum entanglements and whiskey to meet with their characters once a month and talk about stories. Think of these people as, not beta readers, but beta writers.

Every one of them has ideas. Like actors, they all want to direct. These meetings are like casting calls (when you have a new story to write), brainstorming sessions (when one of them wants to run an idea of the flagpole) or encounter groups (when the sock puppets get out of control).

It’s completely safe because weapons are checked at the front door and watched over by a guy who looks like Dirty Harry. If you get too close to the guns, he says, “Well, you gotta ask yourself, do you feel lucky punk?”

theoaksI meet with my characters at a seafood joint called The Oaks in Panacea, Florida. The real Oaks has been closed for years, but with powerful meditation techniques and/or a shot of Scotch, the place returns out of the Ochlockonee River mist with the same reality that Brigadoon appeared to Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglas in the Scottish Highlands.

Since Eulalie (Conjure Woman’s Cat) is the best cook, she fixes fried mullet, hush puppies and slaw for the crowd while we shoot the breeze over old times, swap recipes for cathead biscuits and saw mill gravy, and stay away from the guy guarding the weapons.

Last night, Eulalie asked how her next story was coming along and I had to tell her it was running behind schedule. Emily (Emily’s Stories) said I promised her she could look for ghosts at the old Perkins Opera House in Monticello, Florida. “I know where it’s hiding,” she said.

nogunsRuby (The Seeker) wanted to know why she didn’t didn’t have a part in Snakebit. “Anne and I are like family,” she reminded me. “Who the hell do I have to sleep with to get another story?”

Laurence Adams (The Sun Singer) showed up even though his story doesn’t take place in Florida and said, “If you had finished writing another story set in Glacier National Park, it would be selling like hot cakes this summer during the hotel’s 100th anniversary. Please tell me you people aren’t eating mullet. High class Floridians don’t even eat mullet.”

You can see why we check our weapons at the door.

Okay, here’s what you do.

  1. meditationChoose a real place for your meeting. Make sure the owners (if any) don’t know about the meeting.
  2. If you know the names of your characters or prospective characters, write them on a piece of paper in blood (hopefully not yours) and bury it (the paper) in a deserted graveyard while nobody’s watching. If you are looking for fresh ideas, include words like “Chainsaw Killer,” “Honest Lawyer,” and “Sexy Vixen.”
  3. Steal somebody’s meditation techniques off the Internet and suddenly feel like your eyes are getting tired, that your brainwaves are entering the alpha state, and that you can “see” your meeting hall filling up with wonderful people and probably a feel wannabees. (Don’t over-do the meditation and go into a stupor.)
  4. Check all weapons.
  5. After finishing your favorite foods and beverages, ask your current and prospective characters if they believe stuff like “every story you want to write is sitting ‘out there’ in limbo or maybe Topeka waiting for you to discover it, copy it into a DOCX file, and send it off to HarperCollins for $1000000000000000.”
  6. When they say, “Does that sound crazy or what?” tell them you’re ready to hear some better ideas. Listen carefully with an open mind and an open heart. (This means not saying, “Hey, dirtbag, what kind of bozo idea is that.”)
  7. tonightshowNow, listen, writers, this is gospel or my name’s not John Doe: When you come out of your meditation (assuming you come out of it), you will have the best darned ideas for the best darned stories in the best of all possible worlds.
  8. This is important: Don’t discuss your new idea with anyone specially friends and family for they’ll share it with everyone and before you know it, some clown from Chicago or Miami will be sitting in a chair on the “Tonight Show” telling the world about YOUR BOOK. Well, it would have been your book if hadn’t blabbed the storyline to people who can’t keep a secret.
  9. Write the thing. Then give Jimmy Fallon a call. I know, I know, he’s no David Letterman or Johnny Carson, but he’s probably good for couple hundred grand in sales.

There you go.

–Malcolm

KIndle cover 200x300(1)99centsMalcolm R. Campbell is the author of the Jim Crow era novella, “Conjure Woman’s Cat,” which is on sale on Kindle today (July 18th) for only 99 cents. Eulalie claims she gets a 50% cut of the action or else.

 

 

Sarah Palin Saves Local Bookstore Owner’s Butt

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, satire2 Comments

from Morning Satirical News:

Junction City, November 25, 2009–Brisk sales of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue are saving the Main Street Book Emporium from the scrap heap of local businesses that go belly up after Walmart comes to town.

Jim Exlibrius, founder and owner of the 20-year-old bookstore conveniently located kitty corner across a busy intersection from the Krispy Kreme, told employees this morning that his butt and their jobs are safe through April Fool’s Day because Palin’s bestselling book is flying off the shelves “like bats in a tornado.”

“I almost lost my shirt after my window display for Audrey Niffenegger’s spooky “Her Fearful Symmetry” scared away all my customers,” said Exlibris. “Now, I’m making money like a blind water salesman in the Sahara Desert because every woman in this town has always wanted to ‘go rogue’ and ever man in this town has wanted to know a woman who ‘went rogue.'”

According to informed sources at publisher HarperCollins, the Main Street Book Emporium has sold up to 25% of the 2.5 million copies of Going Rogue now in print. Exlibris told reporters that he expects Junction City readers will force HarperCollins to make a tenth trip back to the printer to keep up with demand.

“I not only asked Sarah to come to my store for a book signing so huge that it will make J. K. Rowling look like a wannabee, I urged her (Sarah) to stay here as my wife,” said Exlibris. “How can a man not love a woman who writes, ‘With the gray Talkeetna Mountains in the distance and the first light covering of snow about to descend on Pioneer Peak, I breathed in an autumn bouquet that combined everything small-town America with splashes of the last frontier.'”

Police reports show that since Going Rogue was released earlier this month, more fights have broken out at the Main Street Book Emporium than Mona’s Biker Bar, Hot Balls Miniature Golf Magic Lane, and Ghost-of-a-Chance Cemetery combined.

“If we didn’t have a continuous presence at Krispy Kreme,” said Chief Kruller, “people would have been killed or worse at that bookstore. Jim just can’t keep enough Sarah on the shelf to satisfy everyone.”

Sources at city hall indicated that if Palin comes to town to do a reading and signing, Mayor Clark Trail is prepared to give her the key to the city as soon as he can find it (the key).

“He thinks it was in his gone-fishing trousers and must have ended up at the bottom of Miller’s Pond after last year’s incident with that school of rogue crappies,” councilman Calvin Knox said.

The Albino County Literary Club and Pecan Pie Society complains that its winter discussion schedule has been “more tangled than kite string in a Charlie Brown tree” because members sent to Exlibris’ store to buy one thing keep coming out with a sack full of Rogues.

“Just a couple of days ago, I sent them there to buy Jeff Shaara’s new new book No Less Than Victory, and they came out with Going Rogue, proving, I guess, that winning isn’t everything,” said society president Marianne Stemple.

Exlibris confessed to Star-Gazer editors that reporter Jock Stewart is the only man in town who refuses to buy Palin’s book, and “who the hell is more rogue than he is?”

Stewart reportedly maintains that when Palin buys his book, he’ll buy her book and even try out a halibut taco, a reindeer sausage and other delights from the land of the midnight sun Exlibris is giving away free with every copy of Going Rogue through the Black Friday weekend.

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Copyright (c) Malcolm R. Campbell, author of Jock Stewart and the Missing sea of Fire where you’ll find Jim Exlibris, Chief Kruller, Councilman Knox, Mayor Clark Trail and–of course–Jock Stewart are all going rogue.

My Experiment With Authonomy

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books2 Comments

Don’t worry, Authonomy is not a mysterious philter to be used at midnight beneath a full moon. It’s HarperCollins’ “avoid the slush” website where authors with manuscripts in search of a publisher and/or print-on-demand books in search of a mainstream house can upload their work to be read, watched and commented upon by adoring readers.

Is Authonomy.com a good place for your manuscript? Possibly so. If you’re not sure, take a look at my entry for The Sun Singer and then take a look at the FAQs. I’ve only uploaded one chapter of the novel so far, but plan to add more as time permits.

I’m sure quantum mechanics principles will become involved in this experiment before it’s over. With luck, it will become an exciting entanglement.

Note: Authonomy closed in 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/20/authonomy-writing-community-closed-by-harpercollins