Got bit by an insect this morning. Looked quickly enough to see what it was. A damned ladybug. Brushed it off. It’s happened before, so I knew that they would bite. (Or maybe the term is sting). Be careful out there!
Dean Wesley Smith. Remember that name.
If you want to improve your writing he has a long slate of courses to help you. Through Teachable and WMG publishing.
Cat Rambo. Remember her name too.
She also has a long slate of writing courses worth your time.
Writers get better through writing. But they also get better through study.
Give them a try.
And if you’d like something different for Halloween, try my Audible stories (also available as e-book and paper copies)
That’s me several years ago in my favorite dress. But counting back from 2021 twenty years or so, I looked a little different (which has no bearing on my essay here). This is about the novel I’m writing. It has taken me more than twenty years. I started writing the novel that I am now close to finishing in 2001. Its working title was Warm Heart, you know–Cold hands, warm heart–which had nothing to do with the story. Its inception (the novel’s) is interesting, however.
My sister and I attended the 2001 World Horror Convention in Denver, Colorado. By far that event has been the best writers experience I have ever had. (Bouchercon a couple of years back was also great). We were probably the only two fans in attendance, everyone else was a published novelist or short story writer. We met just about everyone. Everyone was nice to us. And best of all, right from the beginning we made a couple of temporary friends in a Canadian horror writer and a gay anthologist who we kept going from session to session with. They hosted us at their table during the awards ceremony. That’s how nice they were. I’ve still got a picture.
We talked with Harlan Ellison. We surprised Peter Straub with the admission that The Hellfire Club was one of our favorite books–“But you look so nice!”–he said, a shocked expression on his face. We saw Neil Gaiman walk though the halls. We met David Morrell, Ellen Datlow, Edward Bryant, Steve and Melanie Tem, and many, many more of the best writers on earth. And we sat at a table with artist Rick Lieder. This artist is why I’ve got the book I’m writing on this year.
I bought two paintings from Rick Lieder at this convention. And I came home from Denver so stoked with writing enthusiasm that I used one of these paintings as a writing prompt. It’s a steam train. By looking at that steam train, I got my setting, I got my time period, and I got my main character and opening scene. Plus a lousy title I don’t plan to keep.
Back in 2001 I wrote about 30,000 words of a horror novel I was proud of, and then I just stopped. The story had got away from me and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. So, in a drawer it sat. I knew better than to throw it away.
About four or five years ago I passed it around to my writing critique group. And then I put it back in a drawer. Where it stayed until 2021. Now I’m actively writing it, and almost done.
This is a warning along the lines of do what I say, not what I do. Don’t leave projects unfinished. If I’d continued writing it back in 2001 who knows what might have happened. It was quite good, as much as I finished.
What’s really interesting now is how the book is playing out. This is a totally different book than the one I started writing. Is is better? Probably. I will never know. Am I going to go back and dig up the one other project I started and abandoned decades before 2001? Maybe. It’s not something I recommend. It’s better to go forward than to go back.
Okay. End of my short cautionary piece. I wish I’d have finished my book long ago. And you will too if you make a habit of abandoning stories.
What to take from this: science fiction conventions, fantasy conventions, horror conventions, and mystery conventions are great ways to learn your craft, to meet the best of the best, and to make friends
So, next year, or the next, when the covid virus has been tamed, get out and go to the local science fiction conventions and the comic cons. Lots to learn there and plenty of people to meet.
In the mean time, get vaccinated, wear masks, and be cautious.
And finish those projects.
My favorite bookstore in the world. BookPeople in Austin, Texas. That’s my book there in the middle of the table up by the checkout stand. If you’re in there browsing, take a look at it.
BROWN, a mystery novel by G. L. Rix is only the most recent of my books that are available on Audible. There are a few ways to get it free as well.
ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT is another.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Ill-Met-by-Moonlight-Audiobook/B0744QRVDD
TWISTED RIXTER is another
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Twisted-Rixter-Audiobook/B01MDNU438
THE GOODALL MUTINY is another
http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Goodall-Mutiny-Audiobook/B01N4GFCQ6/
Also THE COWBOY’S BABY, THE COWBOY’S BABY GOES TO HEAVEN, TALKING TO THE DEAD GUYS, TEA WITH A DEAD GAL, THE GOODALL MANIFEST, THE GOODALL MARAUDERS and BABY SINGS THE BOOS.
Funny. Sad. Strange. Satisfying….
…and very, very human. The Watermelon Pump is like the chocolate or lemon pies old ladies used to make; the ones with the buttery, flaky crusts and those little browned tips of high-whipped, handmade meringue, the whole thing covered by wax paper, toothpicks propping up the paper like a circus tent so it won’t crush the meringue, handed to you carefully in some no-frills kitchen by no-nonsense hands. You felt loved holding that pie and touching those hands. It was good.
So is Gretchen Rix’s book. It’s set in small-time, small-town Texas, and the sense of place is richly scented (I mean that literally) but it could be anywhere really; anywhere where people try to figure out how to be good to one another (or, at least, how to not piss one another off) and go to bed and get up and wonder at the end of it all if their lives have meant anything at all. There’s a pet chicken and some Mennonites and some unusual brides and a local newspaper owner whose panties are sometimes blue and sometimes….well. You must read the rest for yourself.
Take your time with The Watermelon Pump. The chapters are short, and the first few of them are just the wax paper wrapping. Unwrap it slowly. Take some time with it. And have some pie. Life is short, you know?
Enjoy.
Bill Oberst Jr.
Since I’ve got the San Marcos mermaids on my mind this week, here’s a list of where they are.
On another note, you can find my newest book THE WATERMELON PUMP here: https://amzn.com/B0948C6J41
One of my favorite book covers.
Right now I am working on the last part of Chapter Six of Warm Heart (working title). And my newest book The Watermelon Pump should be published in a week or two. Audible sales continue to do well enough. I’ve had my covid-19 shots, survived the big freeze and water shortage catastrophe Texas had at the end of Winter, and will still wear masks when I leave the house (except when the whole trip will be driving around in my car.)
How about you?
On Twitter I see writers talking about how they can’t write, or that they have revised their work hundreds of times. It isn’t hard to write every day. Just sit down and use the keyboard. There is also such a thing as rewriting too much, editing too much, letting someone else basically cowrite your story. Just don’t.
Been there, done that.
It’s my birthday week and I’ve fallen of the wagon, so to speak. Had a great writing streak going, but slacked off to play. Spent two nights at the Hyatt Lost Pines with our dog in tow, and it was really nice. But there wasn’t where I didn’t write. I did write. It was when we got home.
Monday, I’ll get back to work. I guess everybody deserves a break once in a while. Just be careful that a week of backsliding doesn’t turn into a month, and then several months, and then a year. Cause it can.
I’ll have a new book out the end of the month. Very excited.
http://smashwords.com/books/view/620213 You can navigate from this to my other books.