I’ve been reading your blog for a while, but haven’t really gotten engaged for the simple (if depressing) reason that college leaves me little time for any creative projects of my own. That said, there’s always been one nagging (meta-)question that I am finally going to ask: why? Not to sound thankless (far from it), but why are you so adamant on helping complete strangers for what seems to be little to no personal gain? As someone who spends 8 months of the year around New Yorkers (and the other 4 around retirees), your seemingly sincere altruism is refreshing, but also somewhat baffling.

I have had this question in the hopper since February. Every week I take a stab at it and every week I set it aside.

In the past seven months several glib answers come to mind, answers like:

Giving is the new taking.

(Unfortunately, like so many glib answers, it’s not as original as I thought.)

This spring, while playing Resident Evil 4, I latched on to something Luis said to Leon when Leon tried to get to the bottom of Luis’s zombie-killing altruism:

“It makes me feel good. Let’s leave it at that.”

There’s also this wonderful line from Clay Shirky’s HERE COMES EVERYBODY when he quotes former Internet Society trustee Scott Bradner:

“The internet means you don’t have to convince anyone else that something is a good idea before you try it.”

The”why” lies in a mixture of all three.

Depending on the day I do this primarily because I believe in altruism for altruism’s sake, or because helping people feels good, or because I don’t have to explain to anyone (and in particular a bored and jaded New York magazine editor) why writing about paragraphs and pineapples is important.

In short:

I care about writers and good writing and would like to see more of both.

For now those are good enough reasons for me. I hope they’re good enough for you.

I would like to apologize to a former editor for being an arrogant little sh*t. I don’t necessarily need, want, or expect to work with this person again. But it has been weighing on my conscience for many months. Should I apologize, as a fellow human being who was clearly in the wrong? Or would any attempt be viewed as a pathetic attempt to suck up? Should I write a letter and stick it in a drawer? I can’t decide if my need to apologize is purely selfish and should be some ritual for my own personal catharsis, or if it would actually be a decent human thing to do to send it and ultimately appreciated by the receiver. Even, as I mentioned, if we never work together again. Help me, Mr. Blue.

The conventional wisdom says that one should never explain and never apologize. Saying that you’re sorry makes you look weak and does nothing to un-burn the bridge.

As I alluded to in yesterday’s post, you should especially hold your apologies for things outside of your control. Never apologize for not being published, or for being published locally but not nationally, etc.

That said, if you did something wrong then there’s nothing wrong with apologizing. The only catch is that you have to do it right away. If you apologize within 24 hours then it seems sincere. If you’re apologizing after a few days or a week then it seems calculated.

Also, people in this business are tougher than you think. Keep the apology simple and direct. Then move on and never mention the incident ever again.

Final thought:

If you’ve let the relationship go and for some reason want to rekindle the editorial flames, send in a smokin’ hot pitch. Fresh ideas heal all wounds.

I’m not a writer by trade, but I’m working on a book that will help advance a cause related to my primary career, which is education. I feel very passionately about a certain educational philosophy and would like to see it more widely implemented. In other words, I want to change the world. How do I go about writing and publishing such a book?

I am tempted to temper your expectations with a quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

“Most people would succeed in small things, if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”

But I will not do that, because there are things in this world that undoubtedly need changing, and I see no reason to discourage you. The question is how a book fits into those plans. On that score I offer the following thoughts:

Are you settling an existing argument or starting a new one?

Imagine it’s the 80s and you have a thoughtful, peaceful way of reducing global terrorism. In the United States you would’ve had a very hard time getting people interested in your book or your cause. Terrorism was something that happened somewhere else.

If, on the other hand, it’s the 80s and you have a thoughtful, peaceful way of ending the nuclear arms race, then you fit very comfortably into the existing cultural and intellectual framework.

In the first example, your challenge is to change the conversation entirely. In the second example, your challenge is to beat out the other people who already have turf claims to the conversation. These are two very different jobs. Act accordingly.

How close to the bone is your cause?

Perhaps the most famous world-changing book in the United States is Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (Google Books version here). You cannot read this book and not instinctively cry out for the Meat Inspection Act!

Funnily enough, Sinclair intended the book to explose the plight of the American factory worker, but his original vision was sidelined because tainted meat is more visceral than exploited people.

Education-related causes are tricky because they’re abstract. If you find out your kids are eating maggot-infested school lunch you’ll drop what you’re doing and call the principle. If you find out your kids are enrolled in a language arts program that one study finds is 15% less effective than most language arts programs, then you may do nothing at all.

I’m not saying that the inadequate language arts program isn’t important. It’s just that it doesn’t feel as important. One of your challenges is to figure out how to make your cause feel more immediate.

Does the book have to be a book?

Books are persuasive. But so are documentaries, websites, poster campaigns, etc. If your goal is to be an author whose books affect change, then there is only one path. If the book is simply the means, then the paths are many.

Final thought:

The book is a conversation point, a springboard, a start. But the book can’t do it alone. Books don’t fight your fight for you. You’ll need collaborators, supporters, allies, evangelists, etc.

Ultimately, it all comes down to you. There was a bit in The New Yorker recently about how every public park or national monument happens because one person becomes an enormous pain in the ass for that cause. If I were you, I’d concentrate on how you’re going to be that pain in the ass. If you get a book out of it, then so be it.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Of all the things that I thought might be challenging about trying to write a book, it never dawned on me — until very recently — that it would be hard to get anyone to read it. I mean be a reader, as in read and comment. I thought writing was the hard stuff, but based on my success at inducing others to read and comment, I would have to say that reading and commenting must be much more difficult, for no one I know wants to do so. I recently read a book by a fairly well known author who identified those people who had been her “readers” –  and low and behold I knew one of them. Wow, I thought, there was my one chance to snag a reader and she beat me to it.

So:  What advice would you offer to a novice writer who is looking for a reader, for someone who will give the writing a fair but critical look and take the time to give feedback?

The practical answer is to take a class. I’ve always had good luck meeting new writers through classes and conferences. Another possibility would be to ask around your local bookstore or coffee shop. I supposed you could also advertise on Craig’s List.

The more holistic answer is that you get what you give. If you start volunteering your time to give feedback other people’s work, then you’ll soon find yourself on the receiving end of sweet reciprocity. Being a good reader means you’ll be good and read.

Some tips:

1. Keep it OUT of the family

Parents, siblings, spouses and dear friends are the absolute worst people to read your work, so it stands to reason that you shouldn’t read their work either. It’s impossible not to think about them hiding inside the characters and story (or worse, yourself) and any feedback will be clouded by preconception. Time to meet new people.

2. Limit your feedback to one or two vital areas

Even the best advice can only be addressed in stages. If you unload a laundry list of observations and insights, you’ll not only muddy your most important points, but you’ll risk the person tuning you entirely.

3. Only copy edit if people specifically ask for it (and even then proceed with great caution)

No one wants to hear about the typo on page 237. It makes people feel ignorant and it makes you look petty and small. Let the machines do the work.

4. Say less rather than more

Give your listener credit. If you feel the beginning is slow, say the beginning feel slow. You don’t need to dissect the slowness.

5. Questions are more helpful than statements

Telling people about the flaws in their work puts them on the defensive. Asking questions helps them step outside themselves and see their work through your eyes.

So instead of saying their protagonist is wimpy, say something like, “Do you want this guy to come across as super passive?”

5. Remember who the writer is

The cardinal sin of giving feedback is getting in and rewriting it yourself. Your job is to give an honest reaction, not right wrongs. Even if you have the coolest idea for the coolest ending ever, please keep it to yourself.

6. Don’t be offended if the person doesn’t take your advice

Rule #6 is Rule #1. Everyone walks their own path. It’s taken me over ten years to follow advice that I got from my first writing teacher. Be kind, generous and supportive and then walk away. It all comes back.

Congratulations to Savannah College of Art and Design senior Bang-yao Liu.

You are one ’09 grad who has nothing to worry about.

My name is NAME and I’m currently a junior at COLLEGE COLLEGE. My friend, NAME, who is in the same graduating class as me, referred me to your website. While I am a ACADEMIC MAJOR in a WORLD CITY right now, my true passion is writing poetry, and I’m trying to develop my skills in writing short stories. I am fairly certain that I want this hobby to become my career, but I don’t know where to even start! I will be the first person in my family to graduate with a 4-year degree, so I don’t have any relatives with applicable experience or knowledge. Do you have any advice on where to start?

I’ve been sitting on this question for months, and for our readers who are farther along in their writing careers I’m sure you understand why.

Where to start? Where to start? Is there a more impossible question to answer than WHERE TO START?

The advise that springs to mind is of the “just write” variety, advice that I will not give. “Just write” is dismissive and minimizing, like telling someone who’s clinically depressed that maybe they wouldn’t feel so crummy if they just lightened up and, you know, tried to have some fun and not worry so much all the time.

I couldn’t do that to you, NAME from COLLEGE COLLEGE. You say you have the desire. Very well. Now let’s put some shape to all that ambition. Let’s get you doing a web project.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.

Mark Twain

Another way of approaching Twain’s advice is to take the “complex overwhelming task” and shrink it—in its entirety—until it’s small enough to be manageable.

Becoming a writer is a simple matter of mastering ideas, emotion, insight, subtext, research, writing, rewriting, polishing, publishing, marketing, publicity and finding, building and maintaining audience. You’re going to do all of those things, but on a scale you can handle.

Here’s what you need to do:

Pick the project

That memoir about your experiences growing up as the daughter of a cruel pineapple magnate is not a project. That’s your life’s work. A project is something like Skull-A-Day or SMITH Magazine’s Six-Word Memoirs. You will pick a project that is finite, manageable and low stakes, something like 36 Poems about Strawberry-Banana Yogurt.

Do the project

You will write your 36 poems about strawberry-banana yogurt. Or, if you are acting as an editor/curator, you will collect your 36 poems about strawberry-banana yogurt. (Per Doug’s comment, you will also need to set a deadline.)

Produce the project

Your project has to be public, but you’re not going to wait for permission. You’re going to put up a website (36PASBY.com is available, btw). You’ll do this yourself, or you’ll gain the invaluable experience of collaborating with other people who have different skills than you have. Either way you’re going to make it look rad.

Support the project

You will do all the things that people with “real” books do. You will throw a launch party. You will start a Facebook group (even if you are over Facebook). You will pitch a story to your local newspaper. (Again, if you’re up to the task, then collaborate. Doesn’t everyone know an aspiring publicist?)

Put an end to the project

The point of this exercise is to be quick and light and effective. If 36 Poems about Strawberry-Banana Yogurt takes off, then that’s great. If it doesn’t, then you will have already built in a sunset provision. Let your project be what it’s meant to be. Then walk away.

Rest

Rest is important. Rest now.

Asses the project

How did it go? What went wrong? What went right? What was in your control? What was out of your control? Be honest with yourself, but also be kind. It’s just a project.

Learn from the project

This whole time you’ve been (lightly) learning about what you do well, what you struggle with, what you think you could improve, what you’re always going to be hopeless at. Now take a moment to write down the lessons learned.

Rest again

Did I not mention that rest is important? Please rest again.

Do another project

Take what you’ve learned from the first project and do another one. And another. And another. And another. With a little hard work and luck these projects will grow in scope and size and important.

Then one day you’ll wake up to find that your next project is that memoir about growing up the child of a cruel pineapple magnate. Project and life’s work have become interchangeable. Fortunately, the muscles and skills you developed doing your web projects apply quite nicely. You’ll also find that you’ve managed to collect some friends, readers and collaborators along the way.

Then the book comes out, and you go on the radio, and the interviewer asks you how you got started as a writer, and you’ll smile and tell her about 36 Poems about Strawberry-Banana Yogurt and that story will absolutely kill.

You win. The end.

The experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs revisits the 1905 Edison film that was the source of his 1969 structural analysis “Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son,” this time in 3-D video.

Beyond the words “experimental filmmaker” I have absolutely no idea what this means. Never heard of Ken Jacobs. Not interested in late-60s structural analysis. 3-D leaves me cold.

But this synopsis means something to somebody, and that’s the only thing that matters.

• You could try to make this pitch more universal.
• You could try to convince a broader audience that this story is relevant to them.
• You could try to (through lengthy, parenthetical, infinitive-splitting digressions) educate the populace about anaglyphs, Thomas Edison’s film career, etc.

But is that really the best use of your time?

The wise writer not only knows their audience, but also know the limits of that audience. Sometimes that audience is going to be irrevocably small. Better to connect with those people fully than to reach beyond them and miss on all counts.

An anaglyph:

Image taken from www.stereoscopy.com

Nice guy. Terrible manager.

A reader writes:

I’m been putting final polishes on my manuscript, and I think I’m there, so now, I’m looking at agents. Actually, I’ve been building a list for a while, but when looking at some larger agencies, I wonder as a first-time novelist, what would be the ‘good idea’ when deciding which agent to send a query letter – a newer agent, ‘actively building’ his or her list, or a more established agent? This is assuming both are looking for the genre I write in, of course. I tend to think sending to the newer agent at a large agency would be the best choice. What do you think?

1. Scanning the acknowledgments of books you admire for agent-related intel;
2. Reading Galleycat, Publishers Marketplace, etc. for same;
3. Going to conferences and meeting people in a non-crazy way;
4. Avoiding generic directories such as Writer’s Market.

You know, you’ve mentioned this issue of “readiness” in at least a couple of posts now. [ed. note: she is referring to What the @#$%! Am I Doing with My Life] I think intuitively I get this, but maybe you could talk about how to practice and/or recognize readiness. For e.g., I didn’t get why you said in one of your previous posts that you wouldn’t be ready to write a film. But maybe it’s because you haven’t been living the steps that would lead to that?

Great question. Please allow me to respond with a series of questions that you can ask yourself:

1. Am I ready to do the work just once?

Go read the comments section on Nathan Bransford’s blog. There are any number of posters who you can tell are further along in their dreams than they are in their work. (And bless them for it.)

Depending on what you’re doing, you may be in for a long apprenticeship. Would you really want to get your big break if you couldn’t deliver even once?

2. Am I ready to do the work with some frequency and consistency?

You think Genre Writer X is a hack, but she’s producing a book a year. You laugh at the unintentionally funny columnist in your community newspaper, but his work does meet a certain standard.

Even being consistently mediocre is harder than it looks. You may have an excellent spec script for a sitcom, but could you produce 22 episodes a year?

3. Am I ready to handle the attention?

Say you create your breakout work. Good job. So what else do you have?

“What else?” is the first question the gatekeepers ask. If you don’t have a vision for the next thing (and the next and the next) then there is a chance that you’ve wasted that particular opportunity.

4. Am I ready to go out and attract attention?

Actors have it easy. Their need for attention borders on the biological. The rest of us struggle with promotion, self- and otherwise.

It’s not just a matter of being good at radio, TV, print, etc. It’s being able to take a project, put it on your back, and carry it for years.

5. Am I ready to sustain attention?

You’re a success! Enjoy it! You’re a success! Now you have a f*cking target on your back!

Do well and your fans love you, but they also start to raise their expectations. Do well and your critics and enemies are actively trying to take your ass down. How are you going to deal with all that (in public) while also getting the work done?

6. Am I ready to make use of that sustained attention?

I always think of Michael Pollan as a writer who’s not only at the top of his game creatively, but who’s also assumed a leadership role in our culture.

Now we’re talking about the full integration of work, audience, and public profile. We’re talking about having a direct effect on how people talk, think, behave, vote. Are you ready to be at the center of all that?

***

If this sounds overwhelming, don’t worry about it too much. You don’t have a lot of control over how, when or why things happen. We’re all familiar with stories of people for whom success came too fast. We also know people who never got their due.

That said, if you’re starting out and you have grand ambitions, then the aforementioned questions could help you in your quest.

If you want to be the Michael Pollan of sustainable architecture, then there are certain skills that you can practice to help make that happen. Join Toastmasters in order to bone up on your public speaking. Take up podcasting to work on your radio mojo. The big dream is completely impossible, but also eminently doable.

Not that I hold the fate of the universe in my hands, but this makes me wish I would’ve loved up the show more thoroughly in my previous post.

But all is not lost. Good work (and the good people who make it) have a way of resurfacing.

Best of all, you’re going to help make that happen. Because you care about awesomeness, I’m humbly asking you to head over to GUW and give them some comments love.

Post as a quick, anonymous “come back soon” or a lengthy love letter that has your avatar next to it. (You know, the one with Trinity from The Matrix.)

Click here, here or here to arrive at the relevant post. I won’t forget it. Neither will the universe.

First, while you don’t have to watch the whole thing, please spend a second or two with author Jason Bradbury and his model robot.

As the video implies, Mr. Bradbury made both his robot and the video to support the book. That said, there is no reason he could not have made this video while he was writing the book. Or even before he committed a single word to the page.

The old media model was based on seasons, previews, street dates, limited/wide release, etc. The assumption was the art stuffs had a specific life cycle (preview article, hardcover, paperback, etc.). The time line was scripted and controlled.

The old model still exists, but we’re not so picky about how an idea moves through the snake. In Mr. Bradbury’s case, I’m glad that he has a book coming out, but for the purposes of enjoying his robot and his vid I really don’t care. His passion, his zest for life, and the coolness of the model robot itself are enough for me. Even if he were unpublished, I would still send this video around simply because it’s interesting.

Now imagine you’re an agent. You see this video from a would-be author. The subject matter piques your interest (like I said: cool robot). Plus, you’re encouraged by the fact that you’ve found someone who’s embracing new technologies, who has spirit and energy, and, most of all, who is willing to do something extra.

When I was an agent, we used to discourage aspiring writers to pull stunts like this. “The only thing that matters is what’s on the page,” we would say to them.

Not so now. The page still matters. The page will always matter. But the ability to generate and hold attention matters just as much.

This is why you don’t need to query. Because instead of sitting on your ass waiting for someone to notice you, you can go out there and get noticed all by yourself.

“All new stuff is HORRIBLE.”

He then went on a rant about bands that started out obscure and good and pure, and then betrayed him by going commercial and finding success. He then cataloged a half dozen bands (none of which I had heard of, all of which sounded like zones in World of Warcraft) and how their first two albums were great, but then all the kids at school liked the third album so now they are horrible . . . HORRIBLE.

“Do you think it’s possible,” I said, “that the band’s popularity affects how you hear their music?”

“Yeah,” he said. “So?”

It’s not like I was expecting him to roll over, but still . . . when you’re on the artist side of the relationship this kind of talk is heartbreaking. Maybe that third album was terrible. Or maybe after years of building an audience, Eversong Woods is rightfully enjoying some success. And yet they are losing a fan.

If popularity can lose you fans, it can also be a barrier to new ones. Later, the sixth grader said she wouldn’t read Diary of a Wimpy Kid (which, by the way, is f*cking delightful) because “everybody says you have to read it and that it’s so great and I bet that it’s good but I doubt it’s that great and I’m not going to read it and everybody says you have to read it.” This time I didn’t argue.

One lesson you could learn from this story is to be true to yourself. You might as well make exactly the kind of art you want to make, because you have no control over the irrational beliefs of strangers. (The obscurity/popularity continuum is one of many.) You could learn that lesson, but I would prefer that you not.

Instead, please consider this:

Part of your success may hinge on changing people’s beliefs. Sometimes the work does the changing for you (cartoons are for kids until The Simpsons comes along) but in other instances you may have to campaign. You may have to fight for your form, your genre, your aesthetic. Depending on the scope of your project (and the size of your ambition) this may mean something as simple as publishing a few articles that help pave the way for your point of view, or as grand as building an army of followers willing to level cultural villages on your behalf.

Happy New Year!

At the risk of another over my head, costume-filled, insidery, confusing to poor dumbheads like me riddle–
What ever happened to that whole “there’s a better way to get published than querying” thing???

This question is a holdover from the old site, and I’m happy to see it resurface. I will start working this idea in the coming weeks. First, in order to bring our new readers up to the proverbial speed, here is the “costume-filled” parable I wrote about getting in:

Three days before Halloween you learn there will be a surprise Big Event at a small, intimate theater in your town. Tickets are free, provided you’re wearing a costume. Of course, they can’t let in everyone, so your Erotic Space Vampire is going to have to make the grade. There’s also a rumor that the people with the absolutely best costumes will be rewarded with special all-access passes. You want.

You have very little time to get your costume together, but you do your best to make it look as tight, as professional (and as fun) as possible. Thanks to some Big Event blogs, you’ve heard some rumors about what the bouncers like and don’t like. You do your best to adjust your costume accordingly, but your Erotic Space Vampire look is still uniquely you. Fingers crossed.

The big night arrives. When you arrive at the theater, you are first struck by the sheer number of people who are lined up outside. Wow. You knew this Big Event was going to be popular, but you had no idea.

First reaction: mild relief. There are some pretty bad costumes. People with sheets over their heads with holes cut in them. People with store-bought sh*t. There are even some people who aren’t in costume at all, who are obviously just wishing. Suckers.

Second reaction: mild panic. There are also some pretty amazing costumes. Elaborate costumes that you would never have dreamed would work. Basic, traditional costumes (including some classic, widow’s-peaked vampires) that are so beautifully executed that they almost seem real.

Third reaction: total panic. What’s up with all the other Erotic Space Vampires? You thought you’d be the only person with that point of view, but there are in fact several. Some are sexier than you. Others really amp up the space element. One person even brought a friend, whom they pretend to feast on. You wish you’d thought of that.

No matter. What’s done is done and all you can do is wait. Now you have time to really look around. You notice that in addition to the front door, there are several other ways to get into the Big Event.

There is a service entrance where the tech crew and support staff are busy getting things ready.

There are journalists and media types covering the Big Event. They seem to come and go as they please.

There is also a side entrance manned by a bouncer with a clipboard. Some of the people entering through the side are in costume, but others are not. You have no idea who they are, but they seem to walk right in.

Pretty soon it’s your turn to be judged. You walk up to the bouncer at the main entrance. He briefly looks you over (in your mind too briefly considering how hard you worked on your costume and how much you want to go inside) and says . . . .

***

Here’s the question:

If you knew the Big Event was going to happen in a year, would you still put your time, effort and emotional energy into your costume, or would you explore alternative methods of gaining access?

What if the show were five years away? How about ten?

Enter the round-up.

Check out this peppy little number from the London Times. The writer called some experts, asked some generic questions about the future of art, and then edited it all down for space and clarity. Deadline met. Time to shop.

Does this mean articles like this are of no use?

It does not mean that.

What it means is that you can do this yourself. Reach out to your own network of creative souls, extract their thoughts and feelings and dreams about the future of their craft, and then synthesize your own conclusions. Given how up-for-grabs our culture is right now, it may be easier to start a school of thought than to follow one.

I’ve been doing some unpleasant networking lately, and, generally: How much should you really invest in kissing the ass of people you don’t like?

I mean, there are a lot of people more powerful than me who I need to open doors. So, I do everything I can to curry their favor. And yet, I’ve noticed in life that I get a lot farther when I network with people I genuinely like, I suspect that is because they genuinely like me too. A lot of my networking with people I, deep down, dislike, seems to peter off into not much. This could be because I actually am pretty high in my career and there’s not a lot of easy places to move forward, or it could be because it’s a waste of time to network with people you’re not really simpatico with.

Your thoughts? Is all networking good networking, or is there a way to network smarter?

In the Good Old Days, we writers faced lower social expectations. When James Joyce advised writers to practice “silence, exile and cunning” he did so in a culture that mostly wanted writers to write, a culture where if you really wanted to go out and shake things up, then you hopped on a train.

Today, with the exception of the cunning part, Joyce’s advice sounds like career suicide. (“Cunning, sociability and noise” is more like it.) Now audiences expect authors to do events, have a website, answer personal e-mail and in some cases even participate in the making of the work. Meanwhile, the industry almost requires that you be a marketing expert, branding guru and public personality. They’d also very much appreciate it if you’d learn to photograph well.

Your networking woes are a side effect of these new expectations. You know that the work doesn’t speak for itself. Hell, even the speaking for itself doesn’t speak for itself any more. So you’re doing your best by making connections, buffing your profile, and hoping it all pays off.

I suspect that you’re a victim of your own success. You’re past the breakthrough phase. New gains can feel incremental. But the struggle is still the struggle. So rather than give you advice, I offer this reminder:

Remember what networking felt like in the very beginning. Remember how terrified you were the first time you tried to impress an editor. Remember how awful it felt to go to your first businessy cocktail party. And remember to give yourself a little credit. Networking will probably never be fun for you, but you must be doing something right or you wouldn’t be where you are today.

Hey, Dory from Finding Nemo! Take us out:

What about taking the idea of trying to become someone you’re not and gaming that? Like sort of considering your “author self” a character you’re playing. Kind of like Lemony Snicket. You could let your audience in on the joke if you took it far enough. Alter-egoishly.

Thanks to psuedosu for this question in the comments to the post about making something out of your shyness. Here are my thoughts on alter egos:

1. Commitment is everything

To promote his alternate history World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks did this brilliant NPR interview where he and Neal Conan dryly and slyly updated H.G. Wells’ legendary War of the Worlds hoax. Proof that your persona doesn’t have to showy to be effective.

2. And yet you are allowed to get a divorce

Before Neal Pollack was an Alternadad, he was America’s Greatest Living Writer, a Norman Mailer parody that was very funny but perhaps too inside to warrant a large audience. You don’t want to switch characters too often, but you are allowed to grow and change.

3. You may not have to go as far you think

The Times recently did a piece on Carolyn Chute, an author who I believe quite genuinely has iconoclasm to spare. At the same time, posing with your mountain man husband while brandishing an iconic firearm shows an understanding of what sells in this culture. In other words, when a major newspaper comes to visit your isolated, rural compound, you don’t hide your AK. You wear it.

The Publishers Weekly book trends blog recently ran a bit about Firmin, a title that was released by Coffee House Press in 2006 and is in the process of taking the entire world by storm. This story hits all the right notes: an unsolicited manuscript by a first-time author gets published up by a small press, then garners great reviews, gets buzz at Frankfurt, sells internationally, and is finally picked up by Bantam for a splashy domestic relaunch.

First, even though I haven’t read the book, I’m very happy for the author and for Coffee House. I am not here to rain on parades. But I also cringe every time I read a story like this because it plays into the lottery mentality that plagues publishing.

My beef is that not for every remarkable success story there are countless failures. My complaint is that for every remarkable success story that are countless boring and mundane success stories that are never celebrated. Books that build their audience slowly. Books that make an impact but never crack the bestseller list. Books that modestly meet, but do not, exceed expectations. All outcomes that are perfectly acceptable.

I believe in keeping the dream alive. But I also worry that certain kinds of dreams (that your book, all by its lonesome, will take off) can lead to passivity. Sometimes the work speaks for itself. More often you need to speak for it.

A former writing teacher of mine said it was okay to fantasize about instant success, but to do it for no more than fifteen minutes a day. I would amend that to go ahead and fantasize about going from rags to riches, but to also consider the alternatives. If my work isn’t going to catch fire, what can I do to help it burn slowly?

More signs and portents:

The Christian Science Monitor announced it plans to stay afloat in the newspaper business by ending its 100-year streak of publishing its articles on paper.

Also, Google just settled its book digitization lawsuit, thus freeing it up to delve further into the electronic publishing market.

David Carr has a nice piece in the Times today about the big picture [subscription required] but I’m more interested in hearing how this news plays on the ground. For you writers and aspiring writers out there, how do you feel about the idea of asking for donations to support your work? Would you tip a blogger, or would you pass them by like a subway busker? In the long term, does this mean that writing will become a more viable hobby than a profession? Or do you see opportunities in the chaos?

I have my own thoughts, but I’d like to hear from you first.

Typically, book marketing advice is geared toward either teaching you how to follow the rules of the system, or, in some cases, how to game the system.

For example, because Amazon sales rankings are based on the rate of book sales, some people will tell you to have everybody you know buy your book at the same time, thus catapulting your title up the charts (even if it’s only for a moment). That’s gaming the system.

As for following the rules of the system, you know what that looks like:

Join Toastmasters and learn how to be a public speaker! If you have an upcoming television appearance, practice in front of a mirror! Take an acting class! Try beta blockers! Practice mindful meditation! Do everything humanly possible to become someone you’re not!

What I like about the IBR is that they’re saying to hell with all that. In the world they’re creating, introversion is a virtue, a badge of honor, a strength. Introverts need to band together, articulate their shared experience, and stand up for themselves (albeit introvertedly). Why change when you can organize?

I am usually on the side of adaptation, but in some cases the play is to bend people to your will rather than submit to theirs. It’s not easy, but the long-term rewards can be great.

As Jack Nicholson’s character says during his opening monologue in The Departed, “I don’t want to be a product of my environment; I want my environment to be a product of me.” (Never mind that he gets killed at the end; he had a great run.)

My friend and fellow author Geoff Herbach was kind enough to ask me to be one of the judges for this cycle of the miniStories short-short fiction contest. Twenty-nine stories to read and assess and mull over equals long walks, lost sleep, the studied avoidance of shaving, more lost sleep, and still more mulling.

As to be expected, there was some good work, some not-so-good work and some work that barely meets the definition of work. Here are some notes for those of you who didn’t make the “maybe” pile:

1. ‘Tis true that you need to grab the reader’s attention in the first few lines, but you should not hurt the reader in the grabbing. Scream “look out for that falling piano!” in real life and you’re performing a public service. Do it on the page and you risk sounding melodramatic.

2. On a related note, while the beginning of a story needs to get the reader’s attention, your open also has to part of the whole. As a reader, I might forgive you for screaming about falling pianos in a story about large instruments and head trauma, but not in a story about the memories conjured by the site of your grandmother’s hands. No one likes to feel duped.

3. You can’t go wrong by opening with an interesting fact, such as “Albert had an unusually large head.” You can do even better by opening with an interesting fact filtered through the lens of belief. Write something like “Henrietta had never trusted men with unusually large heads” and I’ll be with you for at least another few lines.

4. Even in a short-short (I believe the limit was 500 words) the reader will regularly clear their cache of goodwill. In other words, while I appreciated the bit about Henrietta’s large-heads trust issues, you better have something as good or better in the next paragraph. No matter how good of a writer you are, there is always something better to read.

5. Finally, please go easy on your endings. Like beginnings, endings can be quiet, evasive, silly, odd, murky, jarring, etc. It’s nice when they’re sublime, but I can tell when you’re trying to make the angels sing, and believe you me, nothing shuts them up like too much effort.

Bonus thought for Minneapolis/St. Paul-area writers:

The miniStories contest is a regular program run by mnartists.org. The contest is a snap to enter, and the winners are celebrated at readings that are open to the public. It’s a great way to get out of the house, meet other writers and build your community. Do it.