That Guy

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I knew this guy. When he found out his best friend’s father had a sweet video camera, he immediately got permission to borrow it. Then, with the help of two friends, he made his first horror movie, using this borrowed camera, borrowed editing system, and zero budget. They had no script, and improvised the entire thing based on what this guy had in his head. In fairness, the film was not exactly well-made; I mean, how could it be? But to be fair even further, during its premiere — at his school — one girl did legitimately scream during a jump-scare, so in that sense it was kind of a success.

Also: he was thirteen at the time.

Then I knew this guy who wanted to get into a summer acting program that would have put him on the fast-track to a B.A. in theatre and likely some good acting opportunities around town. Maybe even . . . get paid. But when he and one of his best friends auditioned and the best friend didn’t get in but he did, he didn’t bother signing up for the program. He wasn’t about to waste a summer with a bunch of profs who couldn’t see the talent his friend had, nevermind spending the summer away from his buddies. He was eighteen at the time. Three years later, he and that best friend, along with two other best friends, wrote and staged a one-man show. They got a standing ovation opening night.

(Of course, that was only after he and a totally different best friend grabbed a camera and started shooting a television show in their spare time. He was nineteen at the time. He had a lot of best friends, that guy.)

It’s the same guy who, after seven years of being pretty universally disliked by his classmates, turned to face the kid who’d just insulted his clothes and calmly replied, “Fuck you.” And how the teasing stopped after that. He was thirteen at that time, too.

At fourteen, the seniors in his high school speech and theater department were going nuts because he’d qualified for the State speech tournament his first year, and went on to break to the semifinals that year. One of the “top twelve in the state!” he’d say. But it’s not the breaking to State that I admire; it was his entire attitude, which was — without a single shred of guile — “Does this mean I get to perform again? Oh, okay, cool.”

These are the highlights, of course. The lowlights are far too low for public consumption. But when this guy died (which I think was sometime around early 1994, though spots of his spirit resurfaced from time to time), I couldn’t help but miss that entire Fuck It attitude of his. He wasn’t cruel about it, to the best of my knowledge. He just set his sights on something, and when he did, he generally got it. Whatever he went after, he tended to get. And when he didn’t get it, he’d shrug it off and move on to the next thing. When he and one of his teams got an outrageously positive review of a play they did, they had a party. When they got outrageously negative reviews about another, he shrugged and dismissed the critic as a prick, and moved on.

I really miss that about him. His ability to not give a shit, in the best possible way.

Now, having said all that, the thing that always nags me is that on the one hand, he rarely took no for an answer. He’d get some weird, usually performance-related idea in his head (“Hey, let’s produce a play! Hey, let’s make a movie! Hey, let’s make a movie about a play!”) and then he’d go gather up a crew, most of whom would follow him wherever he led, even if that was to total financial ruin or artistic obliteration. I have no idea how he talked so many otherwise intelligent, rational people into following his craziness, but they did.

I miss that about him as well. I miss that about all of them.

But then on the other hand . . . was what he did really any good? I mean, demonstrably, quantifiably good? By any measure? And what measures can we even use, really? Plenty of mediocre people with mediocre personalities or talents have tasted far greater success, and surely a hundredfold better people with better talent have gone unnoticed. So what does it say about him if he was just sort of middle-of-the-road, relying on the good graces and patience of people in some way beholden to him . . . family, say, or other students who have no choice but to sit through that absurd horror movie.

The thing is, they didn’t make a movie; he did. But if it wasn’t all that good by any measure, then what was the point? And if that trend continued into his professional life . . .

I know this: He took his arts very seriously, but not necessarily himself. The times he got all brow-furrowed and tried to REALLY CREATE SOMETHING, it never worked. The stuff he just threw together on a whim always seemed to be received better. I’ll never understand that. Or maybe I’ll never want to.

In some ways, I’m kind of glad he’s not here to see what I’ve become. Parts of my life would make him scream with pride and envy. Other parts would make him wince and say, “Dude, what the fuck are you doing? You don’t got to take that shit.” Yet I keep on taking it.

Maybe he was mediocre. Maybe he was middle-of-the-road. Mid-list. But he didn’t care, and he had no regrets. He didn’t compare himself other people, mainly because he tended to be too busy on his Next Big Thing.

I think I miss that about him more than anything.

 

Deviant Aeon: Why I Wrote an Adult Urban Fantasy Novel and You Should, Too

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yougetwhatThis isn’t actually going to be a writing-craft post. This is a post about you doing the thing you need to do.

Some of you may have heard or read in various interviews that when SICK came out, I found it amusing that people kept referring to me “branching out into a new genre.” That’s half-right; I hadn’t published a horror novel before. But the short stories I published before looking for an agent were almost exclusively horror stories. The books and stories I grew up writing were supernatural or horror. Even the first use of the names “Zero” and “Skater” (Mike) were from the inklings of what was meant to be a horror story of some kind. The same is true of Tommy’s chapter of PARTY — way, way, way back — that started as jottings for a horror story.

So horror wasn’t something I was new to as a writer, it was something I was new to as a published author.

When I began rubbing elbows professionally with the likes of Joe Nassise, Michael Stackpole, and other adult genre authors, I started remembering all the novels I wanted to write when I was younger. Tales of mutants and murder, blood and backstabbing. The first novel-length work I ever produced was in eighth grade, a sword-and-sorcery fantasy called Derro the Warrior: The Demon Prince of Nine Hells (which somehow did not get me kicked out of my private Missouri-synod Lutheran school; as a matter of fact, they sent me and Derro to an Arizona State University young author’s conference; the shape of things to come, it turns out).

Joe Nassise extended an offer to me to be included in an e-book collection, A WORLD OF SHADOWS, which would include first-in-series novels. I took the opportunity to write my first adult-genre novella, TILL THE SUN BREAKS DOWN, the first in a planned trilogy and perhaps of a longer series I’ve been thinking, dreaming, and writing about for about two decades or more. (And on that note, I’d love for you to read the Shadows collection or Till the Sun and leave an honest review on Amazon so I know whether to even bother doing this. If you have Kindle Unlimited, the novella is free.)

What’s all this got to do with you? Plenty, my friend. Plenty.

In case you didn’t know, writing fiction doesn’t generally pay a lot. I do have local author friends who are doing quite well with their writing, but the vast majority of us could not live on fiction alone. I supplement with school visits, speaking at conferences, and teaching — all of which I love doing, by the way, so it’s not exactly a grind. 

Publishing indie-style can pay more than traditional . . . but most often doesn’t. And that’s okay. I wrote Till the Sun and continue working on the series because I love doing it. This is what I would be doing on Sunday mornings and various evenings after getting home from my copy writing job at some magazine or website where I punched a clock.

I write these stories and share them because to not do it is to die.

In the twenty-two years I spent acting and directing — as well as many side-gigs I’d sooner forget, like my stint as a “sprite” at the Phoenix Zoo — I’ll estimate I made around $3,000. That’s probably generous, but a nice round number. That’s $137 per year. Compare that to the more than $15,000 my wife and I spent on our arts venue over three years, and not counting however much I spent on my first company, Is What It Is Theatre, before we started keep track of such things.

Do I wish I had that money back? Oh, yes. Do I regret spending it? Not for one moment.

Because to not do theatre, at that time, in those places, with those people, was to die.

I’m going to keep preaching this over and over until it works: You have to do that thing that makes you, You. Whatever it is. If balancing checkbooks is your thing, own it. If you’re a stargazer, break that ‘scope out as often as you can. I mean, have you ever looked up an actuary schedule or lifespan calculator and figured out how many years you probably have left? We have this absurd silence about death in this country, and it’s killing us — no irony intended. Look, nobody’s more fearful of shedding this mortal coil than I, and that’s why I write novels about things I want to write about, regardless of the financial or critical outcome.

Bad reviews . . . wait, no. Rude, unthoughtful reviews drive me into steep depressions. (A negative but reasoned review doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I learn from them and appreciate them.) Steadily shrinking advances from publishers make me panic about things like, I dunno, losing our house. Things like that motivated me to finish my bachelor’s degree last summer, and motivate me to look for graduate programs, because I don’t know how long this incredible ride of mine will last.

But nothing, nothing stops me from writing every week. No, not always every day, but every week? Absolutely.

Awhile back I wrote a journal entry about what my best last day on Earth would look like. Of that hypothetical twenty-four hour period, about two hours of it was dedicated to nothing but being alone with my word processor and pounding out the last written words I’d leave behind.

It’s that important to me.

What is that important to you? What does your best last day look like? I am not a proponent of the “live each day like it’s your last” mentality, because it’s patently absurd. I’m more in favor of going to sleep each night and thinking back, “Is there anything I wish I’d done differently? What would I most like to do tomorrow within my given circumstances?”

Folks, we’re only going around once. Sorry to be the grim reaper. Happy Halloween, amiright?  But seriously, as Death says: “You get what anyone gets. You get a lifetime.” It’s yours to spend as you see fit. I don’t know your personal, private circumstances, and I know a lot of you have things on your plate that are overwhelming. I know. But nothing is insurmountable. You deserve a few hours each week to devote to that thing you love. I don’t understand devoting time and life-energy to model trains, but I bet model-train enthusiasts can’t grasp why I spent so much cash on a production of Fahrenheit 451. Fair enough. I don’t regret that production, and he doesn’t regret the addition he put on his house to expand the miniature town for his railroad. You know what I mean?

Don’t listen to anyone else’s plan for your life. Don’t try to publish a book because you want to Have Published A Book. Don’t become a lawyer or doctor because that’s what Daddy Wanted. The world is in so much trouble right now, scaling down is probably in everyone’s best interest. Start a small urban farm. Learn to repair bicycles. Teach yoga. I don’t care, just do the thing that makes you smile from the inside out. You already know what it is. None of this “find your passion” BS, you know. And you know that you know!

Here’s one way you can tell what your “thing” is, if you need a little help: It’s hard work. All the things I love and have loved to do were a pain the ass! Try building a stage in a backyard in Phoenix in July, then tear it down and truck it halfway across town, re-build it, do a show, then tear it down for the week before building it all back up again before 5pm on a Friday. … And I wouldn’t change a thing. Your “thing” is probably not leisurely. It could be, I suppose, but usually it’s something tough on the mind, body, or both.

If you can make a small living at it, like I do, so much the better.

Okay. Sermon over. If you find any of this helpful, let me know. Tweet it, repost it, share it. Leave a comment. Buy a book. Whatever. But do think about this. Really do. Because the more happy people we have walking around, the better for everyone, yeah?

Take care.

 

 

 

Punk’s Not Dead! Neither are you.

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What do you want to say?

What do you want to say?

Hey punk!

We need you.

The world needs you. Now more than ever.

Punk rock became notorious for a number of reasons, some legitimate, some not. But there was an ethos, an ethic that went with the style, or was supposed to, anyway. Like any movement—and I’d call it that, not a trend—it eventually became co-opted and whitewashed and dimmed to a memory of what it started off trying to do. Mohawks barely register on anyone’s radar any more (at least in my part of the country). Colored hair? You pay big bucks for that now. Doc Martens? Available everywhere. (For good reason. Those suckers go and go and go.) Piercings in various cringe-worthy places? These are born, in my opinion, from the movement of punk rock.

Then it died, or so went the story. I’d argue it never did, it just evolved. It shrank, to be sure, as the kids grew up and had kids of their own. Some former punks, no doubt, went on to prosperous careers in the banking or real estate industries. (Many became teachers. Let that sit for a second.) Others stuck to blue-collar roots. But that’s not unique to punk, that’s just life. Life happens. It’s the old joke about everyone is a Democrat until they own property. Ha ha. I get it.

Thing is . . .

Whatever may have been wrong with punk as a social movement, and these were mostly the acts of a few random outliers, not the entire band of punks themselves, they were pissed.

Punk grew from a dissatisfaction with the status quo. Stop me if any of these things sound familiar to you kids:

~ they opposed racism, institutionalized and social
~ they opposed fiscal policies that made rich people richer and poor people poorer
~ they didn’t want the comfy house in the suburbs insulated from the rest of the world
~ they wanted to shout and dance and slam around and take out their aggressions among friends
~ and they wanted to play loud music while they did it.

Maybe that’s romantic of me, but I’d point to voices like Youth Brigade and the Better Youth Organization as evidence that this was so.

Punk also had a DIY ethic second-to-none. They didn’t have money, so they did what they could with what they had. They used art—visual art, music, video, you name it—to get messages across to an also-angry American public who had no idea that they reason they were so angry was their perfect, square white world was teetering beneath them.

Again . . . sound familiar to anyone?

One thing the punks didn’t have was the internet, this thing that makes DIY the norm for everyone. The web leveled the field in ways that large corporations are still trying to recover from. Those of you who grew up with high speed may not fully appreciate the seismic shift the web caused and continues to cause.

So my question to you is: What do you want to do with it?

We need the punks back again. We need you, the better youth, to dig deep and protest those things that you know are unfair. Use your voice, your music, your art, your images—anything and everything you’ve got, because you know—YOU KNOW—the world is headed into hell right now.

Once again, the establishment that put us all into this mess is teetering on the brink. Just a couple more (nonviolent) pushes in the right direction, and we’ll have this thing beat. We might not all get along, and that’s okay; surely we can at least stop shooting each other and start taking care of the damn planet. Surely we can make schools a great place to learn about the world. We can find new ways to solve old problems like racism and sexism and all those other isms that keep giving this country and this world bruises and blood and funerals.

The voice of punk can do that unlike any other force.

This is perfect time to have a renaissance of punk. Its do-it-yourself outrage, its focus on equality and justice, about calling power into question…the world is primed for young people to stand up, stand out, and name things the way only young people can. Little kids instinctively know when to say, “That’s a bad choice!” As teens, younger people still have that sense of justice but now have the agency (and energy, and online resources) to act upon it. There’s no better way to take action than through music. Music is nonviolent. Music binds us together across generations.

Kids, if you’re pissed off and have always wanted to start a band–or a blog, or a site, or a movement, or a company–now’s a good time. Punk’s not dead unless we let it be. A lot of the old guys are still out there touring and making records. They’ve got kids your age.

So. You carry in your pocket a computer that could’ve sent people to the moon. What do you want to do with it? If you’ve got an instrument, start a band and post that. Write lyrics that matter deeply to you and to the world. Paint, draw, sculpt. Talk, scream, protest. Design, build, dance.

Do all these things for an earth that desperately needs your passion and enthusiasm.

Bring back punk. Do it yourself. Save us from ourselves. We need a voice—no, a million voices. How many of you are there, do you think? Find each other. Organize. Make change.

MOSH!

“Here comes the new generation
I hope they feel and fight the same way
As we did.
We’re going down, down to the streets below
Because don’t you know
I wasn’t born to follow.”
~ I Wasn’t Born To Follow, Social Distortion

image credits:
FreeImages.com/Orsi Buki
FreeImages.com/Carolien Baudoin

“ARGH!!!!” is right: Why Piracy Sucks

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If you like a musician or an author or any other artist, you should consider paying them for their work. If you can’t pay for their work, you should at least support them with your time.

Here’s how it works. These are not actual numbers, but you’ll get the point:

Authors and other artists like musicians earn a “royalty” every time one of their books/albums/songs/whatever gets sold. (There’s more to it than that, but I want to keep this simple.) Let’s say I, as the author, make a 10% royalty on any book sold by my publisher. Let’s say that book is $10 at your local bookstore. How much do I make?

$1.00.

(That doesn’t include 15% or so for my agent…so really it’s .85 cents. It also doesn’t count taxes…but anyway.)

So if I sell 100 books, I get $100. Not a lot, but there’s a lot you could buy with $100. Would you like $100 right now?

So if 100 people illegally download my book, I get . . . $0.00. Zero is less than 100, last time I checked.

Listen:

First, I understand that e-book pricing is odd and inconsistent, and I’m sorry about that, but it’s out of my hands. Second, if you think hardcovers are overpriced, I urge you to write a 50,000 word novel, revise it, proofread it, have it proofread again, and again, and just once more to make sure it is flawless, then build an eye-catching and appealing cover, then dump the whole thing into InDesign and try doing a layout yourself so that the words look appealing on the page….then total up all those hours and tell me how much you think they were worth. It’ll be a lot more than $17.99.

(Of which I would get $1.80, by the way. Again, not counting my agent or taxes or…)

Third: Your local library has a METRIC SHIT TON of material FOR FREE. And if they don’t have it, they can get it. E-books, audiobooks, magazines, newspapers, novels, nonfiction. Tons of it online, tons of it at the library, and if they don’t have it, they can get it 90% of the time FROM ANOTHER LIBRARY FOR FREE.

By the way? You already paid for it. Your tax dollars at work. Go use some of that stuff. A lot of it, like on Freegal, you can download and keep forever. Did I mention that it was free?

As someone else pointed out, if you’re paying $5.20 for a cup of coffee but won’t pay .99 for an e-book? Dude. C’mon. 

Anyway. If you’re gonna steal our shit, then at least, for the love of God, leave a review on Amazon.  Not Goodreads. Amazon.com. I mean, Jesus, if you are reading/listening/in any way consuming an artist’s work, then you must like that artist, right? Don’t you want to support them, even if you won’t do it financially? Then leave goddamn review. It’s three minutes of your time. Small price to pay for a free song you’ll listen to for the next forty years or a novel you can re-read over and over.

And I mean, my God! You can get used hardcovers at Amazon for a penny! Would I rather you buy a shiny new hardcover at my book launch on August 18? Yes. But the next best thing is to just get the cheapest copy you can and then (wait for it)….leave a review.

And finally:

We love you.

You get that, right? Artists love people, otherwise we’d be A) stupid, and B) working in a vacuum.

Nothing delights us more than creating shit for you to enjoy.

It’s why we get up in the morning. I am not kidding about this. Ask around.

I don’t have a problem giving you stuff for free. If you’re that hard up, by all means, send me a message and I will do my level best to get a copy of my book out to you, because, see above. I love you, and I love doing this for you. More than once I have spent my own, unreimbursed money to send a hardcover out to someone because that’s the kind of person I am. I want you to have this book. I want you to love it. Or not! But I want you to have it.

Just don’t steal it. Please. I’m begging you. We have got to move away from this Everything Is Free Online culture. I have to buy groceries to feed my toddler, you know? That’s not free. You wouldn’t want the work you do at your company to go unrewarded. You work hard. I work hard. The dozen or so people it takes to get a book to market work hard.

Don’t steal. Please.

And leave reviews on Amazon. No joke. Please do it.

…Rant off.

And for those many, many, many of you to whom this does not apply, thank you. On behalf of authors and other artists everywhere, thank you. We cherish you so very, very much.

 

 

 

How To Write Awesome Dialogue!

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dialogue front cover

Available now from Amazon on Kindle or paperback!

You’ve taken (or wanted to take) Tom’s energetic, unforgettable class on dialogue; now for the first time, here’s one place where all the collected advice, tips, and tricks is found! Bringing 22 years of experience as an actor and director in live theatre to the table, How To Write Awesome Dialogue! walks you through plot, conflict, and character notes to give you a firm foundation upon which to build better and best dialogue for your fiction or scripts. Don’t miss it!

Violent Ends

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violentends

Coming September 1, 2015. Pre-order on Amazon now!

In a one-of-a-kind collaboration, seventeen of the most recognizable YA writers — including Tom Leveen, Shaun David Hutchinson, Neal and Brendan Shusterman, and Beth Revis — come together to share the viewpoints of a group of students affected by a school shooting.

It took only twenty-two minutes for Kirby Matheson to exit his car, march onto the school grounds, enter the gymnasium, and open fire, killing six and injuring five others. But this isn’t a story about the shooting itself. This isn’t about recounting that one unforgettable day.

This is about Kirby and how one boy—who had friends, enjoyed reading, playing saxophone in the band, and had never been in trouble before—became a monster capable of entering his school with a loaded gun and firing on his classmates.

Each chapter is told from a different victim’s viewpoint, giving insight into who Kirby was and who he’d become. Some are sweet, some are dark; some are seemingly unrelated, about fights or first kisses or late-night parties. This is a book of perspectives—with one character and one event drawing them all together—from the minds of some of YA’s most recognizable names.

 

 

Then I’ll BE unhappy! – Heroes, TV, and Ron Perlman

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(c) 1989-ish, one of my best friends drew this for me; it’s his rendering of my player-character, Felix, an alien martial artist with cat-like powers. Because, cool!

(This is her world. A world apart from mine.)

So there was this show in the late eighties that in retrospect was kind of doofy, but perhaps only by today’s cynical standards: Beauty and the Beast, starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman. I’ll admit it—I loved the show. I thought Perlman’s performances as Vincent were amazing. Vincent was everything I was, wasn’t, and wanted to be.

Was, because I felt like an outsider and a monster, too.
Wasn’t, because he was strong and fearless and could kick some ass when some ass needed kicking.
Wanted to be, because he also had an amazing voice, presence, and loved fully and passionately.

These were all part of my early-teen psyche. In the very first episode, when Vincent’s adoptive father declares, in reference to Hamilton’s Katherine character, “She can only bring you unhappiness,” Vincent snarls back, “Then I’ll be unhappy!”

Lo, how oft I quoted those lines to myself whilst pining away for she who I could never obtain! No kidding, I actually have this line quoted in one of my old journals. One of the reviews of MANICPIXIEDREAMGIRL references my protagonist, Tyler, as “trying hard to break his own heart.” It’s my favorite review line ever, because it is true in the novel and it was true for me in high school, and Vincent—half lion, half man; half human, half monster—encapsulated my crazy emotions in those years. So much so, in fact, that when I had the chance to jump into a tabletop role-playing game with some friends, I based my character off Vincent. I went on to play that character for about 20 years. In so doing, playing with some very gifted storytellers and actors, my writing skills quietly got better and better in the background. (I later wrote a descriptive essay about that character and was accused of plagiarism because my writing “far exceeded the abilities of a comp 101 student.” True quote! Uh…my bad?)

(From the moment I saw her, she captured my heart with her beauty, her warmth, and her courage.)

So when I finally, after some 25 years, got to meet Ron Perlman in person at Phoenix ComiCon 2015, I just hoped I wouldn’t start bawling when I got to his table. (I didn’t.) Getting to shake his hand and explain that his storytelling, his character work in the show, inspired me in my own writing and that now I had books published by the likes of Random House, Abrams, and Simon & Schuster…it was just one of those I’m-meeting-my-rock-star! moments.

I gave the guy who played Vincent one of my novels. This is full-circle on a level that’s hard to explain.

He won’t read the thing; none of the people I’ve given my books to do, will, or have, I don’t reckon; and that’s okay, that’s not why I give them. I give them because it’s important to me to tell them how much their work mattered in my life. It’s important to me to show some tangible proof of my gratitude.

Because those stories do matter.

A lot of people don’t get all worked up over meeting celebrities, and I think that’s great. Some of us get riled up about celebrities not because they are special or powerful or whatever. They’re people. They go to work. Their work might seem glamorous, but I know just enough about the biz to know it’s anything but that a lot of the time (four hours in a make-up chair? Glamorous!). But still we get shook up when we meet them because they were the visible part of telling a story that perhaps said things we couldn’t.

“I am a monster, and I can never have what I really want because of it.” This was Vincent’s fate, and he knew it, and he let it get the better of him, and that is what I needed to see every week when I was 14. I don’t want to feel better, I want to feel whatever it is I am feeling right now, to the absolute fullest. Why do I write YA? Because so much of it, the real “it,” is exactly like that, and it’s a heady, breathtaking place to live for a little while.

In hindsight, Vincent and Katherine’s love affair, such as it was, wasn’t terribly mature. It couldn’t be, because good TV isn’t generally made about healthy relationships; conflict by necessity must be at a story’s core. I wouldn’t trade my awesome marriage for Vincent’s super strength and enhanced senses or his poetic pining; no thanks! But then I’m not 14 anymore, either. At 14? Oh hell yeah, that’s exactly what I needed to hear and see—that this monster knew what I was going through. So when I get a chance to meet the man who made that character come alive? A character who so deeply impacted my life and, in a roundabout way, my career?

Yeah. I’ll get a little choked up, all right? I can own that.

(I knew then as I know now that she would change my life forever.)

“It’s a TV show, dammit! It’s just a TV show!” barked William Shatner in a classic SNL skit. He’s right of course. It’s just a TV show.

But TV shows, movies, novels, poems, plays, songs…these things reveal to us and for us many things we can’t often express, even to ourselves. So I have no problem with anyone getting excited over meeting a person whose work has impacted them. Standing in line at Con this May, watching the thrilled, happy faces of fans after having met one of their favorite actors (or authors, or artists)…it’s a good thing. A very good thing, for everyone involved. Whether that person is an actor, athlete, musician, director, writer, artist, chef—whoever—it’s a noble thing they do, and I think a noble thing for us to say thank you. If what they did or do keeps us going one more day, then gratitude is the only reasonable reaction.

The Day Amber Benson & The Dread Pirate Roberts Saved My Life

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Could I just have one good f*cking day?!?! Answer: "As you wish."

Could I just have one good f*cking day?!?! Answer: “As you wish.”

Phoenix ComiCon 2015 begins in about 48 hours. I’m looking forward to it in a very special way this year because this time last year . . . I wasn’t.

2014 recap: Got to meet some great authors; met about a hundred up-and-coming writers, for whom I wish the best of luck and joy in their writing; met Cary Elwes who was preternaturally kind and wonderful; then was utterly charmed and stunned by author and actor Amber Benson for not only not roundhouse kicking my face when I jumped in front of her and asked her to come to my last panel of the day…but that she showed up and absolutely made my weekend. Her arriving at my class really took my breath away. You know what it’s like when you meet your Rock Star – whether he or she is an artist, actor, writer, poet, musician, or Fortune 500 CEO? Whoever your Rock Star is, you know that feeling? Yeah. It was like that.

And I wasn’t going to go. I came *that* close to skipping the whole thing.

No one knows, until just now, that that was my plan. Not my wife, not my ComiCon friends, not the Con organizers who are as dear to me as any family. No one. I didn’t announce it. I just quietly debated the merits of even bothering to show up. Because for all the awesome that is Phoenix ComiCon, sadness and self-loathing are . . . well, if we’re gonna be geeky, let’s just say the Dark Side is “Quicker. More seductive.” 

The reason I debated those merits is, I’ll never be good enough. I never have been, never will be, let’s end the entire charade.

You ever felt that way?

Let me make one thing clear, here: I am 100% aware of the sheer volume of blessings I have. No question. We can start with my wife and son and work our way along. I know them all. I do actually “count my blessings.” Frequently. Toby and Joy take up Spot #1. I have published novels that are on bookstore shelves; we’ll call that #3, because my friends take up Spot #2.

But still I wonder. Still I fear. Still I think it’s all a trick. 

Let’s put it this way: If anyone ever said to Toby the things I say into the mirror — and that’s not always metaphorical, by the way — I’d be Cobra-Kai-sweepin’-the-leg all over that person’s face. No one talks to my wife or my kid like that. No one.

I, on the other hand, am totally allowed to say those things to me. Some are things people have said and just stayed in there for, oh, thirty years. Some are brand-new that I came up with myself. And being a writer, trust me, some of them are pretty heinous. (My wife and my doctor get all upset with me when they hear the sorts of things I say to myself. Geez, calm down, right? I mean, they’re just words! . . . Right?)

So that’s just the tip of what was happening right before Con 2014. It’s the tip of what happens a lot in this office where I work. 

Thing is . . . I look back at last year’s Con and think of all the total coolness I would have missed out on if I’d given up. The wonderful people I wouldn’t have met.

No matter how much easier it is to give in, I can’t let it happen. You can’t let it happen. There is just too much cool shit we could miss out on if we let our Dark Sides get the better of us.

So this time last year, I could barely pick myself up off the floor. But I did. I got up, and goddammit, I went to Phoenix ComiCon to be with my tribe. And what do you know — heroes showed up, and reminded me by their smiles and their handshakes and their hugs that this place is worth sticking around for. Even when it sucks.

Artists you admire come watch your dialogue class, or dread pirates show great kindness. These things can change the entire course of a day, week, or longer. Much longer, sometimes. Like, the entire year between Cons, for example.

So thank you, Amber, and Cary, and Faith, and Brandy, and my exquisite and unrelentingly faithful bride. Thank you to every person who’s ever said a kind word about me or my work. Thank you. It matters. I hope I return the favor somehow.

I hope to see you at Phoenix ComiCon 2015. I’m really looking forward to it, no kidding. And if you or someone you know has been or is in one of those awful places I described, hang in there. Heroes abound. Keep your eyes open. We can do this.

We can. We have to. Because I don’t want any of us to miss Phoenix ComiCon 2016.

So say we all.

What Metallica Teaches Me

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Turn the page.

Turn the page.

So I’m watching this James Hetfield video, him at Guitar Center jamming a bit and talking about his early career with Metallica. About half way through, he starts playing this riff, and I think, “Could I ever learn to play that? I’ve got a Fender Strat electric and a Gibson Epiphone acoustic electric, surely I could learn to play that.”

Yes. I could. Gimme a year and practice every day, I could learn to play that riff.

But it would never be natural. It would never be second nature.

So here’s the hard truth: Writing fiction is pretty much the same way.

BUT.

It all depends on what you want out of it and what you expect out of it.

Jame Hetfield apparently worked at “a sticker factory.” Which somehow fits, I don’t know why. He might’ve ended up staying there, maybe becoming a sticker factory manager someday. (After all, someone has to be the sticker factory manager. There ought to be pride in that. There ought to be pride in every job, but our nation currently doesn’t really support that – but I digress.) Maybe old James would’ve quit and gone on to study music in college, and become a professor someplace. But he didn’t. He went on to become Metallica. Meh tal ih KAH!

But he’d still be playing guitar. I’d bet anything on it.

James Hetfield plays guitar because James Hetfield can’t not play guitar.

I write novels because I can’t not write novels.

What is it you cannot not do? That’s the thing you should be doing. You might still have to work at the sticker factory or become a professor to fund whatever it is. (I know this because it’s what I’m in the process of doing – preparing to get paid for something other than writing novels. I probably won’t work at the sticker factory, though.)

There is a world of difference – and generally, years of difference – between “I wanna be a rock star” and doing the work it takes to get there. As in music, are there flashes of wild success in fiction? Yes. Whether these authors are “good” or not is a matter of opinion, of course, just as tastes vary wildly with music preferences. But both musicians and novelists, like any artists, can also hit a nerve in a community at a right place and time.

Most of them, however, work their butts off to get there. And then double the effort once they’ve “arrived.” That’s the secret. That’s the trick. There isn’t another.

The reality is, I may never be a New York Times bestseller. Not for lack of trying or hoping. I may never keynote at ALA, again not for lack of trying or hoping.

But I keep thinking about these musicians I know, who make crap money gigging around the world, country, or neighborhood, and can’t imagine doing anything else. They cobble together a living, maybe with some teaching on the side or as a studio back-up. They’re doing what they want to do.

There is a price for that lifestyle, of course. Only you can determine if that price is worth paying. (If you can marry rich, go for it.) (Mostly kidding, folks.*) There’s health insurance and car insurance and retirement to think about (if you have a car). Rent or mortgage. Hey, ever pay for pre-school? That’ll shock ya. Oh, and food and clothing.

Among other things.

So what are you willing to give up to do that thing you can’t not do? What path can you forge to do that thing for a little or a lot of money?

Hope is not a business plan. Luck is not the foundation of a life-long career.

Figure out what you want, then make a plan to go get it. Take yourself out for a nice long chat sometime and really ponder this thing you want to do. If you can see yourself doing anything else, you should probably go do that thing instead.

But if THIS thing—whatever it is, be it music, writing, poetry, cooking, gardening, becoming a SEAL, whatever—if this thing you cannot breathe without . . . then figure out how you’re gonna get there.

Because you can.

That’s all. Love ya.

~ Tom

 

*Oft told story: Joy and I were at a dinner with friends of her family. Someone asked us what we wanted to do as careers. We both answered truthfully. The guy laughed and said, “An artist and a social worker. You’re gonna be rolling in cash, huh?” 

Well…maybe someday. But no, prolly not. 🙂

We’re All The Backpacker

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Me, SICK, and the cosplay cast of Walking Dead.

Me, SICK, and the cosplay cast of Walking Dead.

Yes, I’m a fan of The Walking Dead. It took me a long time to get around to watching it, because that first episode with the half-woman crawling on the grass . . . how they elicited empathy from those two scenes frankly scared me. I knew, as did millions of others, that this was to be no ordinary zombie romp. I could barely handle the gore; my taste for that disappeared many years ago. But even moreso, I couldn’t handle the emotion.

I’ve not been able to pick up this current season, despite a few attempts at trying. The entire arc of Terminus and what the Termites do . . . I just can’t stomach it. I’ve watched enough Talking Dead to give up on it for now, though I dutifully record it just in case.

And I wonder:

This is what we use for entertainment now? Watching people eat each other? It’s not new or unique to this series, but man. Walking Dead pulls zero punches. Zero.

Then I wonder:

Is it all just a matter of degrees?

I’m a huge Buffy fan. I watch it (and re-watch it) for the story. I watch Walking Dead for the story. What’s the difference, if any? Buffy has combat and fighting and the best and the worst that humanity has to offer in its stories. The Walking Dead offers the same thing, but with more gore. So what’s the difference? Is it like the old joke, “I only read Playboy for the articles”?

“I only watch Walking Dead for the story and character.” “I only watch Breaking Bad for the story and the character.”

Really? You’re sure those are the only reasons?

While I enjoy all of these shows—at least, I think it’s enjoyment—I’m left wondering if Walking Dead is simply too accurate. It worries me that, zombies notwithstanding, it’s just pointing out the inevitable future of the human race. Is it showing us the truth about ourselves, and if so . . . is it our fate? I don’t mean a zombie apocalypse (believe it or not), but rather, is it our fate to treat our fellow living human beings the way these characters treat others?

I mean, I cannot envision a time or circumstance in which I would eat human flesh. I can’t eat leftovers from my favorite restaurants!  But then I’ve never been trapped on a mountain hoping for rescue. I’ve never been in a zombie apocalypse. And while I watch the show and condemn the actions of some of its characters (like what Michonne and Rick did-or-rather-didn’t do to the backpacker in season 3, episode 12), I also know that I have a three-year-old. And I know there is absolutely nothing I wouldn’t do to protect that child, much like a certain dad did for a certain son when that son was being threatened. Those of you who watch the show know what scene I’m talking about. I appreciate The Walking Dead for giving me that idea; that if I and my son were ever in a similar situation, now I know what to do. It’s disgusting. It’s inhuman. But I would do it. Would not hesitate.

So then, does the show tell us who we are at our core? In the event of a catastrophe of an apocalypse scale, is this how we would treat each other? The one time we most need to band together, are we capable of doing it?

Because here’s the thing:

The world is in jeopardy right now as I write this. The world, our world, is falling apart. Oh, the planet will be fine—Earth doesn’t need us to keep spinning and creating and sustaining life. It just won’t be our life, the way things are headed.

Even without zombies walkers, we’re at a point where we need to band together. Instead, we kill unarmed people and we crash planes into buildings and we let our neighbors starve or children go to school hungry or our veterans to die alone and frightened on the street after having killed the people we think are responsible for the aforementioned atrocities in the first place . . . can you say “vicious unending cycle”?

I’ve heard—not confirmed, and hard-core (die hard?) fans might know for sure—that the word “zombie” is never used because in the world of the show, there is no George Romero, no cultural history of “zombies” per se. Maybe that’s true.

Or maybe the creators simply know the phrase “walking dead” has many more connotations to it than “zombie” does. I guess it’s that age-old media question: Does our entertainment cause us to become something, or does it merely reflect what it already sees? Probably the answer is Yes. Yes, both.

Maybe we’re already walking dead. Maybe we are already consuming one another’s flash. Nothing new here. Nothing that a thousand online prophets haven’t already endlessly dissected. I guess I just needed to hear myself say it out loud, so to speak.

Can we be better? I know I’m trying. But it’s not easy. Maybe you can help me. Maybe we can help each other.

I’m open to ideas. All’s I know is what I’d like to do if I ever see a Backpacker—apocalypse or no apocalypse. Because that Backpacker is everywhere already.

And you and I might be him someday if we’re not already.

Be Human.