Author Archive: jsomers

Jeff Somers (www.jeffreysomers.com) was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and regrets nothing. He is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series published by Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket Books. He sold his first novel at age 16 to a tiny publisher in California which quickly went out of business and has spent the last two decades assuring potential publishers that this was a coincidence. Jeff publishes a zine called The Inner Swine and has also published a few dozen short stories; his story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight, published by Berkley Hardcover and edited by Charlaine Harris. His guitar playing is a plague upon his household and his lovely wife The Duchess is convinced he would wither and die if left to his own devices.

What to Do When a Vengeful Universe Robs You

Author: June 12, 2017 0 Comments

This topic was suggested by Jon Gawne.

Writers, by and large, are simple creatures who live their lives according to a collection of old wives’ tales and myths, including a firm belief that you can turn magical thinking into a paying career and a firm belief that writing is a paying career. Ah, such innocence!

Another cherished belief many writers have is that their ideas are somehow wholly unique and original. I am reminded, ironically, of Paul McCartney’s story about writing the famous song Yesterday. He says the melody came to him and he was convinced he must have heard it somewhere else and nicked it unconsciously (something that would bite bandmate George Harrison in the ass years later) because it was too good. Only after spending months humming it to people and asking if they could identify it did he finally accept that he’d come up with it.

Writers should never do that with novel ideas, because if you’re looking for prior work that has more or less the same idea, you will almost certainly find it. Because there are no new ideas.

The President’s Dead!

A few years ago I wrote a novel about the designated survivor during the State of the Union Address—the member of the cabinet who is secured someplace just in case the entire line of succession is murdered in a terrorist attack or something. It was called Designated Survivor, which is also the title—and premise—of a TV show. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly a new idea when I wrote the novel, and my treatment of the premise went in a weirdo SF direction.

Still, the TV show kind of kills any hope I might have had of publishing the novel. This stuff happens, though, because ideas are constantly being recycled, and half the battle in publishing is timing. What do you do if you’ve been working on a novel and suddenly someone else publishes something with a similar premise? Here are your steps to work through:

  1. DON’T imagine they somehow stole your idea. Put down your phone and step away from the lawyers, because your idea just isn’t that unique. Trust me on this.
  2. DO keep working on the story if you’re still excited about it. You might find ways to twist things and set it apart from your new competition, and even if you don’t, you’ll enjoy finishing the story and maybe learn something.
  3. DON’T start pestering the other party on social media about stealing your ideas. Also, don’t mention how you had the same idea years earlier at every goddamn party and gathering, because trust me: No one cares.
  4. DO chalk it up to the fundamental perversion of the universe, hit control-N, and start writing something new.

That’s it. This shit happens, there’s no defense, and you can’t do anything about it. Well, that’s not 100% true—if you write a version of that idea that is so wildly better done than any other version, you might yet sell it. Accept that challenge or move on to your next idea. It’s that simple.

ideas, Novels, Writing

The Work-Work Balance: Freelancing and Fiction

Author: June 9, 2017 0 Comments

A lot of writers dream of writing full-time. Some writers, of course, dream of other things, like getting paid to taste-test hamburgers, or whiskey. But an awful lot of us dream about being able to walk away from the Day Job and earn a living with nothing but our rapier wit and understanding of pathetic fallacy.

Usually, this dream involves our fiction, and usually it is in the form of a hell of a lot of book sales. Sometimes life throws you a curve and your dream of making a living writing comes true in the bizarro way: You launch a freelance writing career in parallel with your fiction endeavors. On the plus side, you are, technically, writing for a living. On the negative side, some of your writing energy and brain power will be dumped into freelance instead of awesome books. On the plus side, you were going to put that brain energy into a Day Job anyway.

On the negative side, writing all the time can sometimes get a little draining.

Finding Balance

Now, if your goal is to write for a living, this isn’t a bad thing, it’s just something to keep in mind. And if you’re writing to pay the bills, your number one priority is going to be getting enough work to pay those bills. And it’s not like there’s a finite number of words you’ll get to write before death takes you in its icy grip.

So how do you attain balance between writing-for-the-filthy-lucre and writing for your passion? You don’t.

Balance is a bad word here, and writers should be ashamed of using it. Balance implies that an equitable share is desirable, that an even split in your time and energies is the ideal. This is, as scientists say, bullshit. What you want is coordination between your work-writing and your fiction. And, frankly, you should be looking to dial down the time you spend on freelance or other paid writing as much as possible while making enough money to survive. This is accomplished through a very simple maneuver known as raising your rates. The goal should be getting paid $100,000 per word so you can write one tweet and retire.

Stop trying to balance things, and start pressing your thumb on the scale in favor of your fiction.

career, freelance, time management, Writing

The Ladder

Author: June 8, 2017 0 Comments

One of the best pieces of writing career advice I can offer is the simple observation that everything is relative. This includes your level of success in this business; no matter what you’ve achieved, you’re somewhere on a ladder of success whose rungs are defined by your own perception. And as a result you’re never wholly satisfied, and you always feel like you’ve got a ways to go—or at least I do.

The first rung was finishing a story, any story. That moment when you realize you’ve actually created a narrative with recognizable characters, plot, and resolution is pretty thrilling. Then you think, gosh, it would be nice to see some of my work in print. And then you get a story published in some non-paying zine or something and you’re thrilled!

And then you think it would be nice to be paid for a story. And then you get a few dollars for a story, and you realize you’re now a working writer, even if you just got less than a penny a word and might not be able to buy a coffee with the check. And so on—you get your first pro-rate paycheck, you publish a novel, you sign a contract, you get an advance, you sit on a panel, you’re invited to an anthology—all of these are rungs on that ladder. You ascend to one and realize you’ve achieved something not every author manages.

Perspective

It’s easy to look up at all the rungs above you and the writers hanging out there and get wound up about it. Your book sales are middling. Your awards shelf is empty. You didn’t have that genius twist that everyone is talking about. You don’t have that many Twitter followers, your book wasn’t adapted into a film—there’s always a rung above you. Usually a few dozen rungs.

But, and this is important, you have to look back and realize how many writers never finish that first story. Never sell—or, sometimes, even try to sell—that first novel. You might feel like your career isn’t going so well or as well as it could or should be, but to someone further down that ladder you look like an incredible success, you with your many publishing credits, your actual checks for actual money, your award nominations and name recognition.

The point is, if you’re even on the damn ladder someone is jealous of you.

None of this means you shouldn’t be jealous and ambitious. By all means, scheme to become as rich and powerful in the writing business as possible so you can crush

career, Writing

The Ads Not to Answer

Author: June 7, 2017 0 Comments

Writing is a hard gig to make into a living, and freelance writing is the hardest path to follow in some ways. If you ever want a sense of how much people in general value writing as a skill, try your luck at freelancing; while there are plenty of well-paying gigs out there and plenty of people who do value the writer, there is a vast army of people who think writing is essentially worthless.

These folks generally believe they could do all the writing for their project themselves if only they had the time. Therefore they approach hiring someone to write it with an irritated, vengeful attitude from the get-go, and are a nightmare to work for. If you get sucked into their project, you will have regrets, so it’s best to avoid them from the very beginning.

Deciphering the Ads

So how can you avoid working for idiots who regard what you do as essentially worthless? You can look for the secret code they all use in their advertising. When they post an ad looking for writers, look for the following things:

  • No mention whatsoever of compensation. If the advertisement doesn’t even acknowledge that you might need to be paid for your work, move on.
  • A lengthy list of your responsibilities, which, in combination with the first bullet tells you exactly what they think of your position in life.
  • The words copyscape or plagiarism, which are sure signs that the person hiring regards writing as a scam of some sort and not, you know, a valuable service. I’m not saying people haven’t been ripped off by writers serving up steaming piles of plagiarized material, but this tends to happen more often to you when you lowball your pay and don’t value writers to begin with.
  • A stern, angry tone. If they’re already treating you like a Time Thief stealing from them before you’ve even answered the ad, move along.

The bottom line is that writing is content that has value, whether its entertaining fiction moving book-shaped units or web copy or blog posts drawing eyeballs. Not only should the writer always be paid, they should also always be paid fairly, and the first step is not even bothering with crappy jobs. Consistently, the best freelance gigs I’ve gotten via answering ads have had ad copy that was fun, that was up-front about payment, and that made me feel excited to join a team and not lucky to get a penny a word.

freelance, Writing

Slang: Don’t Overdo It

Author: June 6, 2017 0 Comments

Friends, I am not a young man any more. Some might argue I have never been a young man, that I was born with a tumbler of whiskey in one hand a complaint about the Designated Hitter Rule cued up. Let it drift: However young I once was, I am no longer, and it almost doesn’t matter because I’ve never been much of a Youth Culture guy.

When I was a young’n my sainted Mother once got very annoyed with me when I went through a phase of ending every sentence with the word “man.” As in, hey, is dinner ready, man? or why do I have to do homework when people are starving somewhere on this planet, man? Like, she got really annoyed and launched a campaign to stop me. Which was devastatingly successful, because you did not mess with my Mom on the rare occasions she felt strongly about things.

Anyway, that might explain why I’ve always been slow to pick up on slang and the hot new speak of the kids, even when I was a kid. Which of course complicates things with the writing.

Things With the Writing

Slang is tough when you’re writing fiction. On the one hand, if handled well it adds oodles of what literary scientists call verisimilitude. Not to mention flavor and a naturalistic rhythm to your work. But, if handled poorly it all backfires and you are Steve Buscemi in a meme.

<MEME>

The hardest part for writers is the fact that we’re writers, which means we’re linguistically curious by nature. So when we hear some bit of slang, we’re intrigued, and sort of naturally pick it up and start playing with it, because words and the evolution of language is fucking fascinating. This does run the risk of appearing ridiculous, say by being a middle-aged white man who suddenly starts referring to his wife as bae or fam all the time.

You have to keep this in mind while writing, especially if you’re trying to make a young character feel hip and contemporary (ed. note: if this is your goal do not use the word “hip”). Using some slang you’ve gleaned from overheard conversations and Internet forums might seem like a great idea, unless you use them incorrectly—or if you stumble over cultural lines and wind up in Appropriation Land, or pick up slang without the necessary context and get into serious trouble.

So, your best practice with slang is to resist. Resist until you absolutely can’t resist any more, until the temptation is too powerful, then give in just enough to scratch that itch. Then back away rapidly and go back to using language the way it was intended, you filthy animal.

General, Writing

“Fargo” and The Relativity of Evil

Author: June 5, 2017 0 Comments

One of the best tricks I get asked about when I talk to aspiring writers is how to make a despicable, perhaps even an evil character likable. This is usually in reference to Avery Cates, who is an assassin and a guy who uses casual violence, even against his friends, to assert himself. Cates is sometimes charming, or funny, or sympathetic, but he’s also always an asshole, so it can be challenging to make readers like him.

There are two main ways to accomplish this. One is to punish the character. Avery is a Bad Actor, but he gets tortured, imprisoned, beaten, and screwed over so often his violence never actually gets him anything aside from short-lived triumph. This makes him a little more sympathetic.

The other way is a slower burn, and it’s something that Noah Hawley is doing in the third season of Fargo on FX: Make everyone else worse. Spoilers be comin’.

The Relativity of Evil

In Fargo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Nikki Swango, a hard-edged ex-con who takes a practical approach to getting by. Nikki has genuine love for her Parole Officer, Ray Stussy (Ewan MacGregor), and she isn’t such a terrible person. But she does encourage Ray to commit several crimes in pursuit of some stake money, setting in motion some awful events—and when one of Ray’s plots brings a dimwitted, violent man into their lives, she doesn’t hesitate for even a second to murder him via air conditioner.

You read that right.

Death by Air Conditioner is No Way to Go.

Nikki’s not a nice person. She’s a schemer and a murderer and a bit of a grifter. But by episode 7 of the season, Nikki is a character you feel sympathy for. She’s been brutally beaten. Her fiancé is (SPOILERS) dead. She’s been falsely accused of the murder and an attempt was made to assassinate her. All of this helps you to put aside the fact that she dropped a fucking air conditioner on someone.

But what really works to put Nikki’s crimes into perspective are the other villains on the show. Mr. Varga and his henchmen are truly evil, terrifying people who have very little empathy or value for human life. Compared to them, Nikki Vango is not so bad. Her violence is only unleashed to protect herself or her lover, and while I would not, say, want to be in business with Nikki (or living next door to her) she’s not an inhuman monster (or a force of nature, a concept Fargo likes to play with) like the others.

So, air conditioner or not, Nikki has become one of the people you wish survive the story—a feat any writer ought to be able to pull off.

Bullshit, Someone Else's Writing

Fuck Grammar

Author: June 5, 2017 0 Comments

You learn grammar so you can break the rules with purpose and intent, but boy howdy you should break those rules. Every novelist should have that failed novel where they tried to go Full Joyce and break all the rules—and yes, that novel will be failed, but what fun. And if it isn’t a Fail, you certainly don’t need this blog or my grimy thoughts.

I’ve always had the vaguest and most primitive grasp of grammar, because I’m a lazy man who relies on instinct instead of book-learnin’ as a rule. Writing has always come easily for me, and I’ve always regarded grammar as a collection of loose guidelines instead of, you know, rules. When you show a novel or story around to enough people, someone will note your grammarly failings—the dubious overuse of commas, perhaps, or the clear evidence you don’t really know how to use the semi-colon (the most mysterious of the colons). And humorless people will correct your grammar, no doubt.

Ignore ?em.

Going Full Cormac

Look, no one’s telling you that you can pull off a Full Cormac McCarthy and just ignore whole swaths of our delicate, glorious language; not many people can go Full Cormac (and some would argue not even Cormac himself is pulling it off) without falling off a cliff into incomprehensibility. But you shouldn’t feel like you’re a prisoner of grammar rules handed out in school. Use those commas freely. Abuse verb tense, write glorious, overlong run-on sentences.

Just do it with purpose. That’s the key. If your grammar is muddled because your grasp of it is muddled, then all the grammar bluenoses have a point, kid. If you’re doing it on purpose and you like the effect, then ignore all of them and don’t ever look back.

Uncategorized

Submissions: Don’t Think So Much

Author: June 2, 2017 0 Comments

You’ve written a novel! Or a short story, or an epic poem, or a confessional memoir that’s 350,000 words about your sexual exploits, drinking binges, crying jags, and occasional abduction by aliens. As one does.

As hard as that might have seemed, many writers find the next step to be much more difficult: Submitting that sucker. Whether it’s to an agent, a publisher, a magazine, or some other market, the moment you decide you’re done with a story and you want to sell it is terrifying, because you’re saying it’s done, you can’t improve it any more, and you’re about to voluntarily invite people to pass judgment on it. It can be paralyzing. Once you start reading the guidelines it gets easier and easier to think your story doesn’t fit, or it’s not good enough, so why bother?

I just sent off three story submissions to magazines, and one is probably a ridiculously inappropriate submissions. Wrong market, and I’m not 100% certain the story is actually any good. I submitted it anyway, because that’s the secret: Don’t read the guidelines. Don’t give the editor an opportunity to talk you out of it. Just send in the sub.

Like a Drunken Sailor

Submitting fiction like a drunken sailor may not make for the most efficient of submission processes. It may not make you any friends among editors, or result in any more sales than a more focused approach. But what skipping the guidelines—and the thought process over the appropriateness and quality of your work—gets you is peace of mind. Sure, you might still get that rejection, but better to be rejected and have had a chance at a sale than to talk yourself out of submitting in the first place.

I’ve certainly had the experience of submitting a story to a market that I think has no chance of selling, and, then selling it. The thing is that editors will always tell you how picky they are—you should only send them your absolute best work and then only when the moon is full and you have recently bathed in the blood of virgin goats, after spending decades in a cave contemplating your story. The more you read the guidelines, the easier it is to be talked out of any shred of confidence you might have in your work.

Just click submit. Your worst case scenario is a quick rejection. If you’re smart, you’ll do what I do and turn rejections into a slow-motion, long-term drinking game.

rejection, Writing

Taking a Break from Butt-in-Chair

Author: June 1, 2017 0 Comments

When you start talking about writing a novel, you’ll eventually hear a variation of the phrase “butt-in-chair.” This is generally pretty good advice: You can’t write a book if you don’t make yourself, you know, sit down in front of a keyboard and write it. So making sure you get (and keep) your butt in the chair for good long intervals is sound advice.

Like a lot of advice or best practices or rules, the whole point of learning them and understanding their benefits is so you can break them judiciously.

Take a Nap

I always refer to Mad Men when I discuss creativity, because one thing that TV show brilliantly handled was creativity. Don Draper is a writer, a creative guy. And the show goes out of its way to show Don goofing off—or, apparently goofing off. Don goes to the movies in the middle of the day. He drinks in his office. He naps. He goes home. You would be forgiven for asking what, precisely, Don does aside from wear the hell out of a suit and be charming.

The point is, Don’s creativity often resembles goofing off. Creativity needs discipline, so butt-in-chair works. But creativity is also chaos and anarchy, so sometimes when it’s just not happening you really do need to just get out of the chair. Take a walk. Take a nap. Drink a half bottle of cheap bourbon and go running through the neighborhood shouting about flat-earth theories. Whatever it takes.

The point is, you can’t take advice too literally. Butt-in-chair is a good rule of thumb, but it doesn’t mean you force yourself to sit there until you’ve written some arbitrary number of words. It just means you have to get into the habit of working or you’ll never actually work. It doesn’t mean the occasional half bottle of bourbon and arrest for public intoxication isn’t just as good for your soul.

Novels, time management, Writing

The Daemon

Author: May 31, 2017 0 Comments

I’ve always had an affinity for computer programming, but I lack the discipline and math comfort required, or maybe I just didn’t get the right encouragement when I was younger. I dabbled in programming, mainly in BASIC, and I enjoy the creative aspect even as my bug-ridden code always reminded me that my attention to detail is … lacking.

I always think of programming and chess in similar ways: Deep oceans I’ve poked a toe into, knowing that if I try to swim out too far I’ll just drown, because my brain is about as deep as a puddle. I get very interested in things and for short periods of time learn everything I can—about programming, about chess openings, what have you—and once I have a superficial and minimal mastery of them I lose interest and wander off. The upside is, I know a very little about a huge number of things.

In operating systems, there are what are known as daemons, small programs that run constantly in the background, checking on things or providing data. And here, a hundred words in, we get to the point: Your creativity is a daemon process. It’s working all the time, even if you’re not.

Walk Away

This is why you have to take breaks. Writers often try to force themselves to achieve arbitrary goals, like 5,000 words in a day or a first draft of a novel in four weeks or something like that. And all well and good if that works for you, but keep in mind the typing is the tip of that iceberg. The real work is buried deep inside your head, and it goes on 24-7. And if it’s not producing anything, all the typing in the world won’t help.

That’s why sometimes the best thing you can do for your novel is to walk away and stop writing it. And why sometimes it doesn’t make any sense to worry about stuff like word counts or progress. That creative process is going to be chugging along in the background no matter what you do, so waiting for it to start pushing ideas to the front of your head isn’t wasted time; often it’s necessary time. That’s one reason creativity often looks like doing nothing, just like your computer looks like it’s not doing anything even though there are dozens of processes running in the background all the time.

Of course, this is also a convenient excuse for me to day drink, because when someone catches me sipping whiskey on the deck instead of writing, I just tap my head and wink and say “Creative process!”

Novels, time management, Writing