Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements

DON’T LOOK AT ME I’m Hideous

Author: July 26, 2013 0 Comments

(This originally appeared in The Inner Swine Volume 15, Issue 2)

Look at me and despair.

Look at me and despair.

PIGS, despite my superstar good looks and obvious gifts, I’ve never been a gadfly. When I was a kid I was kind of shy and nerdy (shocking! I know); although I have very few horror stories from my childhood to scar me. According to Hollywood movies I should have been the Piggy character in my own story: Glasses, chubby, uncoordinated, and permanent squint from reading too much in the dark. Somehow, though, I had a great childhood. I am walking evidence that Hollywood clichés are not always based in truth—if you believe all the movies and TV shows, high school is a Thunderdome of Nerds Vs. Cools, with the Nerds emerging broken and traumatized to enter into decades of therapy and the Cools emerging into comfy CEO positions. Sure, my high school had cliques and I had a few painful incidents [1] in my youth—who hasn’t?—but nothing too damaging.

Or maybe I’m in denial and I’ve repressed memories so deep they’ve disappeared, because I did emerge from my childhood with a healthy distrust of all of you and a conviction that everyone makes fun of me the moment I leave the room. Aside from the fear of mockery, I also fear violence, convinced that strangers on the street are going to lunge at me suddenly and attempt to garrote me or stab me with their ballpoint pens, probably while screaming gibberish at me. Or maybe screaming something about owing them money, which I get a lot of.

Either way, I fear all of you.

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Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, The Inner Swine

To Create, You Must Destroy

Author: July 11, 2013 0 Comments

“To create / You must destroy / Smash a glass and cry, “Too Much Joy!” – the most obscure lyrics from an obscure band in the history of ever.

green-eggs-and-crackOne of the few rules of writing that I not only can coherently form in my mind but actually follow goes something like this: A good story is where you spend the first half building a world and the second half destroying it. The exact percentages aren’t always the same. Just the act of completely tearing down everything you’ve created.

The worst thing in the world for a story is status quo. Once you establish a universe, a world, a Rube Goldberg Machine of your own imagination, the urge to protect it is pretty strong. You want to preserve it in amber because it’s good, other people think it’s good, and you did a fine job of building it, so why not.

But you have to destroy it all. Burn everything. The story only gets truly interesting when you start manufacturing Molotovs in the basement and hurling them at your beautiful story. That’s why, in the Avery Cates books I purposefully told the story of a world in decline and then finally in death throes. I enjoyed creating that world in the first book, and then really enjoyed destroying it in books 2-5. If you don’t destroy, you’re just treading water. And it gets boring.

You have to take away the powers you gave your hero. You have to destroy the bedrock of the society you’ve envisioned. You have to rain plague and defeat and horror down on everyone, kill your main characters, drop the bomb, and leave nothing behind.

One reason the TV show Mad Men is still considered one of the best shows on TV after 6 seasons is because Matt Weiner and company knows this. In each season of that show, he has violently changed the circumstances. In Season 1, Don Draper’s mysterious past is set up as this defining mystery – and then revealed, and no one cared. Over the course of the seasons Don’s marriage has broken up, his company was bought, he formed his own, he got married again, he lost his creative edge, he mismanaged things, he caused his brother to commit suicide, he got fired. Mad Men has been burning to the ground since about episode seven of Season One, which is about right. That was about the time the universe Weiner was working on was pretty much fleshed out for us.

A lesser show would still be trying to work that early-60s style angle. A lesser show would always end on a note of triumph as Don pulls another bit of brilliance out of the air. Instead, Don’s losing everything in slow motion, over and over again. And that’s why it’s interesting.

So, next time you’re stuck in a story and not sure why it’s dead on the page, ask yourself if it couldn’t benefit from a sudden wildfire that would leave behind nothing but bones and ash. Chances are, it would.

Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Writing

Mad Men & Power

Author: June 29, 2013 0 Comments

I’ve been a loyal fan of Mad Men from the first season. It’s not life-changing or anything but it’s a very well-written show with impeccable set design and attention to detail, and the character of Don Draper continues to fascinate me. He’s a good character.

I also find myself thinking way too hard and long about things, as English Majors do. After watching Season Six of the show, I have a new idea. Mad Men isn’t about Don Draper at all. It’s about power, and the concept that it’s all just an illusion.

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Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Someone Else's Writing

Khan Vs. Khan

Author: May 18, 2013 1 Comment

KhaaaaanSo, saw Star Trek: Into Darkness today and it was very good. Extremely well made, wonderfully cast and acted, with a snappy script and an okay if not exactly marvellous plot. On a scale of One to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, I’d give it a seven.

Because The Wrath of Khan kicks its ass in just about every way except action and special effects. The action sequences and special effects in Into Darkness make Wrath of Khan look like a play put on by Our Gang to raise money to save someone’s farm. In every other way, though, Wrath wins. It kicks Into Darkness’ ass in terms of story, dialogue, the comfort zone of the characters, and, most importantly, in terms of the villain character. Here there be spoilers, so if you fear spoilers, run.

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Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Someone Else's Writing

Long Days Journey Into Published

Author: May 12, 2013 9 Comments

Let me back up.

In 1997, I wrote a novel. After a lengthy period of writing in the SF/F genres exclusively (though I didn’t think of them as genres back then but just as Shit I Wanted to Read and Therefore Write About) I entered into a period I think of as my Faux Literary Period, where I thought I should be writing about Velly Important Stuff and eschewing things like robots and magic. So I started writing about a bunch of alcoholic losers who rob an office where one of them works, thinking it would change their lives. At first it was titled Lie Down in Our Graves after a Dave Mathews song I’ve never heard, because my titles always suck.

I renamed the novel Lifers and in 1999 started sending it out, and sold it, unagented, to a tiny publisher out in California. For money! A microscopic advance and a standard royalty rate. I figured I’d made it and began purchasing rare whiskies in bulk.

I wish I’d had an agent, however, as it was a terrible contract I was saved from only because the publisher went out of business in 2004. I will never know how many copies of Lifers sold back then since I never received any sort of statement from them. Lifers got reviewed in The New York Times Book Review and The Philadelphia Inquirer but that didn’t amount to much.

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Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Writing

The Brain Cloud Cometh

Author: April 24, 2013 5 Comments

This initially appeared in my zine The Inner Swine 16(1/2).

The Brain Cloud Cometh

I’m at “That Age”

by Jeff Somers

"That" Age

“That” Age

PIGS, I don’t go to doctors much. Part of this is my Viking heritage (buried deeply in my genetic code, yes, but I am convinced it’s there), which makes me naturally hardy. Part of this is the usual charming male hubris that informs me that I can walk anything off. Lose a limb? Walk it off, hands on your hips, taking deep breaths. Coughed up a lung? Take the bench for an inning, you’ll be fine. Part of it, of course, is my general incompetence and bad memory: I am usually shocked to discover when my last doctor’s appointment was.

Also: How awkward. I mean, I’m terrible at social interaction as it is. Make me naked under a thin hospital gown while another man cops a feel, and my small talk just dries the hell up, trust me.

My infrequent visits to the various doctors we need to stay alive from year to year used to be more or less perfunctory: My old General Practitioner, whom I’d gone to from the age of five until I was about 25, used to tell me to keep the weight off and to never smoke cigarettes, and that was usually the entire content of our conferences. Even past that I usually coasted through examinations: I was either there for a specific reason, burrowing towards a prescription and getting on with my life, or I was there for some sort of routine physical, generally passing with flying colors. Recently, though, while my visits are still not exactly complex or problematic, there’s a new wrinkle cropping up: My advancing age.

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Bullshit, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, The Inner Swine

An Essay and Two Reviews

Author: April 18, 2013 0 Comments

Over at the glittering blog Geeks Versus Nerds, I have an awesome guest post:

“So, yeah, I’d love to have my life recorded for me. Although what would happen then is that I would always intend to go back and cull out the boring stuff – the bathroom breaks, the time spent doing nothing – and hone it down to a grand documentary called Jeff Fucking Somers and then I’d never get around to it.”

It may be the greatest thing you ever read. Or not. I don’t know, frankly.

ALSO! In what might appear to be some sort of payment for my awesome guest post but which certainly was not, Geeks Versus Nerds also reviewed Trickster:

“I love urban fantasy, I blame The Dresden Files for that, and I love the wonder that could be hiding in the shadows of the streets we walk every day.  But everything always seems to stay in the shadows.  There is rarely any consequences when the Vampire declare war or when the Fae revolt.  UF also seems to have, despite its dark atmosphere, a rosy feel to it.  Everything will always work out.  Jeff Somers seems to ignore both of that.  When shit start to explode it takes millions of ‘normals’ with them.  Jeff’s UF world is dark and gritty.  It’s full of backstabbing and horrifying people and that’s before the cutting starts.”

HUZZAH.

AND ALSO! The Electric Church, book #1 in the Avery Cates series, was reviewed by The Taichung Bookworm:

“If the set-up sounds equally insane and implausible then you’re absolutely correct and let me assure you – that’s part of the fun. The Electric Church is an oil-burning page-turner playing like a pulp novel yet with a serious literary bent. Jeff Somers obviously spent some large portion of his life wolfing down Hammett, Chandler and their lesser-known ilk and portrays bustling, seedy dives and wandering, down-on-their-luck loners with a natural ease. Cates is such a grim, sardonic anti-hero that he often seems in danger of falling into caricature before saving himself with his stark insights into the rigged nature of the game he’s forced to play.The team of broken, conniving rejects he rounds up as his crack team and the decaying world they inhabit all contribute to the atmosphere of hopelessness which all must overcome.”

Not bad for a book that came out in 2007. And now: Celebratory drinks for everyone! Note: Must supply your own celebratory drinks.

Avery Cates, BAM!, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, Fiction, Trickster

BRING ON THE HELPER MONKEYS

Author: April 4, 2013 6 Comments

This originally appeared in my zine The Inner Swine a few years ago.

BRING ON THE HELPER MONKEYS

How My Genius Novels Get Written

by Jeff Somers

FRIEND, do you have a book in you?

Note: Not literally. Or, OK, why not: Literally too.

If you’re one of the billions who does, indeed, have a story to tell but doesn’t know where to start, then this issue of The Inner Swine is for you. Because, you see, I myself have written several books. More than was probably wise, actually; if you consider how much time I’ve spent on them compared with how many I’ve sold and made money from, the resulting per-hour salary is depressing (homeless folks begging on the street make more per hour). Still, this isn’t an essay about selling a book, but rather about writing one.

Are you one of those folks who, when they’re introduced to a working writer at a party immediately tell them that you have a great idea for a book? Do you have a notebook filled with random notes for your “great American novel”? Do you work in an English Department, anywhere? Then this essay is for you, because I’m going to show you how easy it is to write a book. Easier than many other things, in fact. Hell, I’m writing a book right now, while I write this essay. It’s that easy.

An aside: I think everyone in the universe has a book in them, yes, but of course not everyone wants to write one, which is fine. I make no judgments. And some folks have self-help books or dictionaries in them, which again: no judgments, but you really should ask yourself two questions: Do I have a book in me, and should I actually write it?

You will almost certainly always discover the answer is: no.

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Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, The Inner Swine, Writing

I Been Interviewed

Author: March 31, 2013 0 Comments

Hola! I was interviewed by the very smart and funny Larry Gent (whose first novel is coming out soon) over at 42webs:

“2) What research goes into a book centered on self mutilation? (insert obvious emo music joke)

I think your standard issue adolescence is all that is required, actually. Including the Emo Music. Which we all have far more of then we’re ready to admit. J’accuse!

In other words: None research. None whatsoever. That’s how I like to roll: Ignorant and defensive.”

Go check it out and tell me how cool I ain’t.

BAM!, Deep Thoughts & Pronouncements, More Shit I Gotta Do