The most important thread I will ever make on this site

[cinemabon]

2009 is a pivotal year for me in many ways.

I campaigned for Barack Obama and continue to champion his causes. I am not a liberal or conservative, per se, but feel I am an American, helping out his country. However, this will be an important year for me in another way.

As many of you know, I am a writer and have completed my first novel. The novel is in the final stages of polish. Insecure, I hired an editor to help give the story a final look for errors in punctuation and grammar before I put it to print.

The story is science fiction, a comfortable genre to me. I initially wrote the story five years ago. My son liked it so much, he asked me to write a sequel. That led to another and so on. I wrote ten novels in the series. For the past three years, I have attempted to obtain an agent or publisher. This is nearly impossible. So I gave up.

I am now self-publishing the novel. I will either have a work of pride or be a colossal failure. Either way, as Jack Kennedy so aptly put: "I would rather be the bloodied fighter in the ring than in that sea of timid souls looking on..."

When I put the manuscript to bed in another month, I will reveal my true name and the title of my novel (though a few of you know me already). If you feel your pocketbook weighing you down some day of the week, buy the damn thing and let me know if you think its a yarn of mediocre quality... how's that for selling a product? I never could sell poor people that Rainbow vacuum cleaner.

Sincerely, Cinemabon January 7, 2009

[Johann]

That's just plain awesome cinemabon.
Self-publishing is the way to go.
Jim Morrison and Henry Rollins did it and so have many many poets.
Major publishers aren't the best arbiters of taste.
Your son is. Your Mom is. Your brother is. People who mean something to you are.

Let me know the mailing info and I'll buy it right away.
By the way, I started reading "Stranger in a Strange Land" and I'm very intrigued by it, slowly grokking it...

[cinemabon]

Robert Heinlein (The moon is a harsh mistress and many others) is one of my favorite authors and helped guide my choices for science fiction when I was in high school. "Stranger in a strange land" is one of those books that literally changed my life. It will never be as good a film as it is a great novel. May I also recommend "The left hand of darkness" by Ursula LeGuin. This, and her novel, "The Dispossessed" are perhaps the greatest in science fiction.

[tabuno]

Curious about your book. As a failed unpublished sci fi writer who couldn't stand rejection, I am interested in knowing a little (not a lot) about your book, something that would be placed on the book sleeve.

It's a great idea to use an editor. I've developed a number of brochures and marketing pamphlets and it's amazing how many little oversights occur even if one goes over and over the same material to look for corrections.

[cinemabon]

Thanks, Tab, for showing interest (although I'm not certain that abbreviating your name to a 1950's icon is winning you over).


I approached the writing process from a personal point of view first. I've been to a few places, rubbed elbows with a few notables, and done a few things. However, as I hashed over my past, I found wrting about it boring to me. If I am bored by the experience, my audience might be bored as well.


Then I decided on fiction. I have an extremely vivid imagination. I had a wonderful idea for my first novel and quickly put it to paper. On any determined day, I can rattle off between 30 to 50 pages of setting, character development, action, and dialogue. I can whip out a novel a month... not a great novel, but the usual grocery store crap you see on the shelves.


And, to put it mildly, that is exactly what my first novel was... crap! As my mother put it, I stood on a soapbox, and through my character's lips, cried out about what I thought was wrong with the world. Bad idea. By the time she reached the great climax I created, she no longer cared about the character's fate.


In my second book, I went into great pains describing the setting... how did the characters look... their world, their homes, the town, the tree outside the window, the leaves the tree, the sunlight playing across the leaves, and so on...


After reading that tripe, my friend said he was bored by the biology lesson... tell the story!


In an adventure novel that I wrote, the characters went from city to city where I went to great lengths describing the avenues, the buidlings, the people, the scope, etc. Again, a dear friend of mine said, thanks but no thanks for the travelogue! TELL THE STORY!


If it appears I am wandering to make a beleaguered point, the truth is that after many years of writing, it took someone like my wife to say STOP! Concentrate on one novel... work, hone, polish, craft, and turn out one good story.


This process has taken me down a very long road. The original story I fashioned five years ago is vastly different from the one in the hands of the editor this week. The novel I presented to him represents several failed versions of what I thought were "it," but in reality the novel still needed work. I'm not saying the current manuscript is a great work. I'm not even saying it is good. I'll let others judge. I only know I've tried to tell a story that does not bore, that has pace and consistency.


In the weeks to come, I will reveal my name and the title of my novel. I will also reveal that I have a website which begins to give away the basis of the plot. While I have a congressional copyright on the original novel that I thought was done three years ago, the one I have today, though similar, is better, smarter, and far more complex. (I also wrote a sequel which then led to eight more giving the series a total of ten novels in chronological order. Keep track of them is... well, difficult. I don't recommend it!)


The process to find an agent (which I failed) or a publisher (which I also failed), taught me a valuable lesson in self-faith and the importance of surrounding oneself with good support. My wife and son believe in me. I can't begin to tell you how important that is when you think on some days that you stink and your writing is worse. The rejection process drove me to find my own avenue to publication. I found several self-publishers, and am currently working with one. If things turn out well, I will promote them. If they do not, I will slam them! That's only fair.


Wish me luck. Cinemabon

[tabuno]

What icon? From the 50s? Never heard of one.

[cinemabon]

Tab Hunter, silly

[tabuno]

When Tab Hunter came to Utah last year for a book signing, I had the "stupid" statement that came out of my mouth while he signed my book, "You look well preserved." I was named after him in the fifties, something I finally and definitely had my mom tell me last year. Goes to tell you how tactless I can be.

[cinemabon]

Speaking of social faux pas you'll never forget, I once went to dinner with some friends in Hollywood. This was at a restaurant I could never afford. They invited an important executive from Columbia Studios. He sat next to me, interested in my resume. Trying to get me relaxed, he told a very funny story. I laughed and did a very Midwest thing... I reached up and rubbed his head, as if to say, "Oh, you!" Instead, I knocked his toupee off his head into his soup. Needless to say, the dinner ended with a gasp. I did not get the job at Columbia.


Speaking of the 1950's...

A year later, I went to a friend's house in Silverlake (next to Hollywood) for a small party, just a few out of work actors, extras, crew, that sort of thing. I noticed one guy drinking heavily, sitting in the corner, alone, obviously drunk. He lamented to no one in particular that no one would hire him any longer (all too common in Hollywood) "Who invited that guy?" I said to the host in a much too loud voice. The disheveled man heard me, sniffed, got up and left. Other people heard my remark and shook their heads. The host leaned over to me and said, in a whisper, "That's Troy Donahue! You can follow him."

I've since learned to keep my hands to myself and my comments limited to my friends... after the party!