Basic Economic Questions of Writing

Writing for the sake of writing is all well and good. Writing because you have stories to tell or purely for the sake of the craft is fine but if you want to pursue writing as a career, you must write with purpose and that purpose is to get paid.

With that in mind, writing, like all businesses must be carefully thought out. Professional writers have a business plan. They think about marketing, production and efficiency.
I’m not saying place business ahead of the craft, but take into consideration the business elements when thinking about the craft. Consider not just plot, character arc, and structure but also market, distribution and production. Who are you writing for if you want to get paid? Ultimately you are writing for readers but your first readers, unless you go straight to self publishing, are generally editors. What editors of magazines and journals and book publishing houses are looking for is a tricky proposition.

Start with the basic economic questions:

What are you producing?
This is the part where craft is king. What are your strengths as a writer? Think about length (short stories or novels) and genres. Most people write general fiction. General fiction or literary fiction is a crowded market, making it tough to break through and sell.

How are you producing?
How much time can you realistically spend writing. How productive do you think you will be in creating finished product to send out into the market?

For whom are you producing?
What is your market? Do you want an agent? Are you targeting a book deal or magazines? When you have fully explored the ‘what’ question, the ‘for whom’ question becomes more clear.

I will discuss this topic in more detail in coming weeks. Point I am making in this post is more writers need to seriously consider the business of writing.    

Moses and the Angry Filmmaker

Back in 2010 I had the good fortune to be co-director of the Fearless Film Festival. Fearless was a short lived short film festival associated with Main Street Arts Fest, one of the largest arts festivals in the country.

The featured speaker that year was a writer and filmmaker named Kelley Baker.

Kelley hails from Portland, Oregon and has been in the film business for many years. He is known as The Angry Filmmaker and has written the landmark book on the fine art of extreme low budget filmmaking, The Angry Filmmaker Survival Guide. 

Kelley tours the country showing his films and lecturing on filmmaking and for years traveled with his dog, Moses. We had booked Kelley and Moses in a nice downtown hotel that accepted dogs. I was looking forward to the festival, everything seemed ready.

Of course, everything was not ready. We received a call from Kelley the day before the festival kicked off and were told that the hotel had neglected to tinform us dogs were indeed welcome to stay at the hotel, as long as they were under 15 pounds. Moses was a black lab who’s head likely weighed more than 15 pounds.

Scrambling ensued. Calls were made. Did I mention the film festival coincided with Main Street Arts Festival? Not only were no hotels available that accommodated large dogs, no hotels were available.   

It was finally decided that Kelley would bunk with me for the weekend. It wasn’t ideal, I’m a bit of a private person, but the show must go on.

Friday afternoon Kelley’s big white van pulled into my driveway. Kelley got out, walked around and opened the side door and Moses slowly climbed out. Moses was a road dog and had racked up a lot of miles. The old boy had trouble getting around, Kelley had to help him up my front steps, but he was sweet, smart and adorable.

Friday evening at Fearless passed without fanfare. Good attendance and the programs were well received. We returned to my house and sat on the porch for hours, talking films and work.

Saturday was to be the marathon. The programs kicked off late morning and ran until almost midnight. Moses had to be cooped up all day inside my house. Kelley assured me Moses was used to being inside for great lengths of time and would be fine. 

When we returned to my house shortly before midnight, I walked up the porch, opened the door and, without describing what I actually saw, knew immediately that Moses had passed on.

I froze. I did not know what to do. To be honest the next few minutes are a blur. I felt awkward and somehow, at least indirectly, responsible. Kelley felt worse, of course. He had lost his best friend and traveling companion. We muddled through.

Kelley is one of those rare people you are fortunate enough to meet in life who instantly feels like you have known forever. He is a good and hyper creative man. Over the ensuing years I have picked his mind about filmmaking, writing and the struggle of being an independent artist.

His new book is entitled, Road Dog. You guessed it, the book is about his years on the road with Moses. It is funny, informative, honest and heartwarming.

Kelley is on the road again and will be in the Fort Worth and Dallas this October. Look for dates and more information in the coming weeks. In the mean time, order his books and films and make plans on meeting him when he rolls through Fort Worth and Dallas. You will not regret it. 

Here is the press release for the book: 

Road dog

Kelley Baker

Available March 2017

328 pages, Paperback

ISBN 9781540713520

$ 17.95 USD

“As Eat, Pray, Love is to love and spirituality Road Dog is to the raucous, independent, and contented life.”

      - William M. Akers, author, Your Screenplay Sucks!, Mrs. Ravenback's Way

“Often funny, sometimes touching and always entertaining, Kelley Baker’s Road Dog is a great read that will make you laugh a lot, cry a little and appreciate the important people (two legged or four) in your life more.”

                                        - Nic Brown, author, Werewolves, Zombies & Leprechauns: Tales From the        World of Werewolf For Hire.

A Man, His Dog and The Open Road. What Could Go Wrong?

With no distributor interested in his independent films, Kelley Baker, the Angry Filmmaker, ripped a page out of the punk rock handbook and went looking for his audience in a used minivan with his faithful 120 pound Chocolate Lab, Moses. Every fall and spring they traveled the country showing his films at art house theaters, film festivals, colleges, and biker bars.

Logging over two hundred thousand miles, they encountered a collection of Fellini-esque characters including two hyper-intellectual pro wrestlers in West Virginia, a lying Chicago hotel desk clerk who cost Kelley his home, civil rights workers knocking back rum at Hank Williams’ grave, and a way overzealous drug sniffing border patrol dog outside El Paso, Texas.

Kelley gave an audio workshop for employees of a porn channel, got yelled at in a haunted bar in Memphis, was asked to leave the Prayer Tower at Oral Roberts University, and drove twenty-four hundred miles in three days so he wouldn’t miss his daughter’s choir recital. Moses swam in two oceans, fifteen lakes, and enthusiastically marked thousands of spots from sea to shining sea.

At the end of it all they found a lot more than an audience.

                                            About the author

A graduate of USC’s film school, Kelley has a BA and an MFA in film production. He is an author, (Road Dog, The Angry Filmmaker Survival Guide: Part One & Part Two) and an Independent Filmmaker. He has written and directed three full‑length features (Birddog, The Gas Café, & Kicking Bird), eight short films, and quite a few documentaries. His films have aired on PBS, Canadian and Australian television, and have been shown at Film Festivals including London, Sydney, Annecy, Sao Paulo, Sundance, Chicago, and Edinburgh. He was the sound designer on six of Gus Van Sant's feature films including, My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting, and Finding Forrester, and Todd Haynes film, Far From Heaven.

To learn more about Kelley and his work we invite you to check out his website, www.angryfilmmaker.com, for more information.

Belonging

Writing is, in most cases, solitary work. It is easy to get stuck inside a bubble. However, if the goal is to publish, and most, if not all writing should be done with the goal of publishing, then a writer must exit the bubble, at some point, and seek an audience.

The first audience a writer seeks should be friendly, but critical. An important part of the writing process is feedback and in most instances, the best initial feedback is from other writers.

I have belonged to a critique group for a couple of years. These writers have provided me with essential feedback. This group has been an essential ingredient to my growth as a writer.  There have been, over time, six to eight other writers in the group, all strong writers with a good critical eye. I have learned from their feedback of my stories and from reading their work and watching their progress as writers. We push each other, encourage each other and find emotional support.

General audience readers, friends, family and the like are great and serve a purpose, but it is not as valuable as belonging to a group of people that understand writing and the process.

Find a group, it is not always easy, you may have to join a few or even several to find the right fit.

Make it a priority, it will make you better.    

Stock Your Writer's Toolbox

Hello, my name is Mark and I am a hoarder. I’m not a hoarder in the traditional sense. I don’t have every Star Telegram and Life Magazine from 1978 stacked up creating pathways through my living room or a giant ball of tin foil.

I am a hoarder when it comes to tools I use for writing. As an example, I have lists of names. If I hear a name I think sounds cool or interesting, I write it down. I used to walk through cemeteries and write down names from headstones. At least I don’t do that anymore. I have a collection of sentences I’ve heard and think might come in handy one day, broken into categories. I collect words, phrases and insults. I love a good insult.

I have a folder on my computer filled with fragments of scenes I dreamed or simply dropped from the ether into my mind. I also have a couple dozen movies and series saved on my DVR and paused at a certain scene that makes me happy, sad, thoughtful or helps me slide into that slipstream you need to be in to write sometimes.

I have all these tools because my main difficulty in writing, besides keeping my butt in the chair, is plotting. I hate plotting. I am absolutely no good at plotting. Left to my own devises my characters just wander around aimlessly. They say clever things. They insult the hell out of each other, did I mention I love a good insult, but they don’t do anything. There is no arc, sometimes, outside of the insults, my stories have no conflict.

If you look at my body of work it is almost all nonfiction. I love history, so that kind of accounts for my love of nonfiction but mainly I am attracted to it because the plot comes ready made. Nonfiction and historical fiction are cheaters for me. I have also recently started to write memoir short fiction, or creative nonfiction. Again, it is a cheater, ready made plots that I can mold.

My point in this post is every writer has weak spots. Weak spots often turn into excuses not to write. How many times have you heard a writer say, “I’m stuck on one of the plot lines in my story, so I haven’t been writing for a while.” Worse yet, how many times have you said that sentence? Yeah, me too.

Get a toolbox. Fill it with things that can help you when you find yourself in a pickle. No your weaknesses, and find your cheaters. Don’t give yourself excuses not to write. You can always write something.

When I was little my uncle had a dog named Suzy. I loved that dog. My uncle is only five years older than I so we grew up almost like brothers. We had a ton of adventures with Suzy. My uncle and I were the only two people present when Suzy had to be put down from cancer. It was my first experience with death, close up and personal.

“Out of the Blue” is a short story about family, shared experiences, growth and death. It is mostly true, at least from my perspective.

Out of the Blue

By Mark A. Nobles

Danny and I had spent the morning playing along the banks of the Bosque, no doubt chasing outlaws and Indians. The family dog, Suzy, a spry, red dachshund, accompanied us. She ran along side us, occasionally dashing into the brush chasing an unseen squirrel or critter of some sort.
When the sun climbed directly above us Uncle Danny declared time out and we scrambled up the bank. It was lunchtime. Best to head back to the house before Ma-maw had to shout out the back door. The Bosque was only a trickle but the riverbed was wide and steep. We climbed the bank, grabbing exposed tree roots and kicking toeholds in the soft clay. When Suzy saw us ascending the bank, she ran in a circle several times, barking up a storm, then lit out for a bend about a hundred yards downstream with smaller banks she could climb.
Geography is bigger when you are young. In my six year old mind the banks were twenty feet tall and were followed by a tree line forty feet thick, but the banks were likely less than five or six feet high and the tree line only a few feet thick.
We scrambled out of the tree line at a slow trot, Danny at the vanguard by six to eight feet. There was a massive field of Johnson grass between the tree line and house. Again, it seemed a far piece to the house in my six-year-old mind.
We had beaten down a slightly winding path in the waist high Johnson grass between the river and the house. Danny slowed to a brisk walk as we waded through. In the distance we saw Ma-maw poke her head out of the back door to call for us. Danny spotted her and waved. She retreated back in the house, the screen door making a cracking sound as it shut.
Slamming the screen door like that would have gotten me a good talking to or worse but for some reason, grownups were allowed. This seemed a mighty injustice to me.
In the distance we could hear Suzy barking her approach. I could not see her as I was barely twice taller than the grass but I could judge her distance away by the sound of her bark.  We were approaching a slight bend in the beaten path when Suzy’s bark rose in pitch and urgency. Danny, half way round the bend, froze. He raised his arms horizontal, palms back, signaling me to stop. But I had to see what the commotion was about and walked a few more steps.
Suzy was circling a coiled, ready to strike rattler. She ran frantically around it, breaking off every three or four rotations to run towards Danny and snap. Her running at us, teeth bared and snapping scared me at first. She had never even hinted at biting us, but I realized the snapping was not meant to be an attack but a high warning to halt and stay away.
The rattler looked fierce. I had never seen one before. It was coiled high and made lightning strikes at Suzy when she circled. Danny cried for Da-dad and he soon came running from around the front of the house, pistol drawn. He almost always carried a pistol at the river.
When Danny saw Da-dad running he began to shout ‘snake!’
When Da-dad arrived he commanded us to move back, which we immediately did, retreating back around the bend.
A single crack of the pistol sounded. Not as loud as I had expected. Da-dad took a step forward, momentarily disappeared below the Johnson grass and when he rose up he was holding the rattler by the tail end.
It looked enormous. Ten feet long. But that was impossible as Da-dad was only 5’9” and I could see the snake swinging.
Suzy got a large hunk of steak that night as a reward and the rattler decomposed on the fence line by the gate to the farm for a year.

Short Story Writing: Schedule & Plan

When I decided to concentrate on writing this year, I set a monthly schedule of three weeks on the novel and one week to write a short story. I had not written a short story in ages. It was scary.

I have always kept files of story ideas and half written scenes and character descriptions but none of them grabbed my imagination. A little over a year prior my father had passed away and I had gone to the Eastern Shore of Virginia to see him one last time. My father and I had never been close. I hadn’t wanted to make the trip but decided to go anyway.

The entire journey turned out to be surreal. It was a real life, ready made Lifetime Channel movie of the week. I decided I would write it up as my first short story. The plot was there, I knew all the characters, it was perfect. I wrote it pretty much as I remembered it. Now, if facts were changed or scrambled in the move from short term memory to long term memory, I don’t know…

As of this writing ‘Eastern Shore’ has been submitted to and rejected by The Sun, Three Penny Review and Carve Magazine.  The rejection from The Sun came in about a month and a half. Three Penny Review wastes no time, they throw it back in less than 48 hours. Carve took about two months. Currently ES is in submission to Ploughshares. I hope to hear back from them in September. If Ploughshares sends back the story it will be the fourth rejection and I will self publish.

I keep track of submissions in two ways. I created an Excel spreadsheet with columns for each short story and the magazines to which it has been submitted. I also have columns with a calendar tracking when I should hear back from the submissions. I have a color system where black indicates in submission, red indicates rejection, and blue means accepted for publication. So far there is no blue on the graph.

So it goes.

Below is an except from ‘Eastern Shore.’ I will edit this post when the story is either published or becomes available for purchase. Happy to announce 'Eastern Shore' will be published in Volume II of Panther City Review!  

Eastern Shore

By Mark A. Nobles

The desk was littered with a myriad of no longer sticky, sticky notes, scribbled up scraps of paper and several pocket sized composition notebooks in varying conditions of tatter. A pearl white coffee mug splotched with dribs of coffee sat on a cork coaster, which sat on a scrawled over desk calendar still showing October of last year.

I worked away on the upcoming festival with an open excel grid of the schedule, two press releases and an open email to volunteers all fighting for room on the computer screen. My hands clickity-clacked across the keyboard. The cell phone rang.

It was early on a Sunday morning and my phone never rang on the weekend unless one of the girls was in need. I knew that was not the case as the oldest was at work and the youngest was in her room, fifteen feet away. She kept a teenager sleep schedule. I kept a feed and clothe a teenager work schedule.

The display read Unknown Caller and the area code was unfamiliar. I never answer unknown calls.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello, it’s Jo Ann.” Jo Ann is my dad’s second wife of some forty plus years. They married shortly (my mom said too shortly) after my parent’s divorce when I was thirteen.  Junior high, seventh grade, 1973, platform shoes, the Cisco Kid was a friend of mine and Nixon had one foot out the door.

“They took your father to the hospital last night,” Jo Ann continued in her deep south, West Virginia accent. As a Texan, that drawl was as unfamiliar and unsettling to me as the rapid cadence of a New Jersey car salesman. I never put my finger on why.

“They said he prob’ly wouldn’t be coming home. I can’t believe I just said that out loud.” The former Jo Ann said to me, the latter she said more to herself. 

“Well, shit.” I thought.

“Oh, dear.” I said.

“You really must come up as soon as you can.”

Besides being cold to me the few times we had ever shared air, the thing I liked least about Jo Ann, when I was a teenager, was how she ordered me, and everyone really, as if she were Joseph Smith and each word out of her mouth rose directly from Urim and Thumm and was to be followed or carried out unconditionally.
I usually took her words with the same skepticism as I took Smith and his translation. 
“Let me see what I can do,” I stumbled. “The festival is just over a month away. I’m swamped.” This was clearly a totally unacceptable reply when you are asked to go to your dad’s death bed. I knew this. 
“You simply must.”
I was unprepared for this conversation and had one goal only. Hang up and end it. Deal with the consequences later. 
“Let me see what I can do, Jo Ann. I will call you back shortly.” There was, I think, more to the conversation but blessed little and I was soon sitting at my desk. 
Thought less. 
After a beat or two the girlfriend walked in from the kitchen. The house we live in is small; two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen and a somewhat large living area. My desk is in one corner of the living area just sitting out in the open. She did not have to eavesdrop to hear every word of the phone call. Acoustically speaking, there was simply no way to avoid overhearing. 
“When do you want to go?”
“I don’t know that I am going.”
“You have to go.”
“Hell I do.”
She sighed heavily; this was usually a reliable sign I was about to lose an argument. 
“You aren’t going for you. You’re going for him,” she said. “You have the opportunity to send the man off in peace.”
I’m pretty sure I slumped in my chair. I’m very sure I’m o’fer in arguments with this woman. It is hard to work up a mad about it however, as I lose because I am seemingly always in the wrong. The girlfriend picks her battles carefully.
She walked over, kissed the back of my neck tenderly, squeezed my shoulder and walked to the bathroom. I was left to sit and stew.