BRIO Publishing Blog for Independent Authors

Not that toasting a marshmallow over my apartment’s gas stovetop flame was a first, but I thought I could get pretty wily in the kitchen. I’m reasonably good at casting a gourmet light on the ordinary (mostly with food—but don’t get me started on cocktail innovations). Adding seasoned Kalamata olive brine to tuna salad, dabbing wasabi on cold leftover fish fillets to pretend it’s sashimi, and my crowning jewel of broke-college-grad creative cuisine: poor man’s tikka masala—tomato soup, curry powder, and shreds of deli chicken over rice. Don’t worry, I didn’t forget the essential coconut—the coconut-flavored Bacardi and mango cocktail beside my plate is nearly passably Indian.

But all this was done with regular access to a grocery store; the only hindrance was my bank account (and admittedly limited cooking skills). Six women inmates in a Texas prison, however, had to be craftier when preparing meals. Not that the inmates aren’t fed already, but if all you’ve got is time on your hands, devising new uses for Fritos and distilling “wine” from fruit are arguably more productive ways of spending time in the slammer. It’s nice to learn that plastic ID badges are being used as ingredient-chopping tools behind bars, rather than shanks. Their collective culinary wisdom is available in their new cookbook titled: From the Big House to Your House.

This inspiring display of resourcefulness got me wondering about my own relatively lazy approaches to cooking. Since anything frozen in a “microwave-ready” plastic tray freaks me out, and I’d rather turn to culinary inventions using combined or separate canned and fresh goods (with limited actual cooking time—I’m impatient), maybe I’m not so lazy. But if prison inmates fashioned a stove out of a toilet bowl full of burning toilet paper—then published a cookbook about it—maybe I can learn how to use my oven for more than just storage. Rumor has it even renowned jailbird homemaker Martha Stewart found a way to whip up some crab apple jelly when she was locked up.

Why do we hold writers to a higher standard than visual artists and musicians? It’s probably because we’ve been spoiled rotten for centuries, since quality literature dates back before the dark ages of Beowulf. But wait—humans began painting masterpieces on cave walls and piping folk tunes out of primitive, carved lutes for much longer than the written word has been a skill at our collective command. Oral storytelling used to be the valued art form, but has fallen by the wayside of mass media, or morphed into audio books and special radio broadcasts. (Garrison Keillor’s monologue on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion particularly honors this timeless tradition.)

But back to writers: why are indie wordsmiths blanketed with an assumptive stigma NOT draped around the shoulders of starving artists and garage bands? We romanticize the novelists and poets, scribbling alone in drafty attics, or downing espressos at a café terrace, as much as the folk, rock, and punk singers strumming guitars since adolescence, and the painters and photographers who choose between food and art supplies. Did this stigma (that’s being slowly shaken off by success stories like Amanda Hocking and her overnight millions) stem from the simple fact that any twit can plop down in front of a computer and access a word processing program? Anyone with a shred of literacy can don the guise of “writer”? Wear the “writer’s hat,” as my college professors used to say.

The simple truth is that the product—the art—can speak for itself. When impressionists painted what they felt, even when Duchamp signed that urinal, the arts world eventually accepted them with open, albeit cautious arms. Society will happily gobble down whatever’s been deemed the latest rage, but is slow to accept genuine newness, originality: what we later refer to as breakthroughs. Persevere, writers—humanity will recognize quality work, even if it takes a generation to become the new standard.

Walking downtown this morning, I observed a young woman completely engrossed in a book (Hunger Games, to be specific). The feat she performed—walking down Nicollet Avenue with her nose stuck in the paperback—was amusing and admittedly impressive. (That joke about walking and chewing gum at the same time often applies to me, to an embarrassing degree—reading books is out of the question.) I was momentarily captivated by her intense expression as we passed in the street; the crease of her brow, the tightened jaw, the lower lip-nibbling, the desperation in her eyes as she took in some gripping plot twist (that story is riddled with them). I even almost watched her walk into a signpost, but she recovered with the grace of an experienced multitasker, not even losing her place in the book.

As a convert to the rather obsessive fandom surrounding Suzanne Collins’s trilogy, I have witnessed similar, albeit less exciting scenes. Given the imminent movie release, these three books are the ones I see most often being read in public. Also, as a fan, I can completely and utterly relate—even sympathize. Collins has crafted such a fast-paced and addicting narrative, the books are nearly impossible to put down, especially after a certain major plot turn about halfway through Catching Fire. (Don’t panic—there will be no spoilers here.) When the series first hooked me, I forced myself to leave the books at home. Having one with at work, while a page-turning delight to make the lunch break fly by, is almost too good to be true. Moderation is impossible with the Hunger Games trilogy—once you start reading, the only ways to satisfyingly pause the action are A) read yourself to sleep, aka exhaust your eyes, or B) finish.

Raving mini-review and read-now-or-die-unfulfilled recommendation aside, our fascination with such fantastical worlds is hardly limited to Collins. On Huffington Post Books, history teacher and author Michael Saler puts forth an astute observation on our fascination with fantasy versus real history. He specifically riddles out why folks of all ages seem to gobble down made-up realities (from Lord of the Rings to Sherlock Holmes) and aren’t generally as eager to nosh on obscure Civil War accounts.

For any writer of nonfiction, citing one’s sources is absolutely essential. Writers who dabble in elements under the creative nonfiction umbrella (including memoir and personal essays) become their own source of information, and are inherently exempt from formal documentation expectations from readers. But writers who collect facts already assembled by others, who wish to strengthen their own work by referencing relevant experts, must pay homage to such higher powers and peers.

Have you ever stumbled across an absurd claim, a ludicrous accusation, or unintelligible statistic, and wondered how it could be true, if it could be true? If the information’s source was not properly cited, or noted at all, then you are expected to blindly gobble up the author’s word as gospel truth—yeah, right. We are naturally skeptical of any data presented as fact without sufficient supporting evidence. While most readers will not take a writer up on the offer to check the validity of their sources, readers do expect the offer, at least to show that the writer did their homework.

Delving into the nitty-gritty underbelly of source citation, we at BRIO stand by our trusty (albeit rather beat-up looking for love and heavy use) Chicago Manual of Style. Other style manuals MLA and ALA are equally legitimate; whichever grammatical bible you wield boils down to personal choice if your reader fails to express their preference.

Either by word of (actual) mouth, or if the people you follow on the internet are remotely politically motivated, you might be aware of the censoring-the-internet via SOPA debacle. Read more about the general kerfuffle here.

Instead of regurgitating the usual “censoring”-evoked rant about our rights as, simply, creatures that like to communicate with each other a lot, I’d rather ask a question. What would you like to see *more* of on the web? What are we missing? Not “what should we censor, cover, digitally paint over,” but “what do we want?” More beautiful photos of faraway lands you might never see in real life? More gourmet recipes to drool over? More CATS?! What about more venues for quality literature, visual art, and music to be shared and discussed? That’d be worth keeping away from the dreaded black rectangle of Uncle Sam.

Arguable synonyms for “censor” are as follows: edit, cut, expurgate. Stifle, gag, repress. Smother, extinguish, erase. Snuff out, hide, disguise. “Rubbish” to some, “improvement” to others.

The internet was created to connect. To communicate. To share. A world wide web. The same as much simpler tools (a hammer springs to mind), its use has led to wonderful things, and terrible things. Should a faceless bureaucracy police its content? … Okay, I ranted a little. But cut me some slack—this site, like yours, could get the big stamp of disapproval for all the free speech running rampant.

If you’ve ever been to a weekend con or a one-day fest that not only celebrates one of your passions, but rounds up your fellows so you can obsess together, then you can appreciate my enthusiasm regarding book conferences. For the bibliophiles, here is a sampling of the national big-hitters and local gems alike:

AWP Annual Conference and Bookfair (Association of Writers & Writing Programs)
ALA Midwinter Meeting and ALA Annual Conference (American Library Association)
National Book Festival (Library of Congress)
BEA (BookExpo America)
MIPA Annual Vendor Fair (Midwest Independent Book Publishers)
Twin Cities Book Festival (Rain Taxi Review of Books)

I happily confess I’ve attended a handful of small anime conventions, all in Wisconsin, all put together by college friends. All of these three-day adventures were undoubtedly not just a blast, but actually educational—I always walked away with a laundry list of recommendations, not to mention new manga (Japanese graphic novels) to read, and, of course, ridiculous stories to share. The same is true for many cons and fests; while you get a chance to expand your knowledge of the event’s theme, you get to rejoice with fellow bookworms (or trekkies) and make a few new friends and/or business connections along the way.

While literary conferences and book festivals celebrate a lot more than graphic novels (if they even dabble in them), the bottom-line idea of conventions is still the same: sharing what you love with others who love it. So pack a bag with samples of your, or your company’s, best work (or your favorite Sailor Moon costume) and get out there—trust me, you’ll enjoy yourself.

I recently read an interesting article posted on one of my favorite up-to-the-moment fan sites, Hypable.com, about how young readers prefer digital books to good, old-fashioned printed ones. At first, I was honestly appalled. The experience of an e-reader feels so different than the well-worn pages of a good book between your fingers.

I instantly recalled my own childhood memories of hours spent lolling around the “everybody books” section in my small town’s public library. I’d pick out as many of the colorful volumes as my little arms could carry home, and pour over them until I knew the stories by heart and the illustrations were ingrained as vividly into my imagination as the images in any of my favorite VHS movies.

Okay, so e-readers didn’t exist yet, but I still wonder how a small, fragile electronic device could possibly provide the same—no, “preferable”—experience as a well-loved, toted-up-in-a-tree printed book. Behind every page was a surprise, but one you learned to anticipate with the same spellbound, knowing fascination that draws adults back to their favorite novels, beloved films, re-watched reruns.

I appreciate that kids are reading, comprehending, and engaging—if that’s the bottom line, then I suppose I’m pleased. But in this digital age where society can’t seem to survive one day without the presence of smartphones, iPods, and personal computers, has our learned dependence on such devices led to a full-blown lifelong addiction for our offspring? I can’t help but consider the bigger picture—will our gadget-obsessed, World Wide Web-ensnared culture keep building up, the more we push away tradition, like printed and bound books?

Captain Obvious here to announce that yes, we are all obsessed with David Fincher’s apparent remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, adapted from the late Stieg Larsson’s internationally bestselling novel. (The reason I use “apparent” is because the Danes and Swedes beat us Yankees to it in 2009 and made this movie first. This all happened relatively soon after the book’s release in its original Swedish in 2005, but only a short year after we got our English-speaking hands on it post-translation in 2008.)

If you’ve followed this blog recently, you may have noticed the continual cropping-up of the popular book-to-film discussion. For a refresher, click here. In keeping with this thread of thought, I have a shameful yet true confession for you all: I have not read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, yet I eagerly bounded to a matinee screening of its film counterpart this weekend (not even 24 hours after receiving my first tattoo—I may have been celebrating a bit). This doesn’t seem so shameful, perhaps, except that I scored a copy from the library over the summer and tore into it like a hungry, rabid animal (that could…read). After the first two chapters, I still wasn’t hooked, so with a disappointed heart, I shoved it through the library’s little silver door into the drop-box before it was overdue.

Admittedly, I’ve never been able to happily absorb crime novels. (Somewhere my Agatha Christie-devouring mother is wondering if I was switched at birth.) I tend to get bogged down by keeping track of all the little details and plot points related to the mystery in addition to trying to know the characters themselves, and would rather see the whole work unfold onscreen (a good soundtrack helps, and TGWTDT has that in scads, thanks to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross—I appreciated a side character’s NIN T-shirt in reference).

Was my action to return the paperback before completion an act of hypocrisy in this publishing world of high reader standards? I think not; given my history with mysteries, I already knew Larsson’s book (and its fellows in the Millennium trilogy) didn’t stand much of a chance. But I still owed it to myself and the Swedes to give the paperback the ol’ college try before scampering off to the cinema. By the way, I personally give that movie 8 stars out of 5. Yep, it’s that good. Concerning the book, we’ll have to take everyone else’s word on it.

Do you write the way you speak? I certainly hope not, unless you speak in complete sentences that don’t include “uh,” don’t repeat yourself excessively, and don’t pepper phrases with conjunctions, made-up words, swears, and other grammatically unsavory mishaps.

But wait, what are you writing? If it’s a blog like this one, or another informal, conversational piece, than I would hope for it to read that way—chatty, casual, and (again, with hope) some semblance of personality behind the words. But you wouldn’t write a course paper this way, right? Footnotes, industry-relevant jargon, and possible dryness are all best left in scientific analyses and other professional pieces. Although I recall stomping dryness into the dust with some of my literature analyses; most of my college lit papers were, admittedly, thinly-veiled feminist rants.

Don’t even consider heaving meticulous grammar and big words out the window; just consider your intended audience. Who do you hope to see reading this piece? What is their relationship to you, and how will their reading of this work affect that relationship? Also, ponder your intentions in writing the piece in the first place. What do you hope to see transpire should the work see the light of day?

I normally use a decorated, stiff rectangle of paper with a yarn tassel on it. Not so creative, but darn effective. But what happens when you’re forced to stop reading and your trusted bookmarking device is not at hand? Does the world end?!

Horrendous things have been known to happen. Some readers actually dog-ear page corners of books, a dastardly criminal practice that makes me cringe and a small piece of my soul fade away. (Admittedly, I might be a tad neurotic, but hey, some people live with 50 cats—I have just one, so I’m doing okay, right?) God forbid the abused book in question belongs to me, as the conscious creasing of a book’s page is guaranteed to evoke violence aimed at your head (hysterical screeching, at the very least).

Earlier today, my coworker told me a story about an appalling act she witnessed while riding the city bus. An avid Hunger Games fan, she couldn’t help notice the man across from her reading the second installment in the trilogy. The man, a well-dressed middle-aged businessman, was a familiar stranger to her, a fellow regular rider on her bus route. When the man thought to cease reading and mark his place, to her astonishment, he placed a dollar bill between the pages.

Now, for the sake of the book, this is better than dog-earing. In the most sensible of scenarios, the man will probably re-home the buck back to his wallet, and find a proper bookmark when he arrives somewhere more civilized than the city bus. But my coworker’s shock was more focused on the attitude of his act, his treatment of the bill like just another shred of paper.

I can’t help but wonder, in this non-smoking age, did this man perform the social equivalent of lighting a cigar with a flaming bill? Like saying, “You know I have business cards in my pocket, and probably gum wrappers and other scraps of paper I don’t care about, but instead, I choose George Washington.” Crikey.