Tom Trumpinski

An email from Augur:

I wanted to share a few quick thoughts in response to McCain’s speech tonight.

McCain’s speech had a few moments of brilliance. The best was when he said people may see in him an imperfect servant of his country and then he had a nice turn of phrase (that escapes my memory) about how he will always be her servant. A nostalgic appeal to honor and valor should be a central theme of McCain’s campaign.

The speech as a whole was a catastrophic failure in terms of its overriding message. His theme was “That’s not change we can believe in”, a line he repeated probably ten times in the speech. His speech was extremely negative. I came away with it wondering what McCain was for. Obama is like Hillary, direct negative attacks from an opposing candiate don’t really land. McCain should always be positive – especially given his reputation as a hot-tempered contrarian, and leave the negative stuff to surrogates.

The main goal of the speech, apart from being a hit piece on Obama, was distinguishing himself from Bush. That’s why he held the event in New Orleans. That message was partially lost b/c of the negativity about Obama. He could have painted himself as a happy warrior, with optimism to rival Obama’s, but with a greater degree of pragmatism than the green Obama and the incompetent Bush

He did briefly say kind words about Hillary; he should have done that throughout the speech. The more of that he does, the more its going to hurt Obama when he refuses to put Hillary on the ticket. Obama does not want her on the ticket and starting tomorrow the press focus will soley be on whether or not there will be a joint ticket. If I were Obama I would name a VP right away and put that to bed and talk about how he’s looking forward to working with her in the Senate and letter (sic) her lead on health care.

She put a slick tactical move on him calling the press conference to say she’s open to being VP. She wants to preempt a “cold offer” to increase the pressure on him to make an actual offer.

In terms of delivery, McCain was awkward; his smiles looked forced and fake. He had some prompter slips and is very weak at delivering a canned message, although he’s decent extemporaneously and you could tell when he strayed from the script – he started to look natural, but so is Obama.

As an Obama fan, I’m looking forward to these two being on a stage together. Obama will exude vigor, energy and enthusiasm. McCain looks tired and awkward, and like he missed his window.

An email from Augur:

I wanted to share a few quick thoughts in response to McCain’s speech tonight.

McCain’s speech had a few moments of brilliance. The best was when he said people may see in him an imperfect servant of his country and then he had a nice turn of phrase (that escapes my memory) about how he will always be her servant. A nostalgic appeal to honor and valor should be a central theme of McCain’s campaign.

The speech as a whole was a catastrophic failure in terms of its overriding message. His theme was “That’s not change we can believe in”, a line he repeated probably ten times in the speech. His speech was extremely negative. I came away with it wondering what McCain was for. Obama is like Hillary, direct negative attacks from an opposing candiate don’t really land. McCain should always be positive – especially given his reputation as a hot-tempered contrarian, and leave the negative stuff to surrogates.

The main goal of the speech, apart from being a hit piece on Obama, was distinguishing himself from Bush. That’s why he held the event in New Orleans. That message was partially lost b/c of the negativity about Obama. He could have painted himself as a happy warrior, with optimism to rival Obama’s, but with a greater degree of pragmatism than the green Obama and the incompetent Bush

He did briefly say kind words about Hillary; he should have done that throughout the speech. The more of that he does, the more its going to hurt Obama when he refuses to put Hillary on the ticket. Obama does not want her on the ticket and starting tomorrow the press focus will soley be on whether or not there will be a joint ticket. If I were Obama I would name a VP right away and put that to bed and talk about how he’s looking forward to working with her in the Senate and letter (sic) her lead on health care.

She put a slick tactical move on him calling the press conference to say she’s open to being VP. She wants to preempt a “cold offer” to increase the pressure on him to make an actual offer.

In terms of delivery, McCain was awkward; his smiles looked forced and fake. He had some prompter slips and is very weak at delivering a canned message, although he’s decent extemporaneously and you could tell when he strayed from the script – he started to look natural, but so is Obama.

As an Obama fan, I’m looking forward to these two being on a stage together. Obama will exude vigor, energy and enthusiasm. McCain looks tired and awkward, and like he missed his window.

Six months ago, I took leave of Urbanagora in order to work on my first book, Riding the Hell-bound Train. I am happy to report that, as of this morning, it is done. I am going to do one last out-loud read-through to entertain the cats and catch those nuances of language not found any other way (learned that the hard way when I stopped in the middle of a public reading and said out loud, “Man, that last sentence didn’t make a lick o’ sense”). After that, all 94,000 words will go to my editor at Peregrination Press, I look over the uncorrected galleys line-by-line, and the book should be available for purchase after July 15th.

Just as I finished, Augur sent me a PM saying that “if I didn’t start writing for the blog again, I won’t have any audience to sell my book to.” This will never do. Therefore, I want to let you know that I am back and will remain so in parallel with my new career in fantasy fiction. Since the book’s been the main subject of my life for the last six months, I will describe in this first article what I learned while writing it. Other writers have been really kind and helpful to me, perhaps I can return the favor for somone in our audience.

The first thing I didn’t expect was how many people a writer needs. I’ve been lucky that my wives, Marcey, kitten, and Cheron, helped me both as first readers for my shitty first drafts and as the last people who looked over the rewrites for the continuity errors that cropped up. This, at times, put a heavy strain on my marriage–there is a good reason writers drink, spouses of writers drink, and there’s an ungodly divorce rate. I am insufferable when I’m working–demanding, insecure, pompous, and driven. I want to go on record saying that not only could I not have written the book without them, I am amazed they’re still letting me into their bedrooms.

It doesn’t stop there. Sean-Thomas Gunnell’s my cover artist and we’ve been throwing art back and forth to each other, me bitching about how long it’s taking and he trying to give me what I want, no matter how difficult. The covers are very close to done, if someone can show me what to embed .jpgs in, I’ll add them to this article. It’s been a learning experience.

The wonderful Allie Mazan has been working as my web-mistress and publicist for no money at all so far. I’m going to try to find some way for a starving artist to make it up to her–the website design alone is worth a hell of a lot. She’s been a constant source of inspiration and another first reader as well as my personal version of Pepper Potts.

My editor, John Barnstead, is going to be involved in the next step of the process. He encouraged me all along and without him, the book would never have been written in the first place.

So, What Did I Learn?

Writing is honest work, but not like any I have experienced before. The extreme-endorphin thrill of inspiration when the words flow from your brain to paper in an attempt to achieve telepathy is far, far better than the best sex I’ve ever had. In contrast, rewriting is the ninth-circle of hell, comparable to removing layers of skin with a cheese grater. No one should ever try to write because they want to get rich–writing is done because you have no choice. I started as an adequate writer. After six months of blood, sweat, tears, and dead trees stretching from here to Oregon, I think I am on the way to being a damn good one.

I read two books by authors that helped me a lot. First was Stephen King’s On Writing. He wrote the first half before and the second half following his near-fatal accident. This book is chock-full of the kind of advice first-time writers need. The best part for me came at the end, when he gave an example of the first-draft of one of his stories followed by what it looked like after he had taken the re-write pen to it. I was beginning my rewrite when I read that part and said to myself, “Oh, my God, he’s got as much ink on that manuscript as I do. I don’t suck that bad, really.” The other book was Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. Not only are there tons of practical hints within it on how to develop your art, she is so batshit nuts you realize you’re really not that crazy, after all–it’s wonderful. It has not escaped my notice that both of them used to be heavy-duty alcoholics and demonstrate that you don’t have to drink to do good work.

Above my desk I have a list of rules for writing that I’ve added to as I went along. I am sure that they’re not finished, but they got me this far, so I’ll share them.

Don’t Suck!

Phil and Kaja Foglio gave a talk at the Association for Computing Machinery conference about how they turned their money-losing comic into a cash cow by giving it away for free on the ‘Net. They told me that right now is the best, the easiest time to get work out to the public and that one can be a success even without the traditional filters of the big commercial publishing houses if you followed the above rule.

The Road to Hell Is Paved with Adverbs

Stephen King is right–adverbs weaken verbs and should be avoided, especially in cases where you’re doing dialog. The biggest exception is in cases where there is a discrepancy between what the dialog says and what the speaker means. In my rewrites, every adverb is examined and I end up keeping less than one in ten.

Don’t Tell, Show

It took a while to catch on to this. One sentence of action is worth a paragraph of description. This connects to the next one,

Never Use the Passive Voice Unless Necessary

There’s a reason that our eyes are in front–we’re built for action and speed. No one is interested in how “the tree was framed by the picket fence.” We’re wired, instead, to notice that “the picket fence frames the tree.”

Cut 10%

Anne Lamott says everyone has shitty first-drafts. She’s right about me, I don’t know about anyone else. The first draft is to get the stuff out of your head. It’s going to be bloated and full and in order for anyone to want to come close to it, it’s going to have to be pared–pared with a machete. At first, cutting back your prose is like killing your children. Later on, when your writing gets better, it gets much worse.

Use “Said”

Never Start a Sentence with “Suddenly” or use “All Hell Broke Loose”

I learned these from Elmore Leonard. He has forty-four novels of which 70% is dialog and the reader is never, for a moment, in doubt about who is talking. He writes without using synonyms for “said” because the human brain is programmed to ignore the word. If you write this way, it makes dialog like a radio play with the reader filling in nuances better than the writer can.

How to Write a Story–ABDCE

Anne Lamott again, with a structure that can be used for anything from a short-short to a novel trilogy:

Action, at the start, to draw the reader in

Background, so they know why what’s happening is important

Development, to show change

Climax, where something important happens–a death, a birth (or rebirth) or a mystery solved

Ending, where you give the reader a present for bothering with you–something to think about as they walk away.

Finish

None of this is worth a good goddamn if no one ever sees your work. It’s the hardest step, the scariest step, but sooner or later, if you’re going to be a writer, you have to finish the book. The greatest fear when you do, I think, is that you’re never going to be able to do it again. In part, writing this piece today is proof to me that I still can do my job. Take the old manuscript out of your drawer and start working on it again. It might not be as bad as you think.

We’re All Terminal

There’s a good reason for us to do the best job every day that we possibly can–someday will be the last day of our life. If you write as if you wanted the piece before you to be the last, greatest example of your work, it’s going to be worth the time and the trouble. There’s good reason to follow this philosophy–sooner or later, you’re going to be right.

It’s good to be back at Urbanagora and I’m looking forward to our upcoming change in format, so I will no longer have to worry about post length. Thanks a lot for your patience, your loyalty, and your friendship. Buy my book–I think you’ll like it.

Tom Trumpinski

We were continuing our discussion about higher education in email and Prescott, perceiving the possibility of an intellectual challenge, asked me if I could be specific about the kinds of knowledge that is needed, but is not possessed, by current college graduates.

Here’s my list and explanations why they’re necessary:

I’m curious as to what the supporters of the Federal Reserve System think about this speech that the current head made on November 8, 2002. In it, he states that not only did interference by the Fed not make the Great Depression better, their actions contributed to the depth and length of the problem.

If the Federal Reserve has admittedly screwed the US economy completely in the past, who’s to say that it’s not happening again?

Tom

Hat tip to Vox Day.