10.10 – The Sex Lives of Cannibals

A couple of weeks ago I was at a conference talking to an agent about my book, Ups & Downs, and she chastised me for not being familiar with J. Maarten Troost. “You have to do your homework,” she said. I mentioned that we’ve been comparing our book to Bill Bryson, to which she replied that Troost is “like a younger, hipper Bill Bryson.”

So I decided to do my homework, stopping by BookPeople to pick up this one – the best of Troost’s three books according to consumer reviews on Amazon.com – to bring with me on a trip to Calgary for a cousin’s wedding.

I have to admit, I was more than a little hesitant to bring this book along for the ride. Although I was fairly certain that the title was just a clever attention-grabber – that in fact the book would talk about sex for at most a chapter or two – I wasn’t certain it was a great idea to bring on a trip with my in-laws a book that says “Sex” in big bold lettering on the cover.

I was right, by the way. In fact, I was a little disappointed at the lack of sex discussed in the book, although upon reflection I realize that the topic was probably discussed as much as necessary. Maybe I was just expecting some more lurid descriptions, rather than the uncomfortable discussions of how a  man, wanting a woman to marry him instead of her fiance, kidnapped and raped her for two weeks until her fiance wouldn’t marry her because of the shame. So she married her kidnapper, and was happy in her marriage, because he didn’t drink or beat her. There’s also the celibacy that precedes the independence day celebration and a discussion on the courting rituals of dogs, which, in case you were wondering, were really the only cannibals discussed in the book. Unless you count biting off someone’s nose, which is an accepted course course of action for a jealous spouse.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific is Troost’s recounting of his and his wife’s two years in Kiribati, a group of islands in the South Pacific whose landmass is roughly the size of Baltimore but is spread out in 33 pieces across a vast expanse of ocean roughly the size of the continental United States. Although he went expecting the proverbial tropical paradise, what he found instead on Tarawa, the capital island, was littered, disgusting, and disease ridden.

The agent’s assessment of Troost was overall pretty accurate. The book fits the “good-natured curmudgeon-style travel adventure” genre, with  a mixture of shocking, disgusting, and groan-worthy observations, much of which is gut-wrenchingly hilarious. As food and weather serve as recurring themes, I thought back to Ups & Downs, where we expressed similar tribulations though of an altogether different sort. I noted how he managed to repeat those portions without overdoing it, which is something we worked really hard on ourselves – letting the reader know just how the rain and our meals played to the forefront of our minds, without hammering you with it so much that you get sick of hearing it. I was also struck by how incredibly similar the books arcs are. Of course, we have two authors where Sex Lives has only the one, but he starts out recounting his prior adventures that led to this particular one, before immersing himself in the complete culture shock of the adventure that in many ways was completely unlike what he expected. We hear struggle after struggle, each chapter forming its own story with its own conflict, ending on a satisfying victory with an obstacle overcome. And then, at the end, the reverse culture shock of a reintegration for which we were not altogether prepared.

So if you, reading this post, liked Ups & Downs, you’ll no doubt like The Sex Lives of Cannibals, and the reverse is also true.

Our b0ok has more sex in it though.

The Key to Effective Technical Writing

Do you remember high school, when your teachers kept trying to get you to write more? Sometimes I think back to that and wonder whether they were just trying to exercise a muscle (like football players running through tires during practice), or whether there’s actually some sense that you need to be able to write lots in order to convey the message. Perhaps somewhere in between.

But I think back to this and it seems so ironic, because today, I spend a majority of my “writing” time actually trying to figure out how to cut words out, and still convey the same information. In a sales call recently for a company needing some technical documentation, that was basically the takeaway: This document shouldn’t be 8 pages long, it should be 4 pages long, and most of that should be pictures. When I’m developing web content, my bullet points (bullet points are key in web content) usually start out about 15-20 words long, and a few minutes later they’re 8-10 words long. That 50% drop goes a long way: people get it quicker and it’s more visually appealing, meaning they like you more and they can spend more of their precious time filling out your contact page.

This isn’t new information. It’s the same thing that applies to essays, books, movies, newsletters, you name it – the more you can trim the fat, the better your product will be.

Tips for Concise Writing:

• Think about your audience: Always know who your audience is and in what circumstances they’ll be reading this document. A successful product doesn’t exist for its own benefit, but to fill a need – so if you can keep the needs of your audience in mind, and always look from their point of view, then you’re already moving in the right direction.
• Organization: The first thing I do when working with a client is to outline the project, and the few projects where I’ve failed to do that, the result has been a disaster of one kind or another. Most people don’t just get into a car and drive – they figure out where they’re going first, and if it’s somewhere they’ve never been before, they use a map and/or directions to lead the way.
• Edit, edit, and edit again: When writing Ups & Downs, my co-author and I spent about a year (much to his frustration) editing it down. From first to final draft, we probably cut about 15 of the first 20 pages. It’s important to be ruthless, keep looking at it with a fresh perspective, and figure out if each sentence, each paragraph, each chapter can get the point across quicker than it does.

2009 Successes & Failures

If I were to make a list of “What’s Hot & What’s Not,” I think New Years Resolutions are eking their way onto the “Not” list. Read John August’s latest post if you need convincing.

What I will look at is successes and failures.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the measurements of success. If we were to look at the game of football, the ultimate goal in any given year is to win the Super Bowl. Inside of that goal, are 16-19 sub-goals per year – to win the game. And inside of each of those games are further sub-goals: to score a touchdown. If you ask any coach or player what they’re thinking about in any given week, the answer is always the same: the next game. And if you were to ask any of them what they’re thinking about in the middle of the game, the answer will always be the next drive; or the next play.

And yet, inside the game of football, there are a million ways to measure performance. Rushing yards; passing yards; touchdowns; interceptions; turnover margin; time of possession; punts inside the 20; explosive plays; “passer rating”; penalties; number of 100-yard rushing games per season; December record; number of times Jessica Simpson is mentioned during the broadcast . . . the list goes on and on.

Often, as humans, we trick ourselves into thinking that the measurement is the goal itself. When that happens in football, the result is selfish players who want more touches so they can pad their stats, ultimately leading to a poor locker room environment, bad teamwork, and a team that, realistically, won’t win the big one.

In real life, it can be just as insidious, though for most of us it’s less public.

So when it comes to being a writer, what are the measures? Finishing a screenplay? Writing every day? Selling a script? Yes, those are measures. But remember, they are not the ultimate goal.

So … what are my 2009 measures of success/failure?

• I’ve doubled length of Charisma, from 40 pages to 82. I’m still embarrassed to admit that I haven’t finished it, but you know what, I doubt I’m the only one who’s struggled to finish the first project that he really cares about. The fact that I’ve kept at it for 2 years is a big deal.
• I released my book, Ups & Downs, and have had a few scattered pieces of success with it, but overall have gained very little traction. I have two boxes of books in my study, and the predictable future is that they will stay there unless I change something.
• I had 23 blog posts in 2008 and 304 visits from October-December 2008; and 64 blog posts in 2009 with 407 visits from October-December (with a few days left to go).
• Over the last few months, I’ve come up with structures to increase my productivity, and now I have one to track the time I spend doing various activities, including writing. This way, I can do with my life what football players do with their game – look at where the failures occurred, and adjust accordingly.
• I don’t know how many books I read this year or how many movies I watched. I feel like I should be tracking that, too.
• I’ve figured out that I don’t like doing marcom (marketing communications), and am shifting my business more toward narrative nonfiction ghost writing; book editing; tech writing; and proofreading, all of which I enjoy.

For 2010:

• I’d like to continue my existence/time management structures. The goal is to have my time measured every day, without gaps. Realistically, I will get upset with myself some day for not doing something I was supposed to do, will make myself wrong, and won’t do it. But I will be back on track within a week, because I have enough people holding me to account for doing it. If I can go the entire year having missed, 30 days, I get a bronze star, 20 days a silver star, and 10 days a gold star.
• Finish the novel I’m working on with my dad, a short story/novella I started right before my dad’s and my scheduled start date, and Charisma.
• Exceed this year’s 64 blog posts and 407 4th-quarter visits, without being one of those annoying people who posts what color shoes they’re wearing every day.
• Attend, in some capacity, the 2010 Writer’s League of Texas Agent’s Conference, the Austin Film Festival, San Diego Comic-Con, two comic book conventions closer to home, and two more authors/publishers conferences/conventions.
• Continue reading every day and log every book I finish.
• Come up with a marketing plan for Ups & Downs that gets the two stacks of books out of my office as a result of sales.

So are these New Years Resolutions? Maybe. But they’re realistic, and I know going into it, that the likelihood of completing every one is slim, and if I screw up, I won’t stay mad at myself, I’ll just get back on the horse and keep riding.

Because success is just a function of being willing to fail more times than the other guy.

10% Inspiration, 90% Marketing – Books & Modern Media

People hate technology. They really do.

Of course, this is a vast generalization, and really what I mean is that businesspeople hate technology. But even that’s not true, because plenty of businesspeople out there embrace it and use it for exactly its intended purpose – to provide a new way of providing something consumers want, and in exchange, receiving monetary profit.

Which means that it’s not that businesspeople hate technology, it’s that business-dinosaurs hate technology, because they’re too blind to realize that change is inevitable, so they should embrace it and figure out a way to incorporate it into their business model.

And for some reason, well-established artists seem to be least creative when it comes to inventing ways to take advantage of technology, because they’re so incredibly stuck in the old paradigm of Intellectual Property. I wrote about this several months ago, and as a self-published author of a fantastic book who’s completely loused up the marketing process, it’s something I think about quite often.

In response to how much easier it is to copy and distribute art today than it was even 10 years ago, an organization called Creative Commons has created a “some rights reserved” license, a.k.a. the Creative Commons license, which lets the copyright-owner choose the conditions upon which copying and redistribution are permitted.

By now, most people are aware, at least vaguely, of the existence of the Creative Commons license. Many, I suspect, still haven’t seriously considered using it. Why? Because using this license requires throwing out all the books you’ve read that tell you how to break into the business. It requires a D.I.Y. approach to publishing, and it requires trusting that if you give someone something for free, the money will flow in your direction. Stephen King tried this approach nine years ago, and it was ultimately unsuccessful. Fair enough – he’s already got a model that works for him.

But Cory Doctorow recently published a column in Publisher’s Weekly about how he’s done exactly that. Here’s someone who clearly has no problem coming up with ingenuitive ways of marketing his work, and has reaped the rewards as a result.

I think we can all learn a lesson from Cory Doctorow, Diablo Cody, Stephen Elliott, and the other mad artists working in the world of modern technology. Come up with something new, and dedicate your time to it.

Because the more time I spend in this business, the more I realize that there are few things harder than finishing a book – but marketing that book happens to be one of them.

Ups & Downs at ColdTowne Stool Pigeon Tomorrow!

I know it’s short notice and I know it’s Valentine’s Day, but Ups & Downs was just given a slot at ColdTowne Theater‘s weekly Stool Pigeon event tomorrow (Saturday) night at 8:00 PM.

If you’re not familiar with it, Stool Pigeon is an improvised comedy format in which a featured guest (in this case, me!) tells stories from their life, (or in this case, reads excerpts from our awesomely hilarious travel adventure, Ups & Downs: The (Mis)Adventures of a Crusty Old Fart and his Bouncy Son as they Trek Through the Alps.  At appropriate intervals, the guest (me!) will step to the side and hilarious improv comedy will ensue, as the improvisers twist the stories into funny, unpredictable, and completely made-up-on-the-spot scenes.

After the show, I’ll be selling advance copies of the book at a discounted rate, so if you want to get it now, come on down!

Come to Ups & Downs Stool Pigeon at ColdTowne Theater.

Ups & Downs Now Available

Summer before last, my father and I spent two months hiking through the Alps.  And last autumn, I went to Colorado for several months while the two of us wrote a book about our experiences.

That book, Ups & Downs: The (Mis)Adventures of a Crusty Old Fart and his Bouncy Son as they Trek Through the Alps, is now available for purchase on Amazon.com.  You can find out more about the book at the Ups & Downs website (still under construction) or you can buy Ups & Downs at Amazon.com.  Our “official release date” is in March, with my father doing a book signing/release party in Colorado, and me doing one at BookPeople on March 9th.

It’s been a very interesting ride – not just the trip itself, but the book writing & publishing part of it as well.  We finished the first draft of the book back at the end of 2007.  In April we sent query letters to agents, got a few nibbles but no bites, and decided sometime this summer that we would go the self-publishing route.  Which meant editing it (again) ourselves, finding an illustrator, hiring a proofreader, designing the cover, typesetting it, and so on and so on.  Add to that me trying to actually pay my rent, dad started to become increasingly frustrated with me because things were moving rather slowly, and he wanted to be done with it.  I, quite honestly, was perfectly happy for this baby not to be born – it’s a whole lot safer if it just stays in the womb, where there are fewer opportunities for me, as a parent, to fail.

But it’s here now, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am.  Two or three years ago my brother and I ran a marathon together, and it was a ton of work, but infinitely rewarding at the end – not for the marathon itself, but for the 200 miles my brother and I had spent on Town Lake Trail training for it, and for the closeness we’d shared throughout that process.

I had expected something similar when Dad and I hiked the Alps, but quite frankly, that when ended with more of a “Dad and I have spent more than enough time together, thank you very much” attitude.  I was ready to get back to the real world and live a normal life again.  But now I’m getting back to that feeling of gratitude and accomplishment – mixed in with abject terror and the fear of rejection – that will make this one of those great life accomplishments. Like the marathon with my brother, there’s no way I could’ve done this without Dad, and for that I am infinitely grateful.

Angela and I had some friends over for dinner yesterday, and one of them said, “See, your kids aren’t even born yet, and they’re already living in your shadow.”  We can only hope.