I was kind of excited when I saw that a new mini-series version of Watership Down is on Netflix. I read the book by Richard Adams decades ago when I was in 6th or 7th grade because of a cheap (I think) animated movie I saw. The original animated movie from the 1970s might not hold up, but I think the book still does.
Watership Down is not the easiest book to describe when you’re enthusiastic about it, though.
“What’s it about?” my teenage daughter asked when I told her about the new mini-series (which I haven’t watched yet).
“A bunch of rabbits that leave their warren in search of a new home,” I said.
“That’s it?”
“One of the rabbits is psychic,” I said.
“So?”
“And the rabbits have adventures.”
“Oooooh. Adventures.”
“Shut up,” I said. “I hate everything I read, so if I like this book, you know it’s good.”
Telling somebody I hate everything might not be an effective persuasive technique, but it makes sense if people know that I’m a critical reader. I don’t really hate everything. It’s just that I notice flaws in writing that take away some of the enjoyment (unless I really like the book).
These conversations can work both ways. Last year Netflix put out 13 Reasons Why, which was based on a YA novel by Jay Asher, and it doesn’t sound appealing to a middle-aged guy like me.
“What’s 13 Reasons Why about?” I asked my daughter.
“A girl commits suicide and sends tapes about why to 13 people she knew in school.”
“That’s it?”
“Each person feels responsible in some way for the girl’s suicide.”
So?”
“It’s deep, Dad.”
“Ooooooh, suicide is so deep.”
“Shut up,” she said. “It’s better than I’m making it sound.”
It’s probably easier to pitch a Netflix series about teen suicide than it is an animated series about migrating rabbits. I’m not sure how to explain Watership Down. Even the cover blurb doesn’t do a good job.
As proof, here’s part of a blurb from Amazon–
“Set in England’s Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.”
Ugh. I probably wouldn’t want to read Watership Down if that’s all I had to go on. But Watership Down is a good book, maybe even great. I mean it.
*****
What do you think? Watership Down can’t be the only book that’s tough to explain. What other great books do you know that don’t really sound very appealing?
(image via wikimedia)
For years, I kept my blog Dysfunctional Literacy a secret. When I created this blog, I knew I’d write some stuff that could get me fired from my job, so I kept my name off of it. I was one of those… (pause of disgust)… anonymous bloggers.
I didn’t abuse my anonymity. I didn’t join any outrage mobs. I didn’t lead any personal guerilla attacks on celebrities. Yeah, I wrote a few posts about James Patterson being a scam, but he’s so rich (and I’m not) that he doesn’t care. I was very responsible with my anonymity.
I no longer have that job (don’t worry; everything’s great!), so I don’t care about being totally anonymous anymore. It’s fine if people I know learn about my blog, but I haven’t gotten comfortable telling people about it yet.
It’s nice having anonymity, but it doesn’t help when selling books. I have a few friends, acquaintances, and (former) coworkers who are self-publishing, and they’re encouraging (to varying degrees) the people they know to buy their self-published books. That’s what I talk about in the video below.
What do you think? If you self-publish, how do you promote your book to your friends, acquaintances, and coworkers? Or do you leave them out of it?
George R.R. Martin, author of A Game of Thrones, has never cursed out his readers or told them that they suck. At least if he has, I’ve never heard about it. Telling readers they suck is disrespectful.
But George R.R. Martin has taken more than seven years to finish The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in his Song of Ice and Fire series. It wouldn’t be as bad if he were working exclusively on making that novel great. Too many authors rush sequels so quickly that they’re disappointing. Martin, however, has published several books that are NOT The Winds of Winter.
The most recent, Fire and Blood: 300 Years Before A Game of Thrones (A Targaryen History)(A Song of Ice and Fire), makes me feel like A Song of Ice and Fire will never be completed. The fifth book came out in 2011. George R.R. Martin doesn’t look healthy. The HBO series is almost completed and has declined since it’s passed the books.
Maybe the television series has destroyed Martin’s motivation to finish the books (I’m just making that up). Maybe he’s written himself into a trap and doesn’t know how to get out (I just made that up too). Maybe he knows that no matter how he ends it, a bunch of fans will be disappointed. Maybe he’s lost interest in his own story or gotten lazy.
Fire and Blood isn’t even a novel; it’s a history of Westeros. It’s not even real history. I don’t want to read a fake history. I loved The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but I had no interest in The Silmarillion. If I want to read history, I’ll read real history. I know that real history can be fake too, but at least I’m pretty sure some of it is real. Instead of reading about The Targaryens, I could read about the Tudors and the Lancasters.
Fire and Blood seems almost disrespectful to readers who are engaged with the story of A Song of Ice and Fire. These readers are emotionally committed. I personally don’t care that much because I haven’t started reading the books, but I feel for these fans. I think Martin has a responsibility to finish A Song of Ice and Fire before working on other stuff. I don’t mean he’s legally responsible. I just mean that he’s not respecting his audience.
I’m not going to read A Game of Thrones before George R.R. Martin finishes it, which means that I might not ever read it. I’ve heard that the first three books are great, but then the next two get sidetracked. Or they get boring. I’d like to judge them for myself, but I don’t want to get caught up in them and then have to wait years for the final books.
I had to wait three years after The Empire Strikes Back for Return of the Jedi to finish the original Star Wars trilogy. That was a long three years. It’s a crappy feeling, walking out of the movie theater knowing you have to wait three years for the next segment. I don’t want to go through that again with A Song of Ice and Fire.
Defenders of Martin say that he can write whatever he wants and critics should back off, get over it, get a life, or shut up. I don’t think anybody has said Martin HAS to finish A Song of Fire and Ice. We’re saying he should.
Book readers hate the way the HBO series has treated so many characters. Book readers want to see what REALLY happens. It’s unfair that Martin wait so long. Or maybe it’s by design. Maybe he wants the HBO series to suck so bad that anything he writes is better in comparison. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case. He’s already proven how valuable his plotting is. Seasons 5-7 have shown what happens when the HBO writers can’t rely as much on the books. If this is true, it’s even more disrespectful to his fans because he’s putting his ego before his fans.
Telling fans they suck is disrespectful, but taking a decade to write an eagerly awaited book is bad too. I’d rather be told that I suck than wait so long for a book like The Winds of Winter. I’d tell George R.R. Martin that he sucks for making fans wait, but I can’t do that, even if being told you suck is a motivator (and it usually isn’t). I just don’t like being disrespectful to others.
(image via wikimedia)
The book business is struggling a little bit. That’s no secret.
Streaming services like Netflix cut into the average person’s discretionary time so much that book publishers met in London a few weeks ago to figure out how to “make books as compelling as Netflix.” A Brazilian publisher wrote a blog post pleading for people to buy books as gifts for Christmas. Barnes & Noble (yeah, B&N is a seller and not a publisher, but still…) in the United States seems to be teetering on and off toward bankruptcy.
With all of this going on, how can publishers sell more books? It isn’t as difficult as it sounds. I’m just a blogger (with a job that has nothing to do with writing), and even I have figured this out.
Below are four simple suggestions about how to improve book sales. There would be no begging involved. There would be no dumbing down of books to compete against Netflix. I’m not even asking publishers to make the books better (though that would be a start). I’m not asking for James Patterson to write only one novel a year. I’m not asking for Stephen King to stop doing perverted stuff to his fictional child characters. None of that would be reasonable to book publishers.
But the suggestions below?
- Make books cheaper.
This seems simple. When I was a kid, reading seemed like an entertainment bargain. Books cost about the same as a movie ticket and took more time to enjoy. Now streaming services like Netflix cost about $10 a month, and that’s less than the average paperback. If you have limited disposable income, what are you going to use $10 for? A month of Netflix or one paperback book?
Even paperbacks of public domain literature cost too much. When a flimsy paperback version of Lord of the Flies or Catcher in the Rye costs almost $20 each, you know publishers are price-gouging kids who are burdened with school reading lists. That doesn’t exactly encourage kids to read.
2. Hire attractive actors/actresses to promote books.
Writers are meant to be read and not seen/heard. Authors are usually horrible book promoters. Whenever I hear an author talk about his/her book, it almost always makes me less likely to read that author’s book. I don’t blame the author. The author can write the clever line, but the author can rarely deliver it.
Book publishers should hide the authors and hire attractive (but unknown) actors/actresses to pretend to be the authors and then do photo shoots and book signings. Maybe the attractive actor/actress won’t be smart enough to be convincing, but actors/actresses can memorize witty lines, improvise a little bit, be outgoing, and look good simultaneously. Nobody has to know the actors/actresses aren’t the real authors. That’s why the authors stay hidden.
If I wrote a famous book, I wouldn’t mind an actor taking my place at book signings. Book signings are awkward anyway.
- Focus on old books.
To be honest, most new books suck and don’t make that much of a profit anyway. Publishers can take old bestsellers that are actually proven winners and promote them as previous great reads. And make them relatively affordable. Consumers will read old books, especially if they’re cheap.
These old books don’t even have to be former bestsellers. An old obscure book can be promoted as being “ahead of its time.” Or maybe it was the opposite of ahead of its time. Maybe an old book was so wrong that it’s relevant today. Old nonfiction (such as old disproven science or political stuff) can be studied again and maybe even mocked.
For example, I ran across a famous book from the 1980’s that claimed the Soviet Union would outlast the United States as a world power. Haha! Rereading that classic was more fun than reading anything political today.
4. Get rid of public libraries.
How can book publishers significantly increase sales when local governments keep undercutting the industry with free books? Yeah, you have to return the book after you read it, but that’s not a big deal because most people read each book only one time anyway.
Libraries might be a great asset to the community, but they have to be hurting book sales. I don’t have any idea how much they hurt book sales, but it’s probably a significant number (I have no proof to back that up). If publishers shut down because of poor sales, then libraries can’t get new books.
Libraries… what a bunch of government parasites. Buy your own books, cheapskates.
*****
But enough about me! What suggestions would you have for book publishers? Which of the above suggestions do you think would work? Which suggestions do you think would backfire horribly?
(image via wikimedia)
I’m not sure what cashiers are called anymore. Back when I was a kid, the person who ran the check-out lane (or cash register) was the cashier, but I know that terminology changes over time.
If cashier is the wrong word, you can let me know what the correct term is. I won’t change the wording in this blog post, but I’ll know for future reference. Even though I’m a reasonably intelligent person, I have huge gaps in my knowledge.
Anyway, that’s not the point. This particular person who runs a check-out lane at a local grocery store wants to punch customers in the face. It’s a threat I take seriously. In the video below, I explain my dilemma. And I use the word cashier.
If you read during the holidays, prepare to be interrupted. (image via wikimedia)
The holiday season can be a frustrating time for introverts, especially for those of us who like to read. Even if we introverts have time off from work, we often have to use that time for extra chores/errands, or traveling, or spending time at other people’s homes. All the activity leaves little quiet time for reading, and that can be frustrating.
Holidays shouldn’t be frustrating. We introverts need our quiet time, and here’s how to read during holidays without causing conflict or putting ourselves in danger:
READING IN PUBLIC
Reading is almost essential for holiday traveling because traveling is really boring. However, reading in public places such as airports or bus stations (or even the mall) can be risky because you leave yourself vulnerable to getting conked on the head or having your stuff stolen (or both). It’s easy for evil-doers to sneak up on you while you’re reading in public, so if you absolutely HAVE to read in public….
- Put your back up against a barrier like a wall or window. Lean against a wall if you’re standing. Sit in a chair that’s against a wall or a window. This way, nobody will sneak up on you.
- Put your stuff behind your feet if you can’t hold all of it. Keep your legs connected to your possessions so that you’ll feel them if somebody tries to swipe your stuff accidentally.
- Look up while you’re reading and make eye contact. Give the nod of acknowledgement and then continue reading safely. Even when you’re reading, you need to be aware of your surroundings. If you’re not aware, at least act like you’re aware.
- Don’t read while you’re walking. You can trip or walk into other people (that usually ticks them off), or you might also get conked on the head.
READING AMONG FAMILY AND FRIENDS
There’s a stigma attached to reading in public or at social gatherings. It’s okay to watch television, listen to music, or get drunk (to a certain degree), but people will look at you weird if you read. With smart phones, it’s a little easier to get away with it, but you still have to do so in small (or short) doses. If you stare too much at your phone, everybody else will think you’re rude.
Normally, I don’t mind if others think I’m rude, but I try to get along with others during the holidays, especially my family, so here are a few tips to enjoying yourself without offending most reasonable people:
- Read while others are watching TV. People watching TV usually don’t care if somebody else is reading, but be ready to get talked to during commercials.
- Read if others start talking about politics. If the discussion gets heated, say you’re looking up information on your phone, then read the book of your choice. Let others get worked up into a political froth while you relax and read.
- Read in an isolated location (if possible). Nobody can disturb you or complain about you if they can’t see you. Tell others you need to go out for a smoke (even if you don’t smoke), and they’ll leave you alone unless they smoke. Then you might have to put up with talking AND smoking, so be careful.
WHEN NOT TO READ!!!
- Do NOT read when guests/family arrive or leave.
- Do NOT read at the meal table while others are eating.
- Do NOT read while the host is doing work that you can help out with. Help out the host (unless you are the host, but if you’re the host then you probably won’t have time to read). If you help out with the holiday chores, then you have the right to read later.
- Do NOT read while your kids are acting up. Its okay to read if somebody else’s kids are acting up.
- Do NOT read while opening presents. If somebody gives you a book, then you may read it while others are opening gifts.
*****
These rules work for me, but they might not work for you. What tips do you have for reading during the holidays (or any time you’re in public)? If you’re an extrovert, what reading tips do you have for the holidays?
For more about introverts, read Introvert Problems: I’m Addicted To Solitude.
(image via wikimedia)
When I first heard of one book that taught you everything you needed to know about life, I got excited and hurriedly bought a copy. It wasn’t a self-help book, so I wouldn’t look like a loser buying it.
Back then (I was in high school at the time), I thought only losers bought self-help books. Buying a self-help book was admitting to the public that you had problems, and I was taught to keep your problems to yourself.
This book that supposedly taught so much was a literary classic, so I knew I’d look intelligent by purchasing it. It was better to appear intelligent than to look like a loser. Buying a self-help book disguised as classic literature was brilliant, I thought.
But then I started reading this book that could teach me everything I needed to know about life. I learned that I was gullible. And life was brutal. Once you learn you’re gullible in a brutal world, you’re ahead of almost everybody else.
Maybe that was all I needed to learn from a book.
(image via wikimedia)
Writing dialogue that sounds realistic is difficult. A lot of characters in fiction talk the same way, or sound campy, or seem overly formal/stiff. Very few authors can write dialogue that sounds like the way people actually talk.
I recorded this late night writing session over a week ago while I was revising Awkward Moments in Dating: The Bailout , which I put on this blog last week. If you watch the video and read the story, you can see some of the changes that I made.
I might have made a mistake trying to revise this dialogue scene at night. When I write in the middle of the night, I usually come up with new scenes because my brain is whirling in several directions at once.
I usually reserve editing and revising for times when my brain is calm and more precise. But revising at night is better than not revising at all… unless I really mess something up.
*****
Haha! Talk about messed up! The video is no longer available. I didn’t get much revising done anyway.
Maybe some things are more important during a holiday than family. (image via wikimedia)
A few years ago, my television broke down on the morning of a major holiday, and I had to wait until the next day to buy a new one. It wasn’t that big of a deal.
My wife and I had an extra television to get us through the holiday. Even so, when we drove around (we lived in a major city) looking for a possible store that was open on the holiday, we couldn’t find anything, at least nothing that sold new televisions.
We weren’t angry. We understood. Everybody should have the day off on certain major holidays, even people who work for stores that sell televisions. That’s how it was. Back then, convenience stores and gas stations were the only things open on major holidays. Nowadays, if you wait long enough, almost all the major stores are open.
Open stores can be annoying for the employees (unless they want the extra hours/pay), but shopping provides a relief for people who don’t like being stuck with their families. In the old days, families got together for the entire holiday (or longer). That was fine if everybody got along. But if not, the holiday could be brutally long.
Holidays were also tough for the introverted or anti-social family members, who had to sit quietly amongst the drinking/singing/squabbling/jabbering of others and watch the time move (back then all clocks had second hands that you could actually watch move). The alternative to watching time move was to find a quiet location, but then family members would talk about you behind your back and that would make you paranoid. It’s okay to be paranoid about the government or institutions that want to control our lives, but it’s not healthy to be paranoid about your own family.
When I was a kid, I just sat and stared during holiday gatherings. Smart phones didn’t even exist, so I had nothing to stare at. I had an imagination, so I came up with stories in my head, but I couldn’t write them down because that would have been considered rude. Reading and writing during a gathering was rude back then, but reading and writing on a phone is considered normal now.
If I’d had a phone to stare at during family gatherings, I would have been fine. People shouldn’t need stores on major holidays now because they have phones to stare at. If anybody needed stores to be open on holidays, it was pre-smart phone generations.
The good thing about shopping on a holiday is that it can split the family up. Families that are stuck together all day can argue too much and make holidays unpleasant. Some families can’t stand being confined in one house during a major holiday. The house might be too small. The family might not get along. Someone in the family might be starting political fights.
For whatever reason, family members need to get out. The open stores give the family something to do right when everybody is tired of being around each other. If major stores are open, then families can get out and get along better.
The bad side of shopping on a holiday is that it can bring chaos to what’s supposed to be a peaceful day. Holidays were meant for people to relax/celebrate and get away from the daily routine. Now it seems like the daily routine gets intensified. Maybe that’s by design.
I blame Crazy Friday. I know some people use another term for Crazy Friday, but I refuse to inject color into it. That certain Friday is often associated with crazy behavior like shopping in the middle of the night, and coordinating family members from store-to-store, and getting into mob fights. If Crazy Friday had limited itself to Crazy Friday, everything would have been okay.
But crazy people are never satisfied. They always want to spread the craziness. They never leave the normal people alone. And then the crazy people call the normal people crazy.
Crazy Friday got extended when stores started opening late on the Thursday before Crazy Friday. This day before Crazy Friday used to be a holiday where nobody worked. But Crazy Friday was considered more important than the holiday. Now that the Thursday before Crazy Friday is safe for shopping, no holiday will be safe. And the hours will increase. Soon every store will be open on every holiday, which will mean holidays will no longer really be holidays, except for rich people and government employees.
Rich people will always have holidays. I’m pretty sure the vast majority of rich people don’t have to work during the holiday sales. So if you don’t like working on a major holiday, complaining about it might not be enough. You might just have to become rich.
If you try to tell your boss that holidays were originally meant for celebrating with your family/community (and despite what your employer might say, your job is NOT your family/community), your boss might look at you funny. The concept of stores closing all day during the holidays might be difficult to explain some day.
*****
For more “Old Things That Are Tough To Explain,” go to Old Things That Are Tough To Explain: The Home Page.
(image via wikimedia)
Bailing out is an essential skill in dating. You never want to say out loud that a date sucks (at least not during the date), but you need to be able to get out gracefully when there’s no hope for future compatibility.
Today, it’s easy. You can fake an emergency phone call or text. But back in 1991 (when this story takes place), you had to think on your feet and improvise.
A lot of guys wouldn’t have bailed out in this particular situation, and I kind of understand. My date Jenny was wearing a t-shirt and shorts and had her bare legs on my lap while we pretended to watch television on her couch in her apartment. It was pretty clear where things were going.
I was surprised that Jenny had put her legs on my lap because I really didn’t deserve her affection. I hadn’t earned it (You can read more about it here) . All I’d done was pay for dinner and drive her around a little bit. If she was putting her legs on me after dinner and no movie, I wondered how frequently she put her legs up on other guys.
Plus, she was obsessed over Garth Brooks and seemed attached to her ex-boyfriend. Yeah, she had great cleavage, but even so, these were warning signs I couldn’t overlook.
I knew I had to approach this diplomatically. “Don’t get me wrong, but this seems kind of forward,” I said.
“I’m a woman of the 90’s,” she said.
“90’s? It’s only 1991,” I said. “Has ‘woman of the 90’s’ even been established yet?”
“I behaved differently in the 1980’s.”
I couldn’t ask if she behaved good differently or bad differently back in the 80’s, but I had an idea which one it was.
“So on January 1, 1990, you decided to behave differently. That was your New Decade’s Resolution.”
She laughed because the way I said it was funnier than the way the words look on paper.
“Yes, I did,” she said. “And what did you do on January 1, 1990?”
“I went to bed early on New Year’s Eve 1989, just so I could get up in time to watch football without a hangover.”
“No New Year’s Resolution?”
“Just to watch a lot of football.”
“I like a man with goals,” she said, and then she edged her legs close to me, lifting one so that it almost brushed against my face.
There was no good way to do this.
“This probably isn’t a good idea,” I said. I scooted back on the couch a bit, giving myself some separation from her legs without touching them.
“Is anything wrong?” Jenny asked. She withdrew her legs almost instantly and sat up.
“My coke habit,” I said, faking a long sniff. When my nose had started running in the restaurant earlier, I’d made up a fake coke habit, which Jenny had understood as a joke. The runny nose had been real and I was ticked off at the time, but suddenly I was relieved that it had given me a way to bail out. “I can’t believe it keeps coming back.” I fake snorted again for effect.
“I told you it wasn’t the food,” she said.
“Do you mind if I…” I gestured toward the bathroom in the hallway.
“Go ahead,” she said.
As I stood up, I made sure to move my nose around my face as hideously as possible. “Of all the times…” I muttered.
Once in the bathroom, I shut the door, found some tissue, and blew into it like a trumpet. I knew she could hear me through the door. If this didn’t disgust her, I’d fake stomach issues. But I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to have to resort to that. No date deserves listening to stomach issues or dealing with the aftermath.
I stepped out of the bathroom and made sure that she saw me wiping my nose. “I think that’s just the beginning,” I said. “”I’m sorry. But I should probably go.”
“You don’t need to,” she said. “We can still watch a movie.”
“I’m dripping like a faucet,” I said. “I almost dripped on your leg.”
“It’s not a big deal,” she said, perplexed. Jenny seemed disappointed, and I hesitated. Usually women of Jenny’s stature turned me down. I wasn’t used to being hit on by a woman like her, and that was tough to ignore, but I needed time to think.
I fake snorted fake snot a couple times just to make sure Jenny didn’t go for a kiss. If she’d gone for the kiss, I might have relented. But the obnoxious snorting kept her back, and I headed for the door. I thought I was home free, that the bailout was successful. But then Jenny asked:
“Are you going to call?”
*****
To be continued! And you can start here to read Awkward Moments in Dating from the beginning!
Dysfunctional Literacy 