2 posts tagged “authors”

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
--Rudyard Kipling

Writers love words, and the power they carry and amass when joined with other words.  Part of writer’s job is not only to tell a story, but to also develop a way with words that allows you to convey your chosen story in a way that moves the reader.

But writers can never adore the words we write, the phrases and paragraphs we craft, to such a degree that we fail to look at what we writer critically and ask:

Has what I’ve written bolstered life?

Do my words inspire and affirm?

Do they tear down?

That the answers to these questions need always favor our readers and their situations is obvious.  How to accomplish this is not always as clear as one might think.

Since characters form the heart and soul of any story, what an author thinks of her or his characters, how much she or he loves them and coveys that on the page is a great place to start.

How much do you, if you craft fiction, love your characters?  

How much do their flaws endear them to you?

 Do they repel you?

Do your characters even have flaws?

How big are your protagonist’s problematic character traits and do they play prominently into your story line?

The same can be asked of a painter concerning the images beckoning her or him to give them life on a canvas.

I was once taught that the three C’s of a story with which readers resonate are: character, conflict and core emotional need. And every good painting has a plot that lay embedded in the overall disposition or spirit of the painting.

A character whose life so touches readers that the readers are compelled to finish the story, if for no other reason than to know that this character will survive is a well-written book. Vibrant and vivid characters write the most entertaining and moving books by guiding the author’s hand, just as the most abundant and forceful images energize us to pick lift a brush and construct what our minds thought our hand and fingers incapable of painting.  To gain this strength, the character must feel that she is accepted, love, not in spite of, but because of her or his flaws.

This acceptance is inherent on the writer or painter’s part when she or he surrenders to the call of the muse, the inner yearnings of a soul striving to assert its immortal presence upon the world and humans.

The first ears that the words of our characters touch, the eyes that perceive these images and visual ideas in their most nascent and raw forms, are that of the writer and painter who will construct and shape them. These artists’ hands will bring formlessness into being and provide them with a viable container rendering them comprehensible to the world.

In the best of all circumstances the forms we apply to our creations allows the work to evolve over time—that each new set of eyes observing and/or reading the images and words spawns a new concept or belief, faith and realization concerning that person, their identity, and the meaning of their life in the context of the lives of others.

Transposing the words and images that come to us in our stories and paintings—physically availing them for others to touch and experience deepens the observer's consciousness of self and others.
This is one of the most vulnerable, and yet exciting, experiences in which anyone, artist or observer, can engage.   The artist must be present to the work—with every word penned or typed, with every stroke of color made upon the canvas--if they are to summon and hold the awareness of the observer.

Yet this is the place where the artist dwells and thrives—this state of being, ebbing and flowing in a vicissitude of tides and showers.

Rudyard Kipling’s statement deposits us back to the importance of what we, as artists do--that of bringing words to the formless stories of our minds, or as painters, casting images that bespeak a thousand words upon canvas.  

In either case, words are the intoxicant allowing us to imbibe meaning from these creations, and share our ideas with others, or rather acknowledge the affirmation and acceptance they have engendered in us as observers and readers.

Whatever the case we are purveyors of spirit.  
As such we must tread softly, and with awareness. 

Writers and artists we deal in a serious business. Our words, and the images that evoke more words than one can ever speak, carry the power to bestow life or cast death.

Our creations either resurrect or exile spirit and hope. The decision is ours.

The answer of what we shall do lies in our most vulnerable selves—what we see and encounter when transposing the musings of our psyche.

Do we as authors write for the sake of writing and doing nothing else?  Or are we compelled to craft stories, poems and essays and whatever publicity writing is required of us to get our creative work into the hands of readers? Are we willing to break with tradition and submit our work to venues on the internet in an effort to achieve our goals of publication? Are we willing to abandoned tried, but not always true, methods that have and do not always show respect for what we have written, and the time that we have invested into refining our words?

Working with the internet, not unlike when we write to hone our fiction writing skills, involves large amounts of writing.  And sometimes publicizing our work over the internet may seem like we are giving ourselves away, or worse yet, handing our writing to the public for free.  Then again we know how often publishing companies have and still do get rights to the works of new authors for bargain basement prices—work that the publishing companies own in perpetuity, even if they allow the author’s book to go out of print.

Studying the internet for the purposes of learning how to market one’s writing would seem in keeping with the entire purpose of working toward becoming an author, traditionally published or under one’s own auspices.

The writing and publishing worlds, two distinct mediums that together form the universe of selling books, move at a snail’s pace along the path of change. Publishing companies bemoan the drop in sales of books, and authors take the financial brunt of this phenomenon that traditionalists in the publishing world say results from the rise of companies like amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and many like companies or individuals that sell books over the internet, and at cheaper prices. These individuals and companies who sell books over the internet also make out-of-print books otherwise unattainable through traditional bookstores accessible to the readers like you and me where as chain book stores and independent ones cater mainly to new and commercial titles.

With all this calling out to us, and the ability to respond at our fingertips, why are we not paying attention?

Whether MFA programs come to teach any courses in internet marketing for fiction writers, or weekly writing groups become places for participants to critique not only the stories we craft, but also how we choose to market them, we as writers must take the lead if we are to survive as both writers/authors/poets/essayists and entrepreneurs whose business it is to market and sell or words. Musicians have taken the lead with graphic artists and painters following. Authors, published and those toiling for the holy grail of seeing their words in print have no other choice. Perhaps one day the discussions of writing group participants will include offering tips on which blog lists we can join or use to publicize information about our new and or recent publication.

As authors we must write, not only our stories, but also on our blogs, press releases and synopses for the purpose of bringing attention to our works.

We must also write with seriousness and commitment—whatever we craft.

Now, unlike in years and decades past, consumers want and demand a taste of what we have to say before they shell out money for a copy of our book that they are most likely to purchase over the internet at a price cheaper than had they gone to the neighborhood bookstore.