Time and tide

I turned 40 today. I don’t want to give that number more sway over me than it deserves. Yes, it’s a big, fat, round number. Yes, it’s a milestone. No, I’m not any different than I was 24 hours ago, when I still resided in my 30s.

But let’s face it: If you’re a contemplative sort — and underneath the fart jokes and the NFL mania, I am — big, fat, round numbers prompt some assessing of the road traveled and the bend ahead. With some luck and clean living, maybe there’s another 40 inside me, waiting to get out. Maybe. But those steps are uncertain and largely hidden, and frankly, I don’t want to traverse them any faster than I have to. There’s a lesson in the first 40 years: I took them too quickly and didn’t appreciate the moments of grace and beauty as much as I should have.

I’ve been thinking a lot this morning about the things we want and the things we strive for, and how sometimes we get them — just not always in the way we imagined. When I was 17, my family took a two-week trip to Yellowstone. I sat in the back seat, with my younger brother and sister, listening to cassettes (Rush’s “Moving Pictures” was on heavy rotation) and inhaling Hemingway. In Cooke City, I met an old woman who knew Hemingway, and I gazed at the mountains and imagined that someday I would be a novelist, living in Montana and pursuing my art.

I got the novel, and I got Montana. The cabin in the mountains will have to wait.

When I was 18, I dreamed of being a big-city newspaper reporter. In November of that year, my first front-page story appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

When I was 19, I fell in love for the first time. I highly recommend it.

When I was 20, I lost love for the first time. Strangely enough, I highly recommend that, too.

When I was 21, I left my home state. I moved to Kenai, Alaska, more than 4,000 miles away. The loneliness, at times, crushed me. I also met some of the best friends I’ve ever had. That, too, I recommend.

When I was 22, I returned to Texas and took a job I hated. A good lesson there: Don’t mess with happy.

When I was 23, I moved to Owensboro, Kentucky, and went to work with a wonderful group of people, all within a few years of my age. Never have I had so much fun at a job. So, to Lovett, Heen, the Toddler, Cindy, Noelle, Kristin, et. al.: Thank you for a wonderful time in my life.

When I was 24, I moved to Dayton, Ohio, for another job I hated. A good lesson, repeated: Don’t mess with happy.

On the day I turned 25, I received a job offer from the Anchorage Daily News. I took it, and it’s one of the best decisions I ever made. I turned 26, 27 and 28 in Anchorage, and I grew up. Some.

When I was 26, I met my birthmother for the first time. It’s been an amazing, odd, frustrating, wonderful relationship. I wouldn’t trade it.

When I was 28, I moved to California for a job that intimidated me. It’s hard to think of this now that the economy and Dean Singleton have laid waste to the San Jose Mercury News, but in 1998, it was one of the finest newspapers in the country. I joined a staff full of some of the smartest people I’ve ever known, and I wasn’t at all sure I was up to snuff. It turned out that I was.

When I was 30, I left the Mercury News and returned to Texas one last time. I took a job in San Antonio and bought a big house with a pool. But it didn’t take, which, I suppose, was mostly my fault. By August, I was in Olympia, Washington, and that didn’t take any better. By November, I was back in San Jose, where I belonged. My three-times-the-fool lesson: Don’t mess with happy.

In San Jose, my 31st, 32nd, 33rd, 34th, 35th and 36th birthdays clicked by. I held several positions: Sunday sports editor, assistant sports editor, Raiders beat writer, deputy sports editor, and finally, in October 2004, sports editor. People came and went, and the newspaper’s fortunes pretty much went, but it was still a great time in my life. So, to JR, Amy, Rachel, Brownie, Brucie, Bud, Darryl, Teeb, the Rook, Will, Richard, Smitty, Wilner, Timmy K, Purd, Killer, Darren, Sumi, Pam, Pinky, Gary and so many others, thank you.

When I was 36, I met the love of my life, and I came to Montana to be with her. I couldn’t possibly recommend anything more highly.

When I was 37, I got married and we bought a house. Also highly recommended.

When I was 38, I crashed a motorcycle and nearly ended everything way too soon. I do not recommend this at all.

When I was 39, I published my first novel. Those dreams I had at 17 started coming around.

And now, here I am at 40, wondering what’s next. You’ll notice that the most important things have happened in the past few years. That’s a trend I’d like to see stick around awhile. So come on 41 … but not too quickly.

I’m not gonna mess with happy.

Hitting the road (first of several)

If you happen to be in the vicinity of Columbus, Montana, tomorrow — and I should point out that in the context of Montana, “vicinity” means “roughly 300 miles in any direction” — please drop by the Stillwater County Library from 4 to 6 p.m. I’ll be chatting up the Friends of the Library and other patrons about 600 Hours of Edward, autism, publishing, Tony Romo’s role in literature and anything else folks want to talk about. It’ll be a good time. (I’m just kidding about the Tony Romo part, although the Dallas Cowboys quarterback is a fixture in Edward’s world.)

That’s the launch of what’s shaping up to be a busy couple of months for me and the book. Three weeks later, on Feb. 25, I’ll be joining with my friends at Parents, Let’s Unite for Kids to present a session on autism and the way that reality intersects with art in my book. My good friend Connie VonBergen will talk about her experiences as the mother of an autistic child, I’ll chat about the underpinnings for Edward (an Aspergian) and how the character was drawn. That event runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Mary Alice Fortin Center at Billings Clinic, Rooms B and D. It’s free and open to the public.

Then comes March …

Missoula: At long last, I'm headed there.

I’ve lived in Montana for nearly four years now, and can you believe that I haven’t traveled to Missoula since I got here? (I have been there several times in the semi-distant past.) Anyway, that will change next month, when I have three events lined up in Missoula and the “vicinity”:

• On Thursday, March 18, I’ll be at the Ronan City Library for a chat with the Friends of the Library group there. The address is 203 Main Street SW, and the event begins at 7 p.m. 
• On Friday, March 19, I’ll be at Fact & Fiction, 220 North Higgins in Missoula, for a reading/signing. That runs from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• On Saturday, March 20, I’ll be at the Chapter One bookstore in Hamilton, 252 W. Main Street, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. for a signing.

Then it’s back home. But the following weekend, Saturday, March 27, I’ll be back at it, with a signing and perhaps a reading at Red Lodge Books, 16 N. Broadway, from 3 to 6 p.m.

It’s safe to say that I’m looking forward to each and every one of these events. Please join me.

Stock and flow

I’ve been meaning to comment on this article from Snarkmarket for a few days. That I haven’t until now is just more proof that I’m a bit out of sorts.

The key bit:

Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind peo­ple that you exist.

Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the con­tent you pro­duce that’s as inter­est­ing in two months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what peo­ple dis­cover via search. It’s what spreads slowly but surely, build­ing fans over time.

I feel like flow is ascen­dant these days, for obvi­ous reasons—but we neglect stock at our own peril. I mean that both in terms of the health of an audi­ence and, like, the health of a soul. Flow is a tread­mill, and you can’t spend all of your time run­ning on the tread­mill. Well, you can. But then one day you’ll get off and look around and go: Oh man. I’ve got noth­ing here.

But I’m not say­ing you should ignore flow! No: this is no time to hole up and work in iso­la­tion, emerg­ing after long months or years with your perfectly-polished opus. Every­body will go: huh? Who are you? And even if they don’t—even if your exquisitely-carved mar­ble statue of Boba Fett is the talk of the tum­blrs for two whole days—if you don’t have flow to plug your new fans into, you’re suf­fer­ing a huge (here it is!) oppor­tu­nity cost. You’ll have to find them all again next time you emerge from your cave.

Man, oh, man, do I ever understand this. With a recently released novel that I’m actively promoting — my schedule here — and a full-time job and a marriage and needy dogs and football and a Wii that simply must be played, I’m finding it more difficult than it’s ever been to just write.

I’m not, by the way, suggesting that anyone feel sorry for me. I’m the luckiest bastard in the world to have a novel and a full-time job and a marriage and needy dogs and a Wii that simply must be played. Thousands, perhaps millions, of people would trade places with me in a heartbeat, even if it meant taking on my horrible fashion sense. I get that.

I’m simply saying that I’m struggling with the balance. I’m sure I’ll find it. I have to find it. Aspiring writers are told at every juncture that they need to have a platform, that writing well isn’t enough, that they have to drum up interest in their work. All true, but also all beside the point if the work suffers.

Johnathon Schaech’s character in “That Thing You Do!”, Jimmy, got almost everything wrong in the movie — he walked away from Liv-Freakin’-Tyler! — but was unassailably correct on one thing:

“The point of all of this,” he tells Mr. White (Tom Hanks) while the manager is regaling the band with all the fun they’ll have in California, “is to make more records.”

Amen, Jimmy Mattingly.

Thus concludes today’s flow. Stock awaits.

Filling the calendar

Please keep an eye on my calendar in the coming weeks. I’m hopeful of stringing together some appearances that will take 600 Hours of Edward into various corners of the state/region.

Here are a few things on tap that I’m particularly excited about:

• Thursday, Feb. 4: I’ll be at the Stillwater County Library – 27 N. 4th Street, Columbus, MT — to chat with library patrons, do a reading of 600 Hours and sign copies of the book. 4 to 6 p.m.
• Thursday, Feb. 25: I’m teaming with Parents, Let’s Unite for Kids for a discussion about autism and mental-health issues. It will be held at the Mary Alice Fortin Center at Billings Clinic, 2800 10th Ave. North in Billings, Rooms B and D. The event will include discussion, Q&A, a reading and a book signing. That runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (By the way, here’s an interview I did with PLUK last month.)
• Thursday, March 18: Road trip! I’m headed to Ronan to chat with the Friends of the Library about my book. That will be at the Ronan City Library, 203 Main St. SW. It starts at 7 p.m. (Some other Missoula-area events are in the works, so check back soon.)

UPDATE: And here’s one more …

• Saturday, March 27: Signing/reading at Red Lodge Books, 16 N. Broadway, Red Lodge, MT. 3 to 6 p.m.

Simple math: Fewer editors = more mistakes

Here’s an interesting story from the Washington Post. It seems that more and more simple errors are sneaking into print, and readers are noticing. It’s not hard to figure out why. The story notes that the newspaper’s stable of copy editors has been whittled from 75 to 43 in the past few years, even as the duties beyond pure copy-editing have increased.

In my day (er, night) job — you know, the one that pays the preponderance of my bills — I work as a newspaper copy editor. I’ve long considered it a sound policy not to discuss one’s employer on a personal blog, and I’m not about to abandon that wise course now. Instead, I’d like to discuss editing in the big picture, across all forms of publishing. I guarantee you, what’s happening at the Washington Post is not an isolated case.

When I originally self-published my first novel nearly a year ago, I was — outside of my wife — the only person who had laid eyes on the words, and I’m afraid that deficiency was easy to spot. When the first book landed in my hands, I immediately spotted dozens of errors — dropped words, backward quote marks, dangling modifiers, etc. Because the book was print-on-demand, I was able to upload a new interior file and fix those. Then came the new book and a new round of errors. I must have done this five or six times.

By the time I turned the manuscript over to Riverbend Publishing for the book’s re-emergence as 600 Hours of Edward, I had read it innumerable times and rooted out every possible error, or so I thought. But the publisher found a few, and then I found a few more in the proofing stage, and finally we had a completed book.

The first time I opened it, I found another error.

Do you see what I’m getting at? It’s damned hard to come up with a pristine manuscript. Harder still when editors are removed from the equation.

Unfortunately, that’s what is happening across a broad swath of the publishing world. Houses, even the biggest ones, have cut deeply into their editing ranks, for reasons of expedience and expense. Maxwell Perkins, were he alive today, would probably be an acquisition editor, focused chiefly on getting the books into the publishing house and not so much on honing them into word-perfect shape. Many of the traditional editing chores now fall to literary agents, and while they’re often fully capable of doing that work, they already have other vital and time-consuming chores, such as persuading the acquisition editors to bring the work aboard. So, then, the onus falls to the writer to get it right in the first place, and while there are many ways in which we can improve our craft and our self-editing, we can’t possibly give ourselves the same benefit we would get from an intensive edit by a professional.

So how do we bridge the gap? A few ideas:

1. Be damned good in the first place.

2. Failing No. 1, become a better self-editor. Read well-edited material and take note of what it does well (precise word choice, economy, structure, etc.). Take advantage of the myriad (and free) editing tips that can be mined on the Web. Our friends at The Blood-Red Pencil regularly offer excellent editing advice.

3. Join a writing group. Even if your colleagues can’t offer detailed copy editing, they can give you big-picture reactions to your stories and essays.

4. Trade sweat equity with a buddy. He reads and edits your stuff. You read and edit his.

5. If you can afford it and think you’ll benefit from it, engage the services of a professional editor. I’m happy to recommend one: My friend Leon Unruh at Birchbark Press does unfailingly excellent work at a competitive price.

We owe it to readers to give them the best experience we can with our books. That’s our bond: In exchange for their money and their time, we offer the best story we could write, with as few flaws as possible.

E is for Edward … and, well, e-book

Just in the past few hours, 600 Hours of Edward has become available in a variety of e-book formats. Through Smashwords, the publisher is offering 50 percent of the book as a free sample, with a price of $5 for the whole thing. Check out the list of formats and see if one fits that snazzy new e-reader you got for Christmas.

Eventually, the e-book version will migrate to Amazon.com (for Kindle readers) and BN.com (for Nook readers), so if you’d rather buy there, be on the lookout. I’ll put up links when they go live.

An interview and an update

Sorry for the light posting around here of late. ‘Tis the season, you know. The simple fact is, there just hasn’t been much to say, even as there’s been so much to do.

Thanks to my friends at Parents, Let’s Unite for Kids, that has changed today. A couple of weeks ago, the organization’s director, Roger Holt, and volunteer Connie VonBergen interviewed me about 600 Hours of Edward. The result can be seen here. It’s a half-hour video. PLUK does terrific work, and I’m honored that the folks there have taken such an intense interest in my novel.

(I’m also thankful, in a way, for video evidence that I need to drag myself to a gym, posthaste. I joked to Roger and Connie that they looked like mountaineers about to climb me. Yikes!)

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve also taken another editing run at my second (as yet unpublished) novel. It’s been sitting on a shelf for a few months, and that distance really gave me an opportunity to reset, refocus and go at the manuscript aggressively. The story arc didn’t change, but I whacked away at some undergrowth of exposition.

Now, I’m going to sit back and watch the rest of 2009 unspool. It’s been a wonderful year in many ways — certainly better than 2008, which is the worst on record for me — and I’m eager to see what 2010 brings. First thing out of the gate: a Jan. 2 signing at Barnes & Nobles in Billings. More details here.

Happy holidays!

Book giveaway … and a five-star review

The folks at Age of Autism are hosting a giveaway for 600 Hours of Edward. Just cruise over and leave your name (with e-mail address) in the comments, and you’re in.

Meanwhile, over at One Book At A Time, Page has given the novel a five-star review.

A snippet:

It was such a moving story from beginning to end.  I felt so connected to Edward, and had a wide range of emotion throughout the story.  While the story ended nicely, I wanted more of it.

Just the facts: It’s a good book

It was nice to wake up to this today: 600 Hours of Edward picked up a nice review from Palo Alto (Calif.) Daily News columnist John Orr. The headline of this blog post is the headline in the newspaper.

Full disclosure: I’ve known John a long time but not in any particular depth. For the better part of a decade, we both worked at the San Jose Mercury News, which at the time was a large newspaper, with more than 400 editorial employees (I hear the number is closer to 100 now). The place had three disparate newsrooms, so in general, the people you knew best were the ones who worked shoulder to shoulder with you. I was in sports, which had its own room. John was in features, in another part of the building. In the entire time we worked together, we probably shared less than a dozen brief conversations.

John touches on all of this in the review, amiably highlighting the difference between sports guys and what I can only imagine he considers to be the normal humans working elsewhere at a paper. This view is highly debatable, but I’ll let it pass.

A few years ago I worked at the San Jose Mercury News, where I was casually acquainted with a guy named Craig Lancaster. He was an editor in the sports department, I worked in features, so we didn’t know each other very well, but I did watch him win a Peeps-eating contest once. That was disgusting.

But, that’s the kind of thing people in sports departments do at newspapers, which is probably one of the reasons the Merc put those people off in their own room, far away from other human beings.

(A bit of correction: I didn’t win the Peep-eating contest. I’ve never won one. It’s not for a lack of trying.)

More from the review:

Into his well-controlled life come a young boy and the boy’s mother, who move into a house across the street. She has moved away from an abusive boyfriend.

Young boys are not to be denied, and the kid becomes Edward’s friend. Edward helps out when the abusive former boyfriend shows up. There is a scene at a hospital. Trouble ensues. A lot of trouble, and threats from Edward’s father and Edward’s father’s lawyer.

All that leads to some major choices for Edward. It leads to changing his life.

Orr finishes by urging folks to pick up the book. If you’re so inclined, it can be found at bookstores all over Montana, at Amazon.com or direct from me. Choices are good, right?

Table scraps

Having had a burst of book signings over the past week — and with more on the horizon — I’ve come to one major conclusion (more on this in a minute) and some assorted other thoughts (ditto).

First, the conclusion: Signings are not, in and of themselves, my favorite thing in the world. While people like Sarah Palin enjoy teeming crowds with twitterpating hearts, your average schlub author — and I’m nothing if not a schlub* — mostly sits and smiles for a couple of slow-moving hours. Now, let me be clear: It’s not the adulation I crave. It’s the human contact. In the paragraphs to come, I’ll propose some ways that you and I can do better by each other.

But first, a disclaimer

It would be the height of dishonesty to say that the exercise isn’t about selling you a book. It is. As much as it might entertain both of us to chat happily about this or that or compare favorite movies, in the end, I want you to take the book. That said, I’m a big boy, and I learned a long time ago that I don’t always get what I want. I can take it if you’re just not interested. OK? OK.

Onward …

What you need to know

1. I’m not going to attack you: I’ve grown so amused by the customers who enter the store, see me sitting front and center, avert their eyes and take the most circuitous route possible to whatever part of the store they want to visit that I finally printed out a sign that graces the signing table: “Author will not bite unless you ask him to.” At the very least, it’s a conversation piece. It’s also a guarantee.

2. If you have the time, I’d love to chat: About anything, really. Whether you take a book or not, I’m going to have to sit there. Hearing what folks are reading or doing helps the time go by and helps me be more aware of the world around me.

A few weeks ago, at a Borders signing, a woman and her teenage son stopped by the table. While she ended up buying a book (thank you!), most of the conversation centered on what the young man held in his hands: The Grapes of Wrath. It was a blast to be able to chat with him about it and to tell him not to dismiss the turtle chapter, that it would all become clear once he was done. I’m thankful they stopped by.

3. Laughter is the opposite of soul-crushing: There’s a caged-animal-on-display aspect of signings that a lot of authors find distasteful. We have a lot of reasons for being there — promoting our work, supporting the stores that stock our titles, maintaining the court-mandated 150 yards from all schools — but I haven’t met an author yet who doesn’t appreciate the folks who come by, crack a joke and let some oxygen back into the room. So to those who do us this valuable service, I say thanks.

What I need to do

1. Have a good answer for this question: “What’s your book about?” All I can say is that I’m honing it.

2. Get up from the damned table: At my first signing, I never left my seat, and I sold about three books in two hours. Subsequent efforts have involved more movement and, not surprisingly, more sales. Just as important, they’ve led to more satisfying interactions with my favorite kind of people: the kind who love books.

3. Bring candy: No lie. It makes the table more inviting. I’ve been heavy on the chocolate of late. If you’d like something different — particularly if you’re going to be at the Billings Hastings this Saturday — let me know in the comments section.

* — Lest you think that I’m being falsely humble here, I point you to this excellent essay in the Indie Reader magazine on the death of the book tour. In it, Charles Stillwagon of the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver says of midlist and debut (that’s me) authors:

“Why would they think that anyone would want to come out to meet them?”

Why, indeed. Let’s take the over-inflated bastards out back and kick the bejeezus out of them.