Keep Moving in 2017
There are a mere few hours remaining in 2016. It’s a quasi-arbitrary metric, of course; plenty of people don’t use the same calendar to mark the years. Even if they did, what exactly changes, other than said calendar? Nothing, really.
Any New Year is a convenient marker for assessment of one’s life. It’s passing gives one a target at which to aim for changes and improvements. The change of one year into the next is all easier to utilize in this fashion when much of the world goes wild for it, if only for a few moments. In short, though New Year’s Eve isn’t really a thing in its own right, societies have made it a thing. If a concept helps people reset, or put something behind them, I’m all for it.
In fact, I use the time myself. I have a list of goals I wish to accomplish each year that I write up every New Year’s Eve and post to my wall. Writing goals, reading goals, fitness goals, even goals for recreation. Truth be told, I only achieved about 60% of my 2016 list. Previous years I’ve done much better than that.
I could share here what I did and didn’t accomplish in 2016 as per my list. I’ve done that in the past. Yet in the end, I’ve come to realize that’s a bit of a “who cares?” I care, of course, but I doubt it enhances the lives of anybody reading this blog. If it does, forgive me for skipping over it today. But it seems to me somewhat egotistical. Not much value outside of my own reflections on 2016.
Had their been something highly unusual or difficult I accomplished, I’d mention more, I suppose.
And my goals for 2017? I’ll share a few of those with you, not all. That at least has some accountability factor attached, though I expect nobody reading this is going to badger me about it through the year. Having some of them posted in public adds a bit of motivation.
I do plan to publish my third novel by the start of summer, which I’ll be talking about more as the year goes on. My plan is to also have the first draft of my fourth novel, (I haven’t even decided what story that will be yet) by the end of 2017. I’ve got a quota of short stories I want to write in the coming year. I’ll once again be practicing my one man show on a regular basis, now that I have revamped it somewhat. I’ll keep my eyes open for chances to perform it, but I will probably abandon active pitches to organizations. (Something I tried this year and did not succeed with.)
My biggest goal in regards to my writing I would say is my commitment to more promotional activity. Regular readers of this blog know that for various reasons I lack the ability to promote in the conventional manner. But 2017 must be the year when I pursue alternatives, even if it means spending some money. Even my most modest goals of name recognition and book sales have not been met with the methods I have employed. Something must change if I want anybody to read what I write. (And I do, sin that that may be.)
In other ways I hope to simplify in 2017.
The lesson though, is to keep working, keep trying, and keep doing what one does. January 1st is a nice built-in barometer by which to keep track of one’s overall advancement, but I say not to get too attached to it. We do what we do because we are what we allow ourselves to be. It’s a march towards our own destinies and possibilities that no calendar really should be allowed to alter. We get to where we are going when we get there, by continuing to move. Keep moving. So will I.
Happy New Year.
Repost: Yes Virginia, There Was a Writer
Every year at around this time I like to repost this blog post of mine from 2010, about the importance, and potential earth changing impact of writers and their work. You can find the original piece at http://bit.ly/2hYgtDa.
The “True” Responsibility of Authors?
Topics for blog posts and message boards across the internet on any given subject tend to come in waves, I find. One question, or problem or controversy comes to the top, and you find every other blogger posting their thoughts on it.
It’s not always intentional. Any given frame of time withing the writers community say may just happen to have become the “Summer of the Oxford Comma,” wherein a few people happen to write about the topic.
Since the election, (though I can’t say if this is because of the election, though it could be), I’ve come across a few posts in my regular feed of writers dealing with a similar sentiment. Each expressed this in a different way of course, but there has been a trend in the last thirty days of the so called importance of your writing. It’s mission, and the seriousness thereof.
I’d site some of my sources normally, but in this case, I’m going to respond to this mini-trend, because I don’t want this to be about Me vs. Blogger X. IN most cases I don’t think the author’s of the articles in question are bad people. In many ways they are correct in what they say. But in more than a few of this articles/threads I’ve stated the mild exception I’ve taken to the thesis. Whether by chance or by design, thus far nobody has ever responded to my comments, including the normally response-friendly authors of said post.
Since as of now I don’t seem to have kicked up any conversation elsewhere, I’ll share a few simple thoughts on the matter here, though I have addressed this topic before here at TyUnglebower.com
I’ll ask fellow writers some questions here, based on the articles I’ve mentions:
Does our writing in fact have to be complex? Is it required to rip the guts out of the reader? Challenge the very nature of our society? Force people to take a long, frightened, uncomfortable look at their own complacency within a world that is possibly collapsing? Should we as authors use our fiction confuse, agitate, incite? Do we require a theme, indeed a specific purpose, if not a target with every word we put together for every story we tell? Do we choose to disrupt, disturb and ultimately destroy when we make the choice to commit ourselves to writing? Is the value of our body of work, all of it, measured by just how many torches we throw in a mass effort to burn the village to the ground in order to save it?
So many questions there, and more that could be added. I would ask them if I didn’t have at least an answer, would I?
Well, I would. And I just did. Because there is no answer to any of those questions. Actually, there are so many answers to each of those questions that to presume to answer them on behalf of the writing community would be as ineffective as it would be arrogant.
The truth is that these questions must be answered by each author for themselves. And each author will probably answer differently depending on numerous factors throughout their life. Things change. People change, and contrary to some opinion, even writers are people.
I felt a stirring need to address this today, because contrary to the subjectivity I’ve put forth on these subjects just now, several of the articles that sparked my recent consideration of this topic presumed to not only answer these questions, but answer them all in the affirmative, on behalf of the writing community. Put it another way, I’re read posts and articles from people on various places in the writing spectrum of commercial success insist that our duty is to do all of the things mentioned in that paragraph of questions below, suggesting in places that to do otherwise, or less is to not take one’s writing seriously.
This was suggested throughout these articles and posts in a variety of ways. Some people have always seen writing in this way. Others indicated that things have changed in the country as a result of the election, and that whatever we authors were doing before it happened, we all have to saddle up and get ready for war, by exposing the ugly truth to our readers and forcing them into action. I’ll paraphrase a few of these pronouncements:
“Ask yourself why you enjoy writing escapist fantasy so much, in a world that now desperately needs all hands on deck to face some approaching cold realities. No matter what you write, your characters must now at least be made tacitly aware through your narrative of just how dark our real world is becoming, and make them act accordingly. Your writing shouldn’t be a vacation, but a battle cry.”
“We can’t be like the Ents wanted to be in LOTR, content to be what we are, staying out of human affairs.”
“If, let’s say, your ultimate goal in writing fiction is to play, have fun, entertain readers who want to do the same, you need to ask yourself why you have no ambition.”
And so on. I think you get the idea. That’s what I keep running into online lately.
I don;t comment on threads or messages boards very often. I never seem to belong, and that remains true now. But the specifics of these messages hit me in such the wrong way I felt the need to respectfully disagree with it in more than one thread. As I said, as of this writing, it’s not caused much response from said threads, so allow me to respond here as I did there.
Appointing ourselves prophets, or jesters, (in the more historical sense) is in conflict with common advice to writers that we must not write with the expectation that we are going to be read, or get paid for it, or make a difference. Now, I have never accepted that position wholeheartedly, but the fact is that it’s a common perspective, but is not at all compatible with the idea of being that important.
Secondly, and if you write with any amount of pride you know this; writing well is difficult. It doesn’t matter what you are writing ion what genre. If you are serious about producing what is your best work, (work which again you hope someone will read someday) it involves a lot of time and work. I think some of the “author as agitator” crowd give off the impression, (though perhaps not intentionally) that if your writing isn’t doing the Salmon Rushdie thing, it must be easy. It isn’t. And frankly I think there is plenty of “important” literature out there that feels lazy.
Entertaining the fickle masses of our fellow human beings that have millions of choices besides us is no easy task. Writing, editing, correcting, rewriting, self-publishing a piece and all of the endless marketing you have to do for yourself afterward or seeking an agent, getting one, getting a publishing contract (and all of the endless marketing you have to do for yourself afterward) are not easy. A few get lucky, and becomes stars, yes, we can’t deny it. But the fact is, it takes work to create a novel expressly for escapism and entertainment, if quality is a concern.
Entertaining people, in any of the arts, is far from easy if you don’t want to be cheap and shoddy in your work. It does in fact take motivation. It takes ambition.
So if as an author we find ourselves with some attention, are we to tell the readers in our fledgling fan base that, “as much as I appreciate you being entertained by my previous novel, now that I have your attention I really need to remind you of how lost, corrupted, privileged or ignorant you are. It’s time to truly challenge you to such a degree that my words will give you headaches, keep you up at night, and possibly make you weep. Click here for that!”
Plus, I’ll ask again what I have asked many times before; if the world is a dark, cruel place, and if it really is becoming worse as world events swirl out of control around us, why is entertaining someone an inferior goal to “fighting the power,” and such? Do we not trust readers of high fantasy to also be socially aware? If a woman reads nothing but suspense novels that have erotic twists, do we assume she isn’t paying attention to Standing Rock? Perhaps such people have enough of being challenged, and getting kicked in the teeth by the world the rest of their lives, and they just want our book to vanish into for a while. An ambition to help people do this is somehow lesser?
Obviously fiction has, does, and will continue to start social change, and it will do so at times by making us uncomfortable. By scaring and repulsing us. I respect authors who view that as their mission. I also respect those who continue to seek ways to entertain, humor or yes, offer us vacation from the world we are in. Both camps contribute, and we really only ought to concern ourselves with quality, engaging work, not with whether or not we are chipping away chunks of the status quo with tools approved of by our friendly neighborhood literati.
Some of my works have themes. Lessons. A moral or two. Other of my works are yarns, and meant to be so. Whether I succeed at either of those goals I leave up to my readers, who can be more than one thing at a time, such as reader and citizen. My work can be either. I, Ty Unglebower, person as well as author can be both, or either, depending on what I choose any given time I sit down at my keyboard.
New Fiction by Yours Truly
Announcing that my latest collection of short stories is now available in ebook from several locations. The collection, which I have not talked about much ahead of time, is called…well, just take a look at the cover:
You might be able to guess a few things just from this. But in case it isn’t clear, allow me.
To begin with, I didn’t create the cover art. If you know me, that was obvious right from the start. It’s actually from a nearly 100 year old text book now in the public domain. I had some basic ideas for designing one myself and I almost did. But when I came across this image in my cyber travels, it was too good not to use. It just fit the spirit of the stories so well.
Which brings me to the next aspect you could probably have guessed by yourself. These ten stories are literally about meetings. More specifically the stories are about meetings that follow Robert’s Rules of Order. I realize that this doesn’t sound like page-turner material right off the bat, but that was part of the challenge I issued to myself when I first started experimenting with this idea earlier this year.
As the introduction to the book notes, I have a rather old copy of Robert’s Rules in my personal library. I flip through it from time to time, wishing without success that more discussions in my life could be conducted according to unassailable formulas or order that could be easily referenced with the volume in my hand. That, naturally is never going to happen. (It actually has rarely happened during the few times I’ve actually been a member of a deliberative body that was supposed to act that way.) But I asked myself, could one write fiction based on such a book?
The more I considered certain motions, and rules and expectations for meetings laid out by the book, the more I answered “yes” to my own question; parliamentary procedure doesn’t inherently eliminate drama. In fact, it has the potential to allow quite a bit of drama, (and humor, and mystery and so on.) It’s merely a mechanism to wrangle in the chaotic nature of human deliberation into something of a coherent and fair whole. It doesn’t lack drama so much as channels it into a far more productive and safe form.
At least in theory.
So, I set off to write a series of short stories, each one dealing with a meeting of some kind. in turn the moment the reader joins said meeting hinges on a different aspect, or maneuver within parliamentary procedure, as laid out in Robert’s Rules.
But don’t forget the subtitle: Ten Very Different Meetings. Some of the stories are general fiction, some are humor. You’ll even find some sci-fi and some paranormal in there as well, while still maintaining a connection to parliamentary procedure.
I am quite pleased with the stories that came about from this experiment. (All between 800-2000 words or so.) I hope you will give them a try, and you can do so for free. I’m not charging for this one.
Why not? To begin with, it was more of a side project for me, as opposed to something I led up to for a long time, and built upon, such as my novels. But once it took shape, I felt I had something worth offering my readers. It doesn’t feel like I need to charge for that, though.
Secondly, not only am I experimenting with content in this collection, but with publishing. I used Draft2Digital as opposed to Smashwords for formatting and distributing. The automatic formatting was impeccable, and nearly instant. Far easier than getting a manuscript ready for Smashwords. A plus.
The slight minus is that for now, Draft2Digital does not distribute to as many stores as does Smashwords. So it seemed right for now to keep the price free, should readers have to download a file format they do not prefer, or if they have to download a different app or something just to read it.
However, all of the stores that carry it are linked here, on one convenient page. More stores will be added to that list as Draft2Digital hears from the other parties. Apple iTnes is the biggest market I have it in right now, as you will see. Kobo is second biggest.
I enjoyed the experiment of writing this collection, and I am enjoying the publishing and marketing part of the experiment as well.So if your format is there, I ask you to give this free collection a try. I think there is something in it for everyone, even if you only read some of the stories. (Though I prefer you try all ten!) If your format is not there, it probably will be soon.
And as always, if you check it out and like is please review it on the store you got it from. It’s an indie-author’s career life blood.
Enjoy.
The “Return” of Too XYZ
It was the name of my first attempt at a blog not related to my acting. On of the five main categories here on this site is named for it. It was the term I came up with years ago for the numerous yet undefined and inexplicable ways in which I failed to connect with, to influence, to understand what seemed to be daily assumptions of the rest of the world.
In the very first post on that old blog, I described my situation, (that i assumed I shared with others who would find my blog…they didn’t) in the following manner, among other ways:
“It’s a predicament of being too different too early in life, or too damaged, or too confused, or all of the above, to develop as one should have developed in order find conventional success in the world. Or even in order to take the advice of those who coach others in how to do so. A predicament of being too unique in too many ways so that even suggestions for “unique people” doesn’t quite stick to us much of the time. Like a sticky note with hair and dirt on the back.”
I had no name for it then. No name for that tendency to be shut out, just beyond reach, unable to adapt to certain social “norms” with which I had struggled my whole life. It was just too…something. Too XYZ as an attempt at a cute brand and networking focal point for others who felt my way began.
The venture failed, but I continued to be Too XYZ in my life afterward, even though I didn’t address it anymore on a blog. I may have given up an attempt to use an bizarre weakness to my advantage, but I continued to be Too XYZ, even into the creation of this website. Though I haven’t written in it as much as I thought I might, it’s a stated category within this blog, because I still had no name for the concept.
But just over a year and a half ago, I actually found the name for my Too XYZ nature. The name for it is autism spectrum disorder. I am, in fact a high functioning autistic. (Asperger’s Syndrome was the term used for years, until several years ago the distinction was eliminated by those who have authority to do such things.) It may not account for every quirk I have ever possessed, but it’s probably the president of the club, and it’s time I addressed it here on my own website.
Most of my friends and family knew just a few months after the official diagnosis. It’s not something I have kept hidden by choice from the so called “general public,” but it also isn’t something I’ve gone out of my way to mention until right now.
Why have i not said anything about this on my web[age until now? It’s not shame, (though I admit I have had some concerns that making it “mega public” like this would make people less sympathetic with me, trust me less with potential work, or even find my less attractive, both emotionally and physically. Some of those concerns remain, to tell you the truth, though on a much lower level than when all of this was new.
In truth, however, it hasn’t seemed relevant much of the time. It hasn’t been a secret so much as it has not been pertinent to anything I’ve been saying here, or out in the world in my “public” capacity. At least it hasn’t seemed pertinent in most cases. The fact of the matter is, however, it probably is pertinent. I don’t allow my ASD to define me, but I can pretend that any definition of me is complete without the inclusion of the autism spectrum.
I wrote last month about tweaking this site for the sake of greater overall authenticity. I mentioned how I hadn’t been fake up until that point, but that I’d perhaps been shining light on myself from the wrong angle in order to fulfill the supposed commandments of self promotion. I mentioned i didn’t want to do that anymore, and I guess that got some small ball rolling i my mind that before long I’d be saying these things in public here on my website that’s I’d already said the family and friends some time ago. This entry is the culmination of that way of thinking, you could say.
I started making a series of videos as a way of expressing my experience with ASD in various aspects of life. I shared these videos with my friends last year to help those who wanted to understand better. I haven’t made one in a while, but I have been meaning to make more of them. In the mean time, I am thinking about posting the ones I have already made here over time, so that “my public” can get a better feel for all of this as well. We’ll see.
Regardless, I’ve concluded that I still have a long way to go myself in comign to terms with what my ASD means for me. I’ve let it be perhaps a bit too minor at times, too much in the background. I think for a time I assumed that it doesn’t really matter too much, and therefore was a real issue, but in the background. I know now that that is probably a bit naive-that if I want to be authentic I need to delve deeper into the nature of who and what I am to myself, I need to own, if not broadcast and spotlight my autism. I could be wrong, but it occurred to me that having this aspect of my life known here on my public presence on the internet is a necessary step in that journey that began in the spring of 2015 officially, and continues to this day, and will likely continue for some time to come.
This will not be an autism blog, but my personal relationship with my autism, (which is as unique to each person as is their fingerprint) will be present here on my own website.
I might make it a set of videos on youtube, exploring in public what I had been exploring in private. There may be other things. But for now, I’ve made the “announcement,” though that sounds far more dramatic than it is.
It is what it is now.
Ty Unglebower 