writers earnings

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Earning the Big Bucks

There was a feature article in the newspaper lately about how much money the average Canadian writer makes.

If you’re vastly successful? Expect about $10,000 a year.

Once I stopped laughing, I remembered a different article I read on the Internet a few months back. It said that the average successful American writer could expect to make $12,000 a year. Presumably in US funds. So once again our cousins to the south leave us in the dust! Not that we’re really choking over it much in this case.

But the other issue the American article pointed out was that writers could expect to earn less money as they got better at their craft over their careers. Say what?

Apparently as writers become more technically proficient and imaginative at their craft, they become less “readable” in the popular sense. Therefore the better you get, the less you earn.

The thing to do to really make the cash is to rapidly achieve a degree of vaguely accessible mediocrity and then never waver from that the rest of your life. Stand fast!

As I make no money from my writing at the moment, I can only hope that that means I went from incompetent to pretty good somehow bypassing the mediocre stage where you actually earn a living. I think there was a month or so, back in 2003 …

It’s a weird thing. I could have said, it’s a weird craft, or it’s a weird business, but you see, there’s the rub.

When you sit down to write, for most people it’s an attempt at artistic expression. You have a story to craft, to tell in the most compelling way you hope you can manage. And in the process you make the practice an outlet for your personal and creative self discovery.

When you sit down to read, it’s a business. There’s a lot of books out there. Publishers want to make sure the ones they’re putting out are the ones you purchase to indulge your entertainment passion.

So when the writer and the publisher come together, two contradictory impulses have to find common ground for the relationship to go anywhere. The publisher isn’t really interested in your journey to self discovery unless it’s profitable in the sales column. Perhaps you’d like to compromise that drive to discover your true imaginative voice and mode of expression in return for a little practical marketing then, hmm …?

There’s maybe 10,000 bucks in it for you if we can find the right middling effort. But for God’s sake, don’t go getting good on us.

However, if you’re a second rate goalie, defenceman, or forward in the National Hockey League employed by a mediocre team that practically never makes the playoffs year after year, we’ll offer you millions.

Let’s not go there.

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

You know what it’s like when you get one of those fat Russian novels stuck in your head and you just can’t get it out of your mind? “Anna Makerena” concludes on Monday, while we find out who the winners are on Friday, March 27th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Tea. Lust. Intrigue. Talking about God. Opera. Must be Russian.

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

All with illustrations by the author. Working through the Contestants in order of their appearance. But there’s been some problems with the scanner, so appearances may be deceiving.

the obscure critic

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Surrealist Critic

Photograph by Man Ray

It’s a great culture to be alive in. We’ve got access to all the art we could ever ask for from all the ages of the world.

A drawback to this largesse — if it can even be thought of as a negative — is that you don’t often discover the work of someone who’s been producing for some time — or who might even be already dead and no longer producing at all — in the proper order, or rarely in anything but bits and pieces. Which is why I like to take time on occasion to research back over the life of an artist who particularly strikes me, to place their production in context with their times.

Recently I’ve been studying up on Salvador Dali, David Lynch, Lee Miller and Man Ray, and my all-time favourite, William Burroughs. I found excellent books on Dali, Lynch, Miller and Ray, and new editions of some of Burroughs’s works offering competent commentary on his methods and life. A good retrospective on an artist of the calibre of these individuals opens up a whole new appreciation for what I already know I like. In the case of Dali and especially Lynch, I’ve come to truly appreciate the deep psychological component of their surrealist work, adding so much more simple emotional expression to my enjoyment of their craft.

A good, objective critical writer can lead you to see an artist more comprehensively than you might be able to on your own, and is worth studying.

However …

The downside of this approach is reading along happily then suddenly being brought up short against bozos trying to write about greater minds than their own in this sort of style:

“Man Ray, in essence, accomplished the revolutionary act of always photographing the photograph, which is entirely different from photographing objects that are completely outside the photograph. This is a unique attitude, and nothing in traditional or non-traditional practice can be compared to it. Man Ray is photographer and subject. His shadow is always behind the camera, which is always a little beyond the image. The camera itself is constantly reflecting as if there were an infinite distance between the artist using it and the reality depicted, but it is always aware of its ultimate destruction. There is no model in the middle, there is only what Man Ray wants to see and sees, what he wants to imagine and imagines. In reality the imaginary model is hidden and only the ideal model remains: the photograph looking at the photograph, the photograph that reproduces, the photograph that takes the photograph, and the photograph renewed in its destruction and its eternity.”

Man Ray: Photographs, Paintings, Objects

Schirmer’s Visual Library, 1997

From “In Man Ray’s Century”, an essay by Janus

Lord preserve us …

Let’s analyze Janus’s statements a little more closely, bit by bit.

“Man Ray, in essence, accomplished the revolutionary act of always photographing the photograph, which is entirely different from photographing objects that are completely outside the photograph.”

So if Man Ray was revolutionary, are we then to assume it is the conservative, conventional thing to do to photograph something other than the photograph? What, for example?

The second part of the sentence answers that. Janus tells us Man Ray wasn’t photographing objects that are completely outside the photograph. Which let’s face it, must be pretty tricky to do. Even though apparently that’s all the rest of us ever manage, although I’d like to see us do it. But Man Ray doesn’t, preferring to photograph the photograph. Which we assume includes whatever is inside the photograph, as he doesn’t bother with what’s outside.

So, to paraphrase then: Man Ray took pictures. Of things that end up in the pictures. 

What a rebel.

Moving on: “This is a unique attitude, and nothing in traditional or non-traditional practice can be compared to it.” That would be unique, all right. He wasn’t doing what everyone else was doing, and he wasn’t doing what everyone else wasn’t doing either. It’s a damn good thing we established in the first sentence that Man Ray took pictures, otherwise we might end up wondering if he was doing anything at all?

Jumping ahead a little: “His shadow is always behind the camera, which is always a little beyond the image. The camera itself is constantly reflecting as if there were an infinite distance between the artist using it and the reality depicted, but it is always aware of its ultimate destruction.”

Let’s map this out. You have Man Ray here, at Point A, we assume behind the camera. We assume this because we’re told his shadow is behind the camera, so therefore his body probably is too. Then we have the camera at point B, “a little beyond the image”, which we’ll say is at Point C. Sounds like a sensible approach so far. Except wouldn’t it make more sense for the camera to be in front of the image instead of beyond it? Maybe Man’s got a tricky rearview lens. But then his shadow would get in the way, because his shadow is always behind the camera, and don’t pictures usually turn out better if you keep your shadow out of them?

But this shadow thing may not be an issue as Man apparently uses a very Zen camera, an object constantly reflecting "as if there were an infinite distance between the artist using it and the reality depicted”. So, if Man at Point A is an “infinite distance” from what we will now call Point D, “the reality depicted”, Point D is too far away and he’d never get the shot anyway.

No wonder the camera is also “always aware of its ultimate destruction.” With this kind of a set up, Man Ray would never be able to take a decent picture, so he’ll probably just trash the useless thing.

Jumping to the end: “In reality the imaginary model is hidden and only the ideal model remains: the photograph looking at the photograph, the photograph that reproduces, the photograph that takes the photograph, and the photograph renewed in its destruction and its eternity.”

From my other intensive reading, I believe there’s only one interpretation to be derived from a statement like this.

To quote William Burroughs, from The Ticket That Exploded: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was bullshit.”

Sometimes it’s better just to go back to the source.

Photograph by Man Ray

UNSCHEDULED APPEARANCE

In honour of St. Patrick’s Day yesterday, my wife Renee and I, Ron Romanowski and his wife Liliana, and Ken Kowal had a festive lunch at Shannon’s Irish Pub in Winnipeg. After a drink or two I was prompted into a public reading of Paul Muldoon’s “The Hedgehog” for the unsuspecting crowd. Naturally the event did not go unrecorded.

Photograph by Liliana Rom O’nowski

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Tolstoy must have written about everything at one point or another. Curious that he missed this. The Electric Detective Chapter 6 goes up Monday, and Part One of Episode Seven, Tolstoy-Ish, on Friday, March 20th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

War and Peace as a multimedia event? Or just more Love and Death?

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

All with illustrations by the author. Working through the Contestants in order of their appearance. But there’s been some problems with the scanner, so appearances may be deceiving.

cooking appreciation

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

By God, I Love My Pens!

I remember my future wife-to-be forcing me to make scrambled eggs one morning back in the early eighties, because she would not tolerate the concept of a man who couldn’t cook.

To her credit, she had the nerve to eat what I made. Even though no one had ever seen scrambled eggs that colour before …

Yes, I managed to make it to adulthood with no concept of how to cook, and with only a very limited exposure to eating good food. The less said about the meals in the family home as I grew up, the better.

I didn’t really begin to cook regularly until I was practically 25, and then Crohn’s Disease set in when I was 29. I became a serviceable cook, developing a few strong points over time, but as my various medical conditions combined against me over the next 20 years, I had a harder and harder time just appreciating eating. There were days I simply couldn’t. Whole weeks where the finest gourmet cooking would taste no better than ashes. My system just didn’t take to the concept.

Then 10 years ago, at 48, they cut the tumour out of my heart, the Crohn’s settled right down, and by God I developed an appetite!

And after the better part of 4 weeks on Winnipeg Hospital food, I was ready for something good.

About 7 years ago, I took over the bulk of the cooking for our household, and when I finally left my day job 4 years ago before that killed me too, I dedicated myself finally to getting good at this food thing. Subscribing to Food Network somewhere in there helped tremendously as well.

Last year, I underwent a bit of an epiphany in the kitchen. We laid the basis for this happening the year before by having our ancient, 100 year old kitchen completely redone, making it more efficient all round for food preparation. I swear I became a better cook automatically by having a more effective mise en place to work with. Just changing the juxtaposition of the stove as it related to the fridge made a difference.

But at some point last year, in a gradual sense — I couldn’t name one particular meal that did it — my approach shifted from throwing things together and hoping for the best based on past performance, to finally having enough experience to know that if you start off with this basic principle of applying this flavour with this one and that one you’re going to get something that combines into something truly more wonderful than any of the components on their own. Suddenly I wasn’t just applying heat to this, that, and the other and tossing them on the plate. I was slowly eliciting flavours from each selected ingredient to unite in a finished whole of imaginative, yet controlled creativity.

And this is important because it’s too damn easy to take food for granted in this country of incredible plenty and endless selection. It’s too easy to fall into the trap of not being grateful for the individual bounty each and every component brings to a meal, when the push is on in our grocery stores for us to buy more and more meals already fully prepared for us. Never allowing us to know what’s really going into our mouths, or how some aspects of what should be coming to us through the natural ingredients are actually the result of added chemicals and artificial aromas used to fudge the effect.

I made what I considered to be a feast last Saturday, to share with my family and some good friends. I thought of it only as salad, pork, vegetables, potatoes and cake at first. But when I went to lay out the steps I was going to have to take to cook the meal, I needed to write out the menu in detail. Then the bill of fare magically became Panzanella with red pepper, green onions, feta cheese and olives; Roast Pork with Butternut Squash seasoned with olive oil and rosemary, accompanied by an orange-ginger sauce; Brussels Sprouts with bacon, apricots and cashews sautéed in butter; whole small yellow fleshed Potatoes in ranch dressing, green onions and lemon pepper; and Cinnamon Walnut Sour Cream Coffee Cake. And ice cream, because after all, who wouldn’t want ice cream after all that?

And don’t forget the wine.

After I wrote out the menu in full and detailed the 4 hours of steps necessary for creating it, I thought — look at all the wonderful stuff happening here! And I made a conscious effort to think of every ingredient with appreciation as I tried to use them with respect, from the tiniest pinch of salt to the Moby Dick of butternut squashes I had to wrestle with for 40 minutes before getting it into the pot.

But the ingredients appreciated the respect I gave them and came through for me in a big way. And I thought, this was such a great experience — to make and to eat — I should treat everything in life this way. Especially if I get results like this feast by taking this attitude.

In fact, I should apply this attitude to my writing. It can’t hurt.

So, by God, I honour the scribblers I write my manuscripts in! I even respect the computer I have to work with these days whether I like it or not.

But most of all, boy … 

Do I love my pens! Words, here we go. Bring on the feast!

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Time to bring out the Vampire! In a Contest like this, you gotta bring out Dracula. But maybe with a slightly different point of view. “The Down For The Count Shimmy” premieres Monday, March 9th, and you can see who survives the dance Friday, March 13th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

So what did the rest of the inmates get up to in Dr. Seward’s Asylum the night Renfield invited Dracula in?

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

All with illustrations by the author. Working through the Contestants in order of their appearance.

hypnogogia

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Hypnagogic, Dude!

That’s the catchphrase for a new character I’ll be using in a book later this year. I’m hoping it might start a trend. After all, hypnagogia’s cool!

Even if you don’t know the word, you know hypnagogia. Ever jerked awake suddenly from sleep because you were falling to your doom? Sure you have! That was a hypnagogic hallucination. Or what about being certain there’s a bee or a wasp in your room, but you can’t find it? Or having to run somewhere real fast, but you can’t move your legs? Or being abducted by aliens? Or being haunted by a twelve-inch tall goblin in a green coat and little hat that materializes up beside your bed if you accidentally let your hand or foot overhang the mattress —

Um. Actually, maybe that one’s a little more personal.

But have you ever had a uniquely similar sensation yourself, while trapped between dreaming and waking? That’s hypnagogia!

To be Hergé for a moment, hypnagogia by definition refers to the threshold consciousness you experience between sleeping and waking, a phase that might include lucid dreaming, hallucinations, and sleep paralysis. Purists will argue that hypnagogia refers specifically to the state experienced during the process of falling asleep, while hypnopompia covers the process while you’re waking up. Which is really more what I want to talk about. But quite frankly, I think “Hypnopompic, dude!” sounds stupid.

As I near the tenth anniversary of my ICU Dementia following my open heart surgery in 2005, I have distinct recollections of when the whole process got slightly more than out of hand for me. There was a good five day period when whenever I closed my eyes I couldn’t distinguish between the voices I heard and the bodies I imagined coming to probe and stick me with needles and the real voices I was hearing and the actual bodies coming to probe and stick me with needles. An experience that certainly taught me hallucinations can feel alarmingly real.

But on a regular day to day basis and night by night I am more genuinely intrigued and delighted by hypnagogia with its vividly hallucinogenic effects as an aid in the creative process. Case in point: just last week I had such a vivid dream during this period between my mind/body/subconsciousness struggle for supremacy I got the plot for a whole new novel out of it. On a theme I could never have imagined during my conscious moments in a thousand years.

It’s like a gift from some magical dimension! You are convinced by the vividness of the dreaming state combining with some body functions straining back to wakefulness that what you are imagining is completely real. Wonderful! You don’t have to write what you remember happening during these visions, you just report it. Easy, easy.

The tricky bit is that while what’s creeping to the surface from your subconscious might be utterly fascinating to you, does it make for good general storytelling? What’s your usual reaction to someone approaching you with a dopey grin on their face saying “I had this dream last night —”?

I think if told artfully, even the weirdest dreams can be made to work as good narrative, but it does require the application of the usual tools and techniques to make them so. In which case you’re not getting away with just “reporting” as I implied earlier.

But over the years I have found that I can be conscious enough of what’s going on to apply a problem in a plot I’m trying to get around to my thinking while slowly coming awake in the morning — and suddenly experience a terrific and original answer come to me as if from without that completely fixes my dilemma. And usually makes for a fair bit of satisfying storytelling. The sort of chapters that just roll out of you intact and as good as you’re going to get them, practically. No doubts about the writing at all.

Which again is the problem with the more elaborate dreams you experience in this state that you think might make a good story. The point is they weren’t stories when they were happening to you — they felt so real! As the best writing should, when it whisks you away. But for someone who wasn’t actually there experiencing the dream with you …

On the other hand, using this sort of raw material completely frees you from genre expectations. There’s no predicting what your mind might come up with in that fine state of hallucinatory half waking/half sleeping. As Jung would say, set free your collective subconscious! What’s a few irrepressible subliminal archetypes between discerning readers?

Put your psychic hangover to good work today!

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

The results are in for “Madelyn in Wonderland”. Proving once again there’s more than one way to win a Caucus Race. Judgement on Monday, The Electric Detective Chapter Five on Friday, March 6th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continuing at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Was it really Carroll-Ish or more Jefferson Airplane-Ish? That depends. What was really in those teacups?

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

All with illustrations by the author. Working through the Contestants in order of their appearance.