bromeara8 – Page 63 – Home of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast

Good times for readers and writers

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I’m not prone to fun. I don’t like crowds. I have broad shoulders so I tend to bump into people. I’m not very social. I like to watch movies on my somewhat undersized TV and read books. My wife doesn’t like me^1^. If there’s wet blankets, I’m like the smallpox-infected blankets Jeffery Amherst gave to Native Americans.

But I have fun when I listen to Book Fight: Tough Love for Literature. It’s a podcast for writer’s, though serious readers would dig it too. It’s a podcast about books, but a podcast recorded as if it were cool to talk about books at your favorite bar. It’s profane^2^, curmudgeonly, and just good company.

Tom McCallister, co-host of Book Fight and author of Bury Me in My Jersey: A Memoir of My Father, Football, and Philly, is a friend of sorts, though we’ve never met. We “met” through email when I gave his memoir a 2-star review on Goodreads. He wrote to me about it and I gave him my reasons. He does a great thing in his memoir that has to be applauded: he writes an unflattering picture of himself, which is a lesson unto itself in memoir. I gave it 2 stars because I wanted more of his father in the story and I don’t like footnotes^3^. He’s a great writer, an unpretentious product of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, which says something in and of itself. All in all, if you’re writing memoir, you should read his. His book has 45 ratings on Goodreads, which is a ton (I have 12) and most are 5 stars. Overall it’s a 3.84 stars out of 45 reviews. That gives you an idea that it’s a great book.

Since that first email a few years ago, we’ve kept in touch about sports and writing. Then he started the Book Fight podcast with Mike Ingram, fiction editor at Barrelhouse. It’s a fun listen. I’m listening right now. Naturally, if you’re a geek for the mechanics of prose, subscribe to it on iTunes.

Footnotes

1. Not entirely true. She likes the occasional social interaction where I’d rather stay home and read.
2. Not overly so, tastefully profane, like talking sports at a bar. But not a Philly, New York, or Boston bar. Maybe like a Seattle bar, or an Asheville, NC bar.
3. I have since come around to footnotes. I found them so disruptive to the narrative that I usually can’t continue reading. It’s like reading with the TV on or something. They make for funny tributaries that don’t belong in the main river.

The offer still stands, for a time, that should you subscribe to this website, I’ll send you a personalized copy of Six Weeks in Saratoga. Subscribe, I’ll reach out to you. My thanks to you. If you factor in shipping, that’s a $30-value, if you’re into value plays.

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Breaking from Research

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Written by Brendan O’Meara
Word Count: 347

Read Time: 2 minutes

I need to step away for a moment. Going from one form of writing to another, but eff it, I’m doing it. This is my life and who asked you anyway? I kid, I kid.

Well, what’s new? What can I share? What will make this post of any value to YOU. It is Valentine’s Day, so I could wish you a happy Valentine’s Day. So … Happy Valentine’s Day. Here’s a poem inside the wrapper of some pretty kick ass chocolate the wife gave me today:

Ever feel like you’re being watched?

Naturally, being totally skeeved out by my smallest dog, I went out for a few minutes to get a cup of coffee.

Grande Pike, splash of Half and Half, tablespoon of brown sugar, you nosy reader.

When I came back, I set up my camera rig. Yeah, it’s down and dirty, how I like it. Gonna start doing some cool video marketing that I hope to parlay into other ventures for authors.

Jealous? Little bit ... — Jealous? Little bit …

Oh, and this arrived today, which is always one of the high lights of my quarter.

So I’ve been averaging three pages a day as I look to finish my baseball memoir. Been reading Danielle Trussoni’s Falling Through the Earth. The structure is similar to mine. A live thread and a discovery thread. Good stuff. Hers. Not mine. Maybe mine. Too early to tell.

I guess I have to get back to work here. Oh, one more thing. I’ll leave you with one of those annoyingly cute dog pictures.

Jack loves to be under covers and by a space heater. Don't feed him after midnight or get him wet. He turns into a gremlin. — Jack loves to be under covers and by a space heater. Don’t feed him after midnight or get him wet. He turns into a gremlin.

Why don’t you subscribe to my blog/website/future email newsletter? I want to fully nauseate you on as many platforms as possible.

And if you subscribe, I’ll include a free signed copy of Six Weeks in Saratoga—a $30 value after shipping—for you, oh loyal follower.

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Going into the (Bat) Cave: upping the ante and finishing a manuscript

Written by Brendan O’Meara
Words in Post: 138
Read time: 30 seconds

Sometimes it’s time to pony up and JUST GET IT DONE. I haven’t necessarily been putting it off, but I guess I have been. Without deadlines, things tend to flounder. So, in the spirit of NaNoWriMo, in the spirit of Parkinson’s Law, I’m going to finish The Last Championship in 30 days.

Here’s where I am in a double spaced Word doc: 194 pages and 55,160 words.

Suffice to say I’m probably 2/3rds of the way done as is, but I’ve been squatting on this final third for far too long.

Imposing a tight deadline will get it into the stage where it can then be properly rewritten.

I’ll let you know how it goes on March 7, subsequently the first full day of the AWP Conference in Boston.

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Manuscript Impossible: Taking Control of You and Your Work

Written by Brendan O’Meara

A show I can’t get enough of is Restaurant Impossible on the Food Network. Chef Robert Irvine visits dilapidated restaurants in need of a facelift. He. Gets. Brutal with the owners and staff. He has two days and $10,000 to give them a second chance. It’s Extreme Home Makeover for restaurants.

Many of the restaurants have dingy carpets. Smells hit you in the face. Staff is unfriendly and unknowledgeable. Trash, clutter, and waste fester in kitchens. It’s a look inside the cluttered minds of these restaurant owners.

Robert blitzes in. He’s like Gordon Ramsey and Simon Cowell with Mr. Olympia biceps.

Here’s the show’s flow chart:

1. Establish how futile the restaurant is
2. Charts a course to save the restaurant, though can’t see how it’s possible
3. Atomic bombs the menu
3a: Brings in design team to make the restaurant over on tight budget
4. Work
5. Address underlying issues/Raise the stakes with staff and owners
6. Marketing new food to Chamber of Commerce
7. Re-open “new” restaurant. Tears flow (Yes, I get misty here. So does Robert: the drill sergeant becomes Pooh Bear)
8. Robert coaches the kitchen, iron out kinks on the fly
9. Epilogue: did the restaurant make the changes stick? Most do, some fail and fall back into the same habits that brought out the failure in the first place.

As I watch, I get motivated. Robert’s passion is undeniable for food and restaurants and he finds it insulting when others don’t take their craft seriously. It made me think: Am I doing what I can to uphold the craft of writing?

I too get insulted by people who do say they “would like to write a book some day,” as if all it takes is a little time and nothing else, just something they can squeeze in between lattes and knee surgery.

My manuscripts feel like the dingy restaurants, with complacent sentences hanging there because they can. Just because this sentence is written, doesn’t mean it’s great; just because it’s readable, doesn’t make it acceptable.

Whatever the manuscript and whatever the length, you can put yours through the ringer too: Manuscript Impossible. But you have to get brutal. It’s not enough to murder your darlings, you have to draw and quarter your darlings, put them on pikes outside bridges to deter invaders. Gruesome? Well, do you want to get on the right path or not? Good.

1. You’ve got a manuscript. Great! Also: B.F.D. Big fuckin’ deal.
2. It’s bad. You know this. But what must happen?
3. What scenes (in nonfiction, are there scenes? Do the Yellow Test) must go? Enhance?
4. Start trimming. It’s probably too long. This piece was 646 words. It’s now 601.
5. Evaluate work habits. Trash clutter as clutter leads to procrastination.
6. Allot time for social networking and promotion. Connect with readers and writers in your genre on Facebook and Twitter. Set a kitchen timer for one hour every morning and tend to this garden (visit and comment on related blogs. This feels like a waste of time, but it’s an investment. Bloggers = reviewers. We ain’t getting’ into the New York Times Book Review)
7. Wow. Look at that slim manuscript! It looks pretty good. You never knew it was in you!
8.But it can be slimmer. Every. Word. Show. Let’s not waste anyone’s time.
9. Epilogue: TBD

I’ve used this quote before. I think it helps in all areas of life, not just in writing:

One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.

—Bruce Lee

Now let me know what you’re up to in the comments.

Professional Symbols

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Written by Brendan O’Meara

I was reminded of a scene from the movie Patch Adams. The dialogue escapes me, but it goes a little something like this: Patch didn’t care for the symbols of being a doctor. He didn’t care for the white jacket or to practice medicine in the traditional sense. His love interest, played by Monica Potter, followed him down his path, but she said something to the effect of, “I want that jacket.”

I’ve been watching the DVD extras, as I love doing, for The Hunger Games and listening to the director, Gary Ross. I saw shots of him sitting in his director’s chair—the movie makers symbol.

I think it’s these symbols that draw people to professions, the white jacket, the director’s chair, cuff links, Jaguars, chef’s frocks. What of a writer? Steaming coffee? A typewriter? The yellow pad? Writers, but especially the aspiring writer, is more in love with the Hemingway-ian ideal. Writing for a few hours in the morning, then going to the bars, or hunting, or to the bull fights, having affairs, shotgun intimacies.

I follow a lot of writers on Twitter and a lot of writers on Twitter follow me. There are a LOT of people who call themselves writers. Many self publish, some have contracts, but most look to occupy the writer’s space versus gutting it out, as Verlyn Klinkenborg is so apt to say.

When you graduate medical school you’re a doctor. When you graduate law school, you’re a lawyer. When can a writer call itself a writer? Penning a letter? A blog post? An essay? A column? A book? A traditionally published book?

The line is murky. This started as a post on the symbols we strive for. I think mine is my reporter notebooks and voice recorder. These are my fishing nets, how I gather information, my symbols.

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Tag Lines: How Netflix can improve yours

Written by Brendan O’Meara

Yes, tag lines. What are they and why are they important? First, it’s a one-sentence summary of your book. In about 30 words, can you successfully and succinctly sum up what your story is about? Second, in your marketing questionnaire, you’ll need to build one so it will fit nicely in a catalog. Or, if you’re lucky enough to be in the presence of an inquiring agent or publisher, you need to pop this sentence off and hook them in the ten seconds it takes you to recite it.

Now that I’ve defined it, how can Netflix help you out?

On the live stream, every show has a tag line below it. Here’s the one for my favorite show, Lost:

After their plane crashes on a deserted island, a diverse group of people must adapt to their new home and contend with the island’s enigmatic forces.

26 words. Quick and easy. It doesn’t mention the greater game at play between Jacob and the Man in Black. It doesn’t mention the Dharma Initiative or time travel. You know a plane crashes on a mysterious island. I’m hooked.

Another one of my favorite shows is Breaking Bad. Here’s the Netflix tag line:

A high school chemistry teacher dying of cancer teams up with a former student to manufacture and sell crystal meth to secure his family’s future.

No mention of escalating drug wars and gruesome grips for power. Perfect.

How about something a little lighter, say, from the movie Thor:

Powerful thunder god Thor is stripped of his power and banished by his father Odin, forced to live among humans on Earth to learn humility.

Here’s Walking Dead:

In the wake of a zombie apocalypse, survivors hold on to the hope of humanity by banding together to wage a fight for their own survival.

Bottom line we see what the stakes are and why we should be interested. You must be able to do this. It’s a good exercise in brevity, getting to the point, and using word economy to sell your work.

And another important matter, if you can’t sum it up in a tag line, you don’t know the what you’re book is about. If you don’t know what your book is about, you can’t distill its essence to a greater public. You won’t even reach that far. It won’t get to the public until you can reduce your 100,000-word tome to 25 words. It ain’t easy. So let’s play.

What’s your tag line for you project? Let’s workshop them in the comments. I’ll start with two of mine.

For Six Weeks in Saratoga:

Filly Rachel Alexandra caps off an undefeated season by beating the boys for a third time en route to being named Horse of the Year.

For The Last Championship:

A son watches his father play senior softball and learns to reconcile to the bitter end to his own baseball career by playing again.

Now it’s your turn!

This is a Featured Story #5

This is an example of a WordPress post, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many posts as you like in order to share with your readers what is on your mind. This is an example of a WordPress post, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many posts as you like in order to share with your readers what is on your mind.

Editor Dog Hard at Work

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Written by Brendan O’Meara

We all have editors and some of those editors are dogs. Sure, Jack, my uber-fixated, medicated, mentally troubled Jack Russel mix doesn’t actually read anything, but his ever-looming presence makes him just about as irritating as some editors I’ve had. Exhibit A:

The Stare. Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me. I’m not looking at you. I’m not looking at you. I’m not looking at you.

Which is all well and good, but those eyes weigh on you. Soon, even when he’s fallen asleep, I still see him. There. Staring. Judging.

The Lounge. Still staring at you, but I’m in a posture that allows for maximum stamina. I can stare you for hours in this position.

Most dogs sleep their days away. This is the case with my lab mix, Smarty. He’s downstairs right now. Sleeping. Couldn’t be bothered with whatever-it-is-I-do. Which, right now, is a useless recounting of a dog getting in my cage. Naturally, under the stress of such boring eyes, it becomes more intense. Like, “You best get your shit DONE! or I’m telling steady-paycheck-Mom.”

All Business. Your ass better get a move on. Stop blogging.

Fine! Fine! I’ll stop blogging and work on, shit, what am I working on? A new book? A magazine piece? Both. Jack, no! Not the throat!

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