Geek Wisdom: A Review

Last week I read the new book Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture. This is a collection of ruminations on the most quotable quotes from those things held dear by self-proclaimed geeks and nerds everywhere: Comic books, movies, Fantasy and Science Fiction books, and television, among others. The premise of the book is that these well-known and oft-quoted phrases are more than just a secret language allowing Geeks to find each other, but form a body of wisdom that are part of a secular, Pop Culture, mythic interpretation of the universe. A variety of authors contributed to this book and the whole was edited by Stephen Segal.

I need to say up front here that Steve is a friend of mine, and has been for quite some time now. I first met Steve when I was writing articles for In Pittsburgh Newsweekly and he came on staff as an Arts editor and eventually moved on to the Editor in Chief position. He also became a customer of mine at Phantom of the Attic Comics and our mutual love and shared interest in these topics cemented our friendship. We have had both a professional and personal relationship ever since. Steve is the editor perhaps most responsible for shaping my journalistic writing skills, and as a writer I followed him from In Pittsburgh, to Whirl Magazine and Pittsburgh Magazine.

So I'm kind of biased to like what he does is what I'm saying here. With that caveat in mind, read on.

Since leaving Pittsburgh Steve has worked for Weird Tales Magazine, won a Hugo Award, and is currently an editor at Quirk Books. Geek Wisdom is simply the most perfect project that Steve could have done. This so clearly reads like most of the conversations I have ever had with him. He has tapped into a concept here that every Geek knows deep in their soul. We all have these conversations all of the time. Our pursuits are not the frivolous, ephemeral things most people would believe, but are the result of a tremendous amount of thought, intelligence and, yes, wisdom.

The book begins with the well-known quote from the first appearance of Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15. “With Great Power there must also come, great responsibility!” Since I fall primarily in the category of comics geek, this made me very happy. I see this as one of the truest things ever said in comics, and it provides one of the most pure motivations for a hero ever. But beyond the scope of the comic it is something anyone who wields power in any form to remember, whether that is political power or physical power, or whatever. Our words, the words of each and every one of of us, have to power to inspire or to hurt. We need to be aware of the power we have over those around us every day, and to use them responsibly.

And that's just where the book begins. While it does deal with heavy issues it never loses its sense of humor. That alone is one of the hallmarks of Geek Wisdom.

No matter how secular our society has become, or how far from traditional religion anyone has gone, we are all still seeking meaning in our lives, a way of understanding our place in the world and the universe. We are looking for stories by which to live.

Geek Wisdom does not present itself as a replacement for more traditional spiritual paths or religions. It does point out that wisdom exists wherever one chooses to look for it. Most of the analyzed quotes in the book fall firmly within the boundaries of wisdom established by those traditional paths. Pop Culture wisdom is the wisdom of the ages, tarted up in a new post-modern outfit.

The things you'll find...

I'm doing a vanity Google search and found a site that archives the two articles I wrote for No Depression Magazine in the 90's. No Depression is the primary magazine for the Alternative Country music scene (named after an old Carter Family song). One is on the band The Geraldine Fibbers (featuring Carla Bozulich), and the other is about Pittsburgh band The Deliberate Strangers.

I had no idea these were still out there.

http://archives.nodepression.com/author/wayne-wise/

Supergods and 7 Laws: A couple of reviews

I recently read both Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human by Grant Morrison and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes: Harnessing Our Power to Change the World by Deepak Chopra. That's probably a HUGE surprise to everyone who knows me and my interests. Both books covered the same general topics: The concept of the superhero as an image/icon/idea to aspire to (that's a huge simplification). What follows is not meant so much as a review of either of these, but very quick reactions to them.

Morrison makes the point that we are all becoming superheroes and illustrates this through a combination of analysis of the symbol of the superhero through specific comic books and characters, as well as through a sometimes off-topic personal autobiography of his life in comics. I've talked to some people at the store and seen some critiques online that the autobio parts are where he lost people. I found his whole approach interesting. I liked that he made the topic personal and viewed it through the lens of his own experience. I think this was necessary for the point he was making. He claims the title of “Magician” for himself and I think he very definitely views his life as the life of a superhero, at least given the definition of it he proposes. This approach is self-reflective and creates a recursive interplay of the more esoteric ideas he presents with real life experience and examples. A lot of his experiences, specifically his abduction/awakening, can be hard to swallow as “factual” but I accept that he believes it as his truth. Whatever the “truth” of this event it led him on a journey of self-discovery that has been transformational in his personal life. I know a lot of people just can't get past the mystical nature of what he is saying, but if you can't believe it “really happened” then approach it as a metaphor and move on.

Personally, I like his approach a lot (more than most of his actual comics these days). He reflects a lot of the ideas and attitudes I have about comics and superheroes role in pop culture. I won't bore you all with the number of times I was reading this book and thought to myself, “Hey! That's exactly how I covered this topic in my class!” This belief was reinforced last week when I had lunch with one of my students and she said pretty much the same thing, unsolicited by me.

Chopra's book was less impressive to me. The primary reason for this is that Chopra is very obviously an outsider to comics culture, and as such his manuscript is riddled with factual errors. I'm boggled that an editor, or his son Gotham, who is a comics fan and has worked in the industry, didn't correct these before the book went to press. His knowledge of esoteric thought and spiritual matters is great, and I applaud anyone who attempts to present work that makes us all take stock of our way of living in the world and presenting a metaphor for personal growth. I consider myself a prime example of someone who learned a lot of his basic morals and sense of right and wrong from the superheroes I grew up with. But his errors in comic book specifics undermine the perception of validity of the rest of the book. It really wouldn't have taken much to ascertain that Wolverine does not physically transform into into anything like he claims (“...to a range of superheroes like the Incredible Hulk and Wolverine, hereoes who physically transform themselves are plentiful and perennial”), or that Storm from the X-Men doesn't physically become an actual storm (“... or the character Storm transforming into a lightning storm.”).

The other problem I see is Chopra's undifferentiated, generic use of the word Superhero. He uses it all-inclusively. “Superheroes do” this. “Superheroes are” that. It's as if he believes that each and every superhero embodies all of the seven laws of spirituality. This is not only untrue but serves to limit the concept of the superhero and ignores the vast differences in characterization that has taken place over the years. If at any point he had stated that he was using the term as an all-encompassing archetype (and I would have the same problems with that in terms of limitation), or using it the same way a lot of texts refer to Buddha-nature, as an ideal to aspire to, I don't think I would be bothered. I didn't see that distinction in the text and as a result his statements came across as ill-informed, and more importantly, in a way that demeaned (or at least didn't acknowledge) the complexity of comics and the superhero.

Chopra's book is still worth reading for the underlying spiritual ideas if you haven't been exposed to them, but the specifics about comics are very light, and off-putting to those of us who know this stuff better than he does. Morrison's book is the opposite in many ways. His approach is based on an in-depth knowledge of the history and symbolism of comics, but due to his personal spin much of it is so idiosyncratic and specific that his point in the broader sense can get lost.

I love the fact that both of these books are available. It's symbolic of the increased interest in comics as well as the broader base of knowledge and academia being applied to them. Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend.

Separate links for books and Kindle editions.

Pittsburgh Zine Fair

I went to the first ever Pittsburgh Zine Fair last night at AIR (Artist Image Resource) on the Northside last night. Once again I am highly impressed with the sheer amount of great material being produced in this city and the community that supports it. The variety of topics covered in the zines represented is amazing. There were mini-comics, poetry chapbooks, art books, music zines, zines of political activism, and those that deal with all of the above and defy easy categorization.

I was intrigued by some of the conversation about the role of the internet in this sort of DIY atmosphere. It's been said that writing/producing is 3% inspiration and 97% staying the hell offline, and I think there's some truth to that. It can be a tremendous time-waster, I do see the internet as a great way of increasing the visibility of your work, finding a bigger audience for whatever you have to say, and most importantly, networking.

As my posts here indicate, I'm an old guy when it comes to this type of scene. I was putting together mini-comics by hand and selling them through the mail before a lot of the people at last night's vent were born. That is not meant to be an insult or demeaning to what they do. This is their t ime and I support the effort because I remember what it is like to want to get your work out there. I still do.

But I remember the days when it was really difficult to find an audience, or to let anyone else know what you were doing. When I was doing mini-comics and contributing to zines it was all through the mail. Today, one status update on Facebook lets more people know about your product than did in the entire time I was involved in the scene. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount out there, but it's possible to get it out there!

There is also the community. There were probably lots of other people in Pittsburgh doing the sort of thing I was in the early 90's. I knew about six of them. To walk into AIR last night and see that many people involved in this was remarkable. We were far more isolated in our efforts back then, simply because there weren't as many avenues of communication.

What an awesome display of creativity and mutual support. One more reason to celebrate Pittsburgh's scene.

Here's a view from one of the show's organizer's, Nick Marino.

Cover Story

One of the challenges for the self-publisher of Ebooks is being responsible for everything. This includes coming up with a striking cover image. Luckily, I have a modicum of artistic talent and design sense. Even luckier, I have a vast network of friends who are more talented artists than I am. For my project I enlisted the help of a couple of them.

The first is Marcel Walker. I have the benefit of him being my housemate, so I can pretty much bug him at any time to help me out. For the covers of both Scratch and This Creature Fair I had pretty clear ideas of what I wanted.

This is the doodle I did for Scratch.

This is the image Marcel came up with.

The photo is one of the Union Valley Methodist Church. This is the church I grew up in. My house was a few yards from where this picture was taken and the area around it is intrinsically linked to most of my childhood memories. I found this in a batch of pictures from my grandmother, Ida Wise. Someone had handwritten the date 1929 on it. Family legend has it that my great grandfather, Lon Wise, donated the land this church was built on in 1879.

I want to stress that no one in the book is based on anyone from this church. We never kept an angel chained in the basement. It doesn't even have a basement.

One of the recurring images and motifs in This Creature Fair is that of the bright red lips of the rock star, Morrigan Blue. My protagonist, Nick Chambers, is trapped by her charms and magic. This image has been in my mind since I first started writing the book.

This is my doodle.

This is what Marcel came up with.

My friend Margaret Bashaar, a talented writer herself, was my model for this. And yes, that is me in the photo as well. My original idea involved just the outline of the lips, but I LOVE the way this looks.

For Bedivere I knew I wanted something more traditional. The story is classic Arthurian fantasy, so I wanted something that conveyed that. I wasn't sure who I was going to ask to do this until I saw a post on Dave Wachter's website. Dave is a relatively new friend and an amazingly talented artist. He recently drew a three issue miniseries for IDW called That Hellbound Train (based on a Robert Bloch story. Dave regularly posts his artwork on his website. One day he posted a beautiful drawing of a knight on a horse and I knew exactly who I wanted to do my cover. The drawing I saw wasn't right for my book so I sent Dave some general ideas. I can't ell you how much I love what he came up with. If this epublishing thing is successful at all, and assuming I actually finish the project, there will be two more books in this series with covers by Dave.

Here is Dave's original painting without the cover text.

Thank you all!

My Ebooks are now available!

I have successfully uploaded my novels to three locations. They are now on sale from Amazon for the Kindle, BArnes & Noble for the Nook, and Smash Words for a variety of other ereader devices.

If you look at the banner at the top of this page you will that I now have an individual page for each book. There are cover images there, as well as my "Back Cover" book descriptions. I have written blogs about the writing experience of each. Be warned and be careful... There are possible SPOILERS in these posts.

And of course there are links to purchase the books.

Since this is the formal announcement I will post the links here as well. You may have noticed the scrolling widget on the right side of the screen. Those links will take you to Amazon.

So will these:

For the Nook follow these links:

Scratch

This Creature Fair

Bedivere: The King's Right Hand

For Smash Words follow these links:

Scratch

This Creature Fair

Bedivere: The King's Right Hand

I will be posting more about this in the next few days (months, years... enough that you'll probably get sick of hearing about it). In the meantime, I'm sounding the general call for friends and other interested parties to please post about this if you would. Self-promotion is the key to success in this venture (well... that and the quality of the books, I suppose). I'll be contacting some of you individually for assistance with that as well.

I'm pretty excited by the whole thing, obviously. Thanks to everyone for the support. Some specific thanks goes out to:

Lori Piper, long-term, lifelong friend who suggested I investigate this whole Ebook thing in the first place.

Marcel Walker, who aside from listening to me drone on about this project for months now, took a couple of little scribbles of mine and realized them as the covers for Scratch and This Creature Fair.

Margaret Bashaar, for loaning me her lips for the cover of This Creature Fair.

Dave Wachter, for the amazing painting he did for Bedivere.

So now what? Writing Part 9

KoS wasn't the last thing I wrote. I've written three complete novel-length manuscripts since then (and abandoned several other long projects that for some reason or another just didn't work). In future posts I will discuss these in more detail, but for now here's a quick run-down.

My second completed novel is a book called Scratch (the one that began it's life as a Guardians short story). It's a modern fantasy/horror novel set in the same world as King of Summer. None of the characters from KoS appear, but there is an overlap in the setting. It's a little darker in tone.

My third complete novel is called This Creature Fair. Set in the Pittsburgh music scene, the title comes from the lyrics to David Bowie's Lady Stardust, from the Ziggy Stardust album. It's another modern fantasy/horror novel. Several characters from King of Summer show up in this one, most notably Chris and Wren, now college age.

I thought I was done with my Arthurian obsession and after KoS would never need to revisit it. I was wrong. I never intended to write my own take on the classic legends, but somewhere along the line I came up with an approach I haven't seen before and before I knew it I was sucked into writing a novel. Bedivere: The King's Right Hand is the first of a trilogy (at least the way I currently have it outlined). This by far the biggest and most complex project I have yet attempted. The second book is in progress.

Though I'm pretty sure PublishAmerica would have published a second novel from me I felt like I wanted to move up the publishing ladder, so I never sent another one to them. I have submitted Scratch to several publishers and agents. I pitched it in person to an agent from the Virginia Kidd Agency at a writers conference I attended. Based on my pitch she asked me to send the complete proposal to her. She rejected it. So have a number of other publishers and agents. In each case I received a real letter, not a form rejection, telling me that while they really liked my writing style (the agent I met described my writing as “lyrical”), they weren't sure how to market the book. It doesn't fit comfortably in a pre-established genre-specific market.

I've heard a number of agents admit that they are all somewhat schizophrenic when it comes to what they agree to represent. Each one of them claims to be looking for that brand new thing that will set the publishing world on fire. Each one of them is likely to continue to represent safe, genre-specific, easily defined and marketable products. I can't even bitch too much about this. I understand that they make their living from books that sell and the truth of it is, formulaic Harlequin romances outsell experimental literary fiction by a huge margin (not that my work qualifies as either).

So my writing is at a professional level, but since it's not something easily categorized it was passed on.(okay, to be fair and self-aware here... it could be that the book simply doesn't live up to their editorial standards. But the tone of their letters seem to indicate otherwise). Anyway, long story short, it gets really tiring submitting manuscripts and then waiting for months on end for a response. That experience is compounded by most publishers having a “no simultaneous submissions” policy. What this means is if I've submitted to one company I have to wait until I get a response before I can submit it elsewhere. A person can get very old going through this process too many times.

Now, add to that the ongoing loss of brick and mortar bookstores. The big chains moved into towns and put the independent bookstore out of business, and now the big chains are going bankrupt. Online book sellers took a huge chunk out of the bookstore market. There are less and less bookshelf inches of display space every day and as a result the big publishers are becoming even more conservative with what they choose to stock. Proven sellers like Stephen King and Nora Roberts will continue to dominate those shelves, while new writers will have an increasingly difficult time being represented at all.

It has been a weird few years because of conflicting dynamics. Because of print-on-demand technologies, new small press publishers, ala' PublishAmerica, have cropped up all over the internet. Since 2002 I have visited a number of writer's resource sites on a regular basis. Some of these maintain an ongoing market update, listing publishers who are currently accepting submissions and how to contact them. I have seen dozens of small press, print-on-demand companies come and go in that time, some without ever publishing a book. Those who do survive, like PublishAmerica, make your book available through online sales and all of the major book distributors, but have very little success actually getting their books into the stores. When KoS was in print you could walk into any Borders or Barnes and Noble and have an employee look it up in their system and order a copy. Your chances of actually ever finding it on display were nil.

The only copy I ever saw in a bookstore was at the Washington Crowne Center Mall (or the Franklin Mall, as I'll always think of it), at the Walden Books where I had bought most of my reading material growing up. I didn't know anyone who worked there and I hadn't contacted them to order my book. Either someone I knew ordered one and told them about it, or they saw the article about my novel in the local paper and took chance on a local boy done good.

So, what's a writer with aspirations of actually being read to do? The answer, currently (and I realize I may lose some librarian friends over this), seems to be epublishing.

I have a lot of mixed feelings and thoughts on this, and I plan on elaborating here, so this may be a good place to bail.

I knew that ereaders were out there, the Kindle and the Nook specifically, and I kind of knew that there was a self-publishing option available through them, but I had never really investigated this option until a friend pointed it out to me (Thanks Lori!). Turns out, the benefits to the author are really pretty good ones. There are downsides of course, but it looks to me there's very little personal risk involved and the potential for significant rewards.

Pretty much for forever now the concept of self-publishing, deemed the “Vanity Press,” has been looked down on by the “legitimate” publishing business. There are reasons for that. In the past, anyone with the financial resources could publish their book without any editing or polishing. The overall quality of most of these books was questionable at best. There were those that transcended that; Walden by Thoreau is the one most often referenced. Even at the time when I first started looking at how to submit, Vanity Presses were something of a no-no. If your book came out from one of these, no matter what the quality was, it seemed you were likely to be blacklisted from major, royalty-paying publishers. This was their goal as businesses and as gatekeepers. The major publishers want to make money from their product and anything published outside their rubric is a threat. They determine what sees print, what gets distributed and seen in bookstores. The upside to this is that they do have a long history of professionalism and editorial decisions. The downside is anyone new trying to join their ranks has a very difficult time. It is possible, of coarse, but I believe a lot of good writing gets overlooked (it has become a cliché to point out that the first Harry Potter book was rejected, I believe, 37 times before someone took a chance on it, because no one believed an audience existed for that kind of book).

If you've been reading this blog, or know me, you know that I come from a comic book background. The self-publishing revolution began there in the 1970's and has been a respected form ever since. Books like Cerebus, Elfquest, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bone and countless others have proven that quality work will find an audience even if the major publishers (in this case Marvel and DC), don't believe in it initially. Each of these books were critically praised and profitable, seeing reprints and new product over a period of years. Of course, there are dozens if not hundreds of self-published comics at this point that have failed for any number of reasons, lack of quality among them. The point is, in the comics industry the concept of the creator of a book owning the rights and publishing something and making the bulk of the profits for themselves has been a long, ongoing successful practice. The concept of a vanity press simply doesn't exist there. You put out the work, promote it yourself, and succeed or fail on your own merits. It's a much more democratic process and I have a lot of belief that if the creators do the work then quality will find an audience.

This idea is just now hitting book authors, and the technology to make it happen has exploded.

So, I did some research. Here's the deal...

The positives are very simple. I write something. I'm responsible for the quality, meaning I need to give my manuscript to trusted readers and editors to tell me where I suck. But bottom line, I own my work, and I'm responsible for it. I can upload it to Amazon Kindle and a minute later upload it to Barnes and Noble's Nook, and a minute after that upload to SmashWords who make it available to multi-platform ereaders of all kinds. I have an account with each of these (and there are others), and they will make my work available for digital download worldwide and make no claims on my copyright or ownership. At any point I can choose to remove my work from their sites and cancel my account. They will continue to offer my work pretty much forever (or until the next big technological change). The term being used is “Perpetual Bookshelf.” If you are lucky enough to be published by a major and get your book in an actual bookstore your shelf life is pretty limited. You have a few months to make an impact and find an audience and if you don't your book goes into the remaindered bins. Your sales are also limited by your print run. If they print 5000 copies and you're lucky enough to sell them all you then have to wait for a second print run to get your book out there. With digital downloads your potential sales are infinite.

You do not have to invest in a Kindle or a Nook to read any of these books. There are free App downloads available for Ipods, Ipads, cell phones and computer screens. Smashwords makes books available for downloads in PDF and RTF files so you can simply read them on your computer.

The royalties are amazingly better than with traditional publishers. When King of Summer was published my royalty on the ridiculously overpriced cover price of $21.95 was around 2 bucks. My royalty on a $2.99 ebook? Around 2 bucks. Now call me crazy but it seems like I'm much more likely, as an unknown author, to sell more copies of a novel at $2.99 than at $21.99 (plus shipping and handling). My cut of the profits goes from about 10% to about 70%. Since the book and the work that went into it is mine, that seems much more fair.

I don't plan on getting rich overnight, if ever. I'm very realistic about my chances here. My books will be among thousands available, and the chances of enough people finding them and being interested are slim (you know, just like in a real bookstore). There have been some Ebook writers who have been incredibly successful and have reaped tremendous financial rewards. But people like Amanda Hocking and John Locke and Joe Konrath are the exceptions. Many people publish and sell very little.

The responsibility for marketing is mine. I won't have the backing of a major publisher to put ads in the trade mags or promote it in any way. That was pretty much my experience with PublishAmerica anyway. They made it available online and expected me to promote it. Now I can do the same thing and keep a higher percentage of the profits. With social networking sites this is a much easier task than it was when my novel first came out. One status update on Facebook reaches out to my 500-plus friends. That alone is probably more than heard of my book in 2002. If even a small percentage of them repost it, or mention it, or blog about it or review it somewhere my potential customer base expands dramatically.

And trust me, Facebook friends... I'm going to be hitting you up to help me promote this stuff.

I am also responsible for creating the covers. Luckily, not only do I have some artistic design skill, I know a lot of very talented artists.

Now for the downsides. These mostly fall in the category of what epublishing is doing to the book market. I love books. Actual, square-bound books with lots of pages. I like they way they feel in my hand. The way they smell. The way they sit on my bookshelves, silent but filled with words and knowledge, entire worlds folded up between two covers. A librarian friend of mine said to me recently that physical books sing to her. I hear that song. Books have been constant companions to me since before I could read. I love bookstores and libraries. I love browsing through the stacks. They are the churches of the secular soul. Browsing online bookstores will never be the same.

Epublishing, as well as the economy, and the price of books are conspiring to kill the bookstore, and by joining this revolution the bloody ink will be on my hands as well. There is something about this I find very sad.

I don't see print going the way of the dinosaur entirely for awhile yet. As long as there are bibliophiles out there print books will survive. But it will be different. This is the same resistant feeling I had years ago to digital music and the Ipod I, and now I can't imagine living without one. The technologies have changed and there is no going back. The Ebook is a reality and the question is how do each of us choose to interact with this new technology. I recently read my first book on a Kindle, and while it was a different experience, it was still reading. The content of the book I read was the same no matter what physical form it took. I'm about to start a second one. I don't see this as replacing physical books for me for some time, but it is another format. One of the upsides of this revolution is that the price of Ebooks are significantly lower. Hopefully this will lead to people actually buying and reading more than they currently do ($21.95 for my book my ass!).

One of the compromises being offered is that through a program called Create Space, once a book is made available through Amazon Kindle they give you the option of making physical copies of your book available through print-on-demand. I'm not at that stage of the process yet, so I have no idea what kind of price point there will be on these hard copies, but I know I'm going to want a couple for my own bookshelf. Anyone who wants an actual copy of one of my books will be able to order one.

So, the end result of all this is my announcement that within the next few days I will be jumping head first into the role of Epublisher. Each of the three books listed above will be available at the same time. A new, digital edition of King of Summer will follow eventually, as well as as-yet-unwritten projects. I will post ordering information, as well as links to the Apps at that time. Each of my novels will have its own page here on the blog. Check out the banner at the top of the page for that.

So... That's that. Wish me luck.