I’ve said before, The Great Gatsby is possibly the Great American Novel, if you look at it as a technical achievement. It’s about 55,000 words, which was astounding to me. In Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, I tried to compete with that. It was one of the basic guiding principles for my writing. I’ve always competed with that. Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life. Shoot, I couldn’t match 55,000 no matter how I chopped. There are few things that I read and say, ‘Boy, I wish I could write that.’ Damn few. The Book of Revelation is one. Gatsby is one.

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - The Rolling Stone Interviews (via jujumigu)

What happens if you fall in love with a writer?

Lots of things might happen. That’s the thing about writers. They’re unpredictable. They might bring you eggs in bed for breakfast, or they might all but ignore you for days. They might bring you eggs in bed at three in the morning. Or they might wake you up for sex at three in the morning. Or make love at four in the afternoon. They might not sleep at all. Or they might sleep right through the alarm and forget to get you up for work. Or call you home from work to kill a spider. Or refuse to speak to you after finding out you’ve never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. Or spend the last of the rent money on five kinds of soap. Or sell your textbooks for cash halfway through the semester. Or leave you love notes in your pockets. Or wash you pants with Post-It notes in the pockets so your laundry comes out covered in bits of wet paper. They might cry if the Post-It notes are unread all over your pants. It’s an unpredictable life.

But what happens if a writer falls in love with you?

This is a little more predictable. You will find your hemp necklace with the glass mushroom pendant around the neck of someone at a bus stop in a short story. Your favorite shoes will mysteriously disappear, and show up in a poem. The watch you always wear, the watch you own but never wear, the fact that you’ve never worn a watch: they suddenly belong to characters you’ve never known. And yet they’re you. They’re not you; they’re someone else entirely, but they toss their hair like you. They use the same colloquialisms as you. They scratch their nose when they lie like you. Sometimes they will be narrators; sometimes protagonists, sometimes villains. Sometimes they will be nobodies, an unimportant, static prop. This might amuse you at first. Or confuse you. You might be bewildered when books turn into mirrors. You might try to see yourself how your beloved writer sees you when you read a poem about someone who has your middle name or prose about someone who has never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. These poems and novels and short stories, they will scatter into the wind. You will wonder if you’re wandering through the pages of some story you’ve never even read. There’s no way to know. And no way to erase it. Even if you leave, a part of you will always be left behind. If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.

Dear nearly-twenty-five-thousand Tumblrites who have reblogged this particular post:

Hi. My name’s Mik. I wrote that post. Did you like it? I hope you did. You probably did. Why else would you reblog it? Well, some of you didn’t like it, but I’m pretty sure that most of you probably reblogged it because you liked it. At the very least, a few thousand of you probably did.

Well, I have something to tell you. Firstly: You guys really heightened my confidence as a writer. I didn’t think I could write. Not things people would read, anyway. Then you people read that. And reblogged it. And I was like, well shit, 24-thousand-odd people read something I wrote. And I didn’t even mean for them to. I didn’t know anyone would read it. How many people could I get to read something I wanted to be read?

So I self-published a book. That’s right, YOU freaks are responsible for this phenomenon. I spent 7 years writing, editing, and querying for an agent, and all it took was four months, thirty-five dollars, and a shit-ton of Tumblrites for me to publish it all by myself.

So now that I’ve said thank you, I’d like to give you my thank-you gift. That’s right, you get a gift. Today, Sunday, May 20, the Kindle version of my novel is free all day. Here’s the link to purchase Turtle on Kindle for the great low price of zero dollars, yours to keep forever or until e-readers become obsolete. It is also borrowable for free all day everyday from the Kindle Lending Library. I guess that’s just how libraries work, bro.

So, thank you. Please reblog so that everyone gets the gift… er, um, my gratitude… And please keep reading and writing and making life magical. <3

Love,

Mik.

(Source: karenfelloutofbedagain)

What happens if you fall in love with a writer? Lots of things might happen. That’s the thing about writers. They’re unpredictable. They might bring you eggs in bed for breakfast, or they might all but ignore you for days. They might bring you eggs in bed at three in the morning. Or they might wake you up for sex at three in the morning. Or make love at four in the afternoon. They might not sleep at all. Or they might sleep right through the alarm and forget to get you up for work. Or call you home from work to kill a spider. Or refuse to speak to you after finding out you’ve never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. Or spend the last of the rent money on five kinds of soap. Or sell your textbooks for cash halfway through the semester. Or leave you love notes in your pockets. Or wash you pants with Post-It notes in the pockets so your laundry comes out covered in bits of wet paper. They might cry if the Post-It notes are unread all over your pants. It’s an unpredictable life.
But what happens if a writer falls in love with you?
This is a little more predictable. You will find your hemp necklace with the glass mushroom pendant around the neck of someone at a bus stop in a short story. Your favorite shoes will mysteriously disappear, and show up in a poem. The watch you always wear, the watch you own but never wear, the fact that you’ve never worn a watch: they suddenly belong to characters you’ve never known. And yet they’re you. They’re not you; they’re someone else entirely, but they toss their hair like you. They use the same colloquialisms as you. They scratch their nose when they lie like you. Sometimes they will be narrators; sometimes protagonists, sometimes villains. Sometimes they will be nobodies, an unimportant, static prop. This might amuse you at first. Or confuse you. You might be bewildered when books turn into mirrors. You might try to see yourself how your beloved writer sees you when you read a poem about someone who has your middle name or prose about someone who has never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. These poems and novels and short stories, they will scatter into the wind. You will wonder if you’re wandering through the pages of some story you’ve never even read. There’s no way to know. And no way to erase it. Even if you leave, a part of you will always be left behind. If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.

What happens if you fall in love with a writer?

Dear 24-thousand-odd Tumblrites who have reblogged this particular post:

Hi. My name’s Mik. I wrote it. Did you like that post? I hope you did. You probably did. Why else would you reblog it? Well, some of you reblogged it to say not very nice things about me, but I’m pretty sure that most of you probably reblogged it because you liked it. At the very least, a few thousand of you probably liked it.

Well, I have something to tell you. Firstly: You guys really heightened my confidence as a writer. I was like, well shit, 24-thousand-odd people read something I wrote. And I didn’t even mean for them to. I didn’t know anyone would read it. How many people could I get to read something I wanted to be read?

So I self-published a book. That’s right, YOU freaks are responsible for this phenomenon. I spent 7 years writing, editing, and querying for an agent, and all it took was four months, thirty-five dollars, and a shit-ton of Tumblrites for me to publish it all by myself.

So now that I’ve said thank you, I’d like to give you my thank-you gift. That’s right, you get a gift. On Sunday, May 20, the Kindle version of my novel will be free all day. Here’s the link to purchase Turtle on Kindle; all day on Sunday, May 20, it will be for sale for the great low price of zero dollars, yours to keep forever or until e-readers become obsolete. It is also borrowable for free all day everyday from the Kindle Lending Library. I guess that’s just how libraries work, bro.

So, thank you. Please reblog so that everyone gets the gift… er, um, my gratitude… and keep reading and writing and making life magical.

Love,

Mik.

↵ Originally from karenfelloutofbedagain

↵ Reblogged from superforcewooster

# what happens if you fall in love with a wiriter

Q: What’s your advice on writing? I write a lot, but sometimes it feels like nothing I write is ever good enough.

A: Oh wow. Okay this is like being asked what the meaning of life is, but here goes:

Read. Read a lot. Read everything you can get your hands on. Read the postmodern classics. Read Hemingway and Vonnegut and Atwood. Don’t just read novels. Read poetry. Read the newspaper. Read the back of the shampoo bottle. Read nonfiction.
While you’re reading, keep a mental ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ list. What is interesting? What isn’t? What seems melodramatic? What is meant to seem melodramatic? Where are there errors? Where are the errors effective? That is how one learns to write. (I’ll give you a head start on this one: Only lazy writing uses adverbs and adjectives. Good writing doesn’t need them; it uses descriptive verbs.)
But, while you’re at it, work on your grammar. I would highly recommend Constance Hale’s Sin and Syntax. It is specifically for using grammar effectively in prose.
Make lists. Collect something. Whether it is beauty salons with punny names (Curl Up and Dye, etc), quirks you run across (a grocery stocker who chews cardboard from the boxes while they work), pet names, clothes-catalogue colors (what the fuck is ‘heather,’ anyway?), brands of beer (from Blue Moon to Corona), breeds of dogs— It doesn’t matter, just collect something. Now when you need a detail for a story, you have a whole fucking database.
Where are you going to keep these lists? Oh yes, in your handy dandy notebook! Get one and keep it with you always. Oh, and a good pen. One that writes really smoothly. I recommend a G2 or Uniball, and a Moleskine to write in. To each his own, but I’ll say this much: If you don’t have a favorite brand of pen or notebook, you’re not a writer.
This notebook is also for words you don’t know. When you come across a word you aren’t familiar with, whether it’s in a novel or on the back of your shampoo bottle, write it down. You don’t have to look it up now, but look it up sometime. Learn new words.
Make a list of words you already know; specifically, your favorite ones. Figure out why they’re your favorite ones. Because of how they sound? Because of its denotation? Because of connotations? Expand this list. This list should consist almost entirely of verbs and nouns. Fuck adverbs.
Finish stories. Honestly it doesn’t matter whether you start a story if you never are going to finish it. When you get an idea for a story, go ahead and write it down, but for Christ’s sake, never start a story if you don’t know where it’s going. Know the ending when you start. A story is not a sequence of events; it’s a plot. The end is what’s important, and everything that comes before the ending must logically lead to the ending.
That being said, Kurt Vonnegut once said the best way to write a short story is to start with a declarative sentence, and then simply answer all the questions that sentence raises. The story is done when all the questions are answered.
Write every single day. It doesn’t matter what or how much; just write.

# rebloggable version!

# writing

# lit

Spam time. My copies arrived today and I just wanted to show off. Ya know, if you like good books (or me), you should probably order a copy. :D

So here’s the deal: My novel Turtle: the American Contrition of Franz Ferdinand is now available for sale. The biggest difficulty with self-publishing is advertising. I’m going to market my novel to some local bookstores and see if I can get them to cary it, but beyond that, I’m relying on advertising via social networking. So, basically… if you read the story and like it, please let your friends know on Tumblr! :D

Should I just self-publish? I can publish with Amazon and put my novel in an e-reading format, which would keep it really cheap… I could also publish with CreateSpace with Amazon, which has non-exclusive distribution rights so my options would be open in the future…

What do you guys think? If I self-published, would anyone buy?

# writing

# fiction

# self-publishing

Anonymous asked

Hey :) I was looking for Wichita blogs and I see you are from Wichita, like me. and I see you have an interest in linguistics, like me. I was wondering if there are certain languages you like? or why about linguistics interests you? :)

Cool, who are you? :)

My first language was Creole but I stopped having contact with Creoles when I was 5 so I quickly lost my vocabulary. My primary language is English, and I consider French a ‘foreign language’ but because of my extensive exposure to Creole, French really doesn’t seem like a true foreign language. It’s almost native. I’ve been quite interested in that distinction, and loved language since I was a child. At various intervals, I attempted to teach myself German, Japanese, Roma, Russian, and Latin… there’s probably others that I am forgetting. I’ve had the most recent success with Russian, but as a child I would usually accumulate a vocabulary of 500 to 1000 words before simply getting bored and moving on to a new language… losing my abilities in the previous language.

Now, I work in a logic lab. What I truly enjoy about logic is that it is language, symbolized. It removes all connotations (for example, the word ‘but’ is equivalent to ‘and’) and renders language into a purely objective series of subjects, predicates, and their various connectors. With a key indicating which letters symbolize which words, logic allows you to move between languages, or even to say the same this in the same language in multiple ways, using equivalencies. It’s interesting to see which sentences, although they have vastly different connotations, logically say the same thing. A very simple language example would be “If you don’t eat your vegetables, then you won’t get desert” and “You will eat your vegetables or you won’t get desert.” Even someone with no schooling in logic (namely, the child being addressed) knows that these sentences are equivalent; yet most people would not know you can make and if-then statement by using the word ‘or.’

I am also interested in linguistics because I am a writer. I write both poetry and prose, and I like using linguistics to various effects. An analogous situation: Anyone can do drugs, but a chemist has greater appreciation for what is actually causing the changes in their body and mind. Ya know? Anyone can write some words down, but a linguist understands what effect they actually have on the mind.

“Every writer must be like God in His universe.” If you know a writer, watch out. Good things don’t happen when you fuck around with God.

# writing

In the last thirty or forty years, the writer has become someone who works on a well-defined career track, like any other middle class professional, not, however, to become a craftsman serving the community, but to project an image of himself (partly through his writings, but also in dozens of other ways) as an artist who embodies the direction in which culture is headed. In short, the next big new thing. A Rushdie. A Pamuk…

The task of the writer [is] not just to deliver a book, but to promote himself in every possible way. He launches a website, a Facebook page, perhaps hires his own publicist. He attends literary festivals all over the world, for no payment. He sits on the jury for literary prizes for very little money, writes articles in return for a one-line mention of his recent publication, completes dozens of internet interviews, offers endorsements for the books of fellow writers in the hope that the compliment will be returned.

“The Writer’s Job” Interesting piece by Tim Parks in The New York Review of Books. (via fictionfiction)

↵ Originally from fictionfiction

↵ Reblogged from saturday-night-hemorrhagic-fever

# writing

Or, if you want my ten tips for writing advice condensed into exactly one sentence:

Fuck adverbs.

(referencing this post).

# writing

# advice

existingasamemory asked

What's your advice on writing? I write a lot, but sometimes it feels like nothing I write is ever good enough.

Oh wow. Okay this is like being asked what the meaning of life is, but here goes:

Read. Read a lot. Read everything you can get your hands on. Read the postmodern classics. Read Hemmingway and Vonnegut and Atwood. Don’t just read novels. Read poetry. Read the newspaper. Read the back of the shampoo bottle. Read nonfiction.
While you’re reading, keep a mental ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ list. What is interesting? What isn’t? What seems melodramatic? What is meant to seem melodramatic? Where are there errors? Where are the errors effective? That is how one learns to write. (I’ll give you a head start on this one: Only lazy writing uses adverbs and adjectives. Good writing doesn’t need them; it uses descriptive verbs.)
But, while you’re at it, work on your grammar. I would highly recommend Constance Hale’s Sin and Syntax. It is specifically for using grammar effectively in prose.
Make lists. Collect something. Whether it is beauty salons with punny names (Curl Up and Dye, etc), quirks you run across (a grocery stocker who chews cardboard from the boxes while they work), pet names, clothes-catalogue colors (what the fuck is ‘heather,’ anyway?), brands of beer (from Blue Moon to Corona), breeds of dogs— It doesn’t matter, just collect something. Now when you need a detail for a story, you have a whole fucking database.
Where are you going to keep these lists? Oh yes, in your handy dandy notebook! Get one and keep it with you always. Oh, and a good pen. One that writes really smoothly. I recommend a G2 or Uniball, and a Moleskine to write in. To each his own, but I’ll say this much: If you don’t have a favorite brand of pen or notebook, you’re not a writer.
This notebook is also for words you don’t know. When you come across a word you aren’t familiar with, whether it’s in a novel or on the back of your shampoo bottle, write it down. You don’t have to look it up now, but look it up sometime. Learn new words.
Make a list of words you already know; specifically, your favorite ones. Figure out why they’re your favorite ones. Because of how they sound? Because of its denotation? Because of connotations? Expand this list. This list should consist almost entirely of verbs and nouns. Fuck adverbs.
Finish stories. Honestly it doesn’t matter whether you start a story if you never are going to finish it. When you get an idea for a story, go ahead and write it down, but for Christ’s sake, never start a story if you don’t know where it’s going. Know the ending when you start. A story is not a sequence of events; it’s a plot. The end is what’s important, and everything that comes before the ending must logically lead to the ending.
That being said, Kurt Vonnegut once said the best way to write a short story is to start with a declarative sentence, and then simply answer all the questions that sentence raises. The story is done when all the questions are answered.
Write every single day. It doesn’t matter what or how much; just write.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Tips for Writing Short Stories:

tempest-at-noon:

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

Every sentence must do one of two things-reveal character or advance the action.

Start as close to the end as possible.

Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

↵ Reblogged from tempest-at-noon

# Kurt Vonnegut

# Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction

# writing

Did I tell you that when you said to me, “I

didn’t know you speak French,” after

I read Sophie a bedtime story, I felt whole: like something

you’d pick up and keep. I collect your

words like I make lists: when the Niagara Falls froze,

silence woke the neighbors up. There’s

no one with my list of stolen metaphors. I wish

everyone had as many, or even someone who

listens. Everyone should hear, “I didn’t know you

speak French.” —as if you found the last piece of a jigsaw

puzzle behind the couch, just when I think the puzzle is as

complete as it will ever be and that the hole will be there

forever.

So, guess what. My Fiction professor has met Ken Kesey.

If you don’t know Ken Kesey, you can just fuck off right now. If you’re curious, he wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, rode around in a bus with The Grateful Dead, and helped popularize LSD.

Anyway my professor was at a writing convention somewhere and he was looking for something and happened to wind up in the hospitality room— face-to-face with Ken Kesey. Kesey told him (my professor) that if he told a good joke, he could stay. My professor told a joke and Kesey must have liked it because he let him stay.

My professor had a beer or something and Kesey was drinking gin out of a large tumbler with a ratty sort of lime on it. When he thought of it, he’d put some ice in his drink— the idea being that he was drinking a gin and tonic— but really he was just pouring down gin.

They talked for about forty-five minutes before my professor worked up the nerve to, in Tumblr-language, fangirl all over Kesey.

“Cuckoo’s Nest was my favorite book as an undergrad,” he said. “And Bromden’s hiding in a closet at the beginning, practically incoherent, you know, he’s just living in this fog, and by the end of the book, he willfully smothers McMurphy as an act of, you know, friendship— some say love. And I just— I just have to know, how did you come up with it?”

And Ken Kesey is sitting there, gripping his gin, sort of tilting back and forth with his eyes going in opposite directions, and he says, “Hell, kid, I don’t know!”

My professor said that what we can learn from this story is that all writers are liars, but I think that’s a bunch of bull.

# ken kesey

# one flew over the cuckoo's nest

# the merry marauders

# writers

# writing

Hi.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Turtle

by Mik Everett

Or, if you want my ten tips for writing advice condensed into exactly one sentence:

Kurt Vonnegut’s Tips for Writing Short Stories:

So, guess what. My Fiction professor has met Ken Kesey.