Category Archives: The Writing Life

The Sorry State of Modern “Literature”

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This graphic speaks volumes, and loudly.

Tired of wading through fetid piles of genre garbage? Of reading the same cookie-cutter books over and over, with little changed but character names and small details? If so, I’m the writer for you! Sign up for my monthly e-newsletter (click the blue button on the right of this page), and check out my wild, daring novel Orange Rain, for starters.

The Venn of Koontz

Ours is the generation that needs to overcome this nonsense–to start taking risks again, to write books that are distinct and memorable, ones that reach for something truly great; if we missed, at least we failed in a noble pursuit. I’m talking about altering the entire motherfucking literary landscape here! The baby-boomers had their chance, and most of them failed woefully (see above). Now it’s time for US to go down in history as the generation that reinvigorated the stagnant cesspool that the world of published books has become. Will you join me? Take my hand, I’ll lead the way…

DCIM100GOPRO

Length DOES Matter (When it Comes to Books)!

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The entire back-breaking first draft of THE LIBERATORS, 1600 pages handwritten!

The entire back-breaking first draft of THE LIBERATORS, 1600 pages handwritten!

I’ve always been a fan of well-rendered novels that push (or even shatter) the norms of scope and length. The standard advice is that a novel should be between 80,000-120,000 words. For a printed book, that tends to fall in the range of about 250-400 pages. Good advice. Given the feverish pace at which life runs these days, a lot of readers may shudder just at the heft of a book much longer than 400 pages. But not me. I like a story that I can really sink my teeth into, with a complex and ambitious plot, an extensive cast of memorable characters, in which a detailed, full-hipped world is erected—a place you don’t want to leave any time soon. This is probably why I vastly prefer novels over short stories (for reading and writing).

So it’s no surprise that Stephen King’s The Stand (~1,053 pages) was my favorite novel from the age of 14 through well into my 20s. Another King epic topped it in length, and upended it from my top spot: 2010’s Under the Dome (~1,074 pages). I read the latter three times over the course of just 18 months in prison! And even on the second re-read, I still found it a thrilling page-turner. That’s indicative of a spectacular tale, indeed. Also in my top five is the late genius David Foster Wallace’s unequaled masterpiece Infinite Jest. That one exceeds 950 pages if you include the extensive endnotes.

Given the above, I guess it’s also no surprise that I’ve become a page-cranker myself. The third novel I wrote, Redwood Falls, was well over 600 pages in the first draft. My sixth novel, The Liberators—which I handwrote in prison because there were no accessible word processors—turned out to be a staggering 1,200-plus pages when typed. Over 360,000 words. And my current project, a fiercely unique prison memoir called Rebel Hell: Doin’ Time for Barely a Crime, is already over 500 pages. And I’m not even close to done with the first go-round.

Don’t worry; I cut a significant portion in the subsequent drafts (usually about 20-30 percent). During first drafts, it seems like I’m feeling around, writing my way to what it is I want to say. During revisions, I cut unnecessary scenes, shorten others, and sometimes eliminate entire subplots or characters. Some great writers—notably Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins—weren’t/aren’t heavy editors. They work on a page until it’s as close to perfect as they can get, so after a draft is finished there’s little editing to be done. Other juggernauts—like David Foster Wallace and John Irving (who’s said that something like 75 percent of the time spent on his novels is in the edits/rewrites)—were/are feverish first-draft-revisionists. Infinite Jest, which as noted is still a carpal-tunnel-danger, was at one point about twice its final-draft size.

One thing is certain: whether you crank out massive tomes or minute, straightforward speed-reads, length should be an important consideration both for burgeoning writers trying to break through, and for already-established scribes. We need to consider our subject(s), our intended or probable audience, costs of production, and a multitude of other factors. In any case, the adage Length Does Matter happens to be true when it comes to writing novels.

***What are some of YOUR favorite heavyweight tomes?***

My First Ever Glossy Publication AND Cover Story!!

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The new issue of The Animals’ Voice magazine is now out, and I WROTE THE COVER STORY!!

av mag
If you haven’t read it yet (it’s on my blog and has gotten around a lot), the piece is at turns riveting, heart-wrenching, beautiful, enraging, and of course militant. The issue is available for free download and print purchase here:

https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/666827?__r=20874

It’s only $6.40 for a beautiful, glossy, sleek print copy. May I suggest that it could make a fabulous stocking stuffer or 1/8 Hannukah gift or a present just b/c you’re awesome, given that there are various holidays coming up that I neither care about nor celebrate, but encourage you to do so by purchasing this awesome magazine that features SIXTEEN (16!) pages of text/pics from my piece?

Here’s their website: https://animalsvoice.com/the-magazine/

May I also suggest, if you’ve read it and/or read it soon and/or love me and/or want to support my work, that you tell the amazing editor and activist Lauren Moretti how much you liked the story and/or how much you appreciate her publishing it and/or how you found out about the magazine because of me/my cover story? Her email is 4rights@animalsvoice.com

Hoka Hey!

NaNoWriMo, Week 1!

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Me with the 1st draft of my handwritten-in-prison, epic animal liberation political thriller: The Liberators, 1,600 pages!

Me with the 1st draft of my handwritten-in-prison, epic animal liberation political thriller: The Liberators, 1,600 pages!

The first week of NaNoWriMo has passed.  Read my previous blog to see how I’m doing things a little differently.  In a nutshell, I’m not trying to write a novel, because I was already well into writing my prison memoir Rebel Hell:  Doin’ Time For Barely a Crime when November began.  So my goal was to write at least a novel’s worth of words on the memoir this month (50,000 words).  And so far it looks like I’m on track!!

 

I started the month with 96,000 words written.  I’m now at about 112,000, meaning 16,000 words written in 8 days.  2k/day on average, which puts me well on my way to accomplishing my personal challenge.  I’m also very pleased with what I’ve been writing.  This is by far my most experimental book; I’m trying to craft a Januscript that, in the reading of it, makes the reader feel like they’re actually feel certain elements of the prison experience.  Mainly the way it creates in the Inmate’s mind a certain sense of the malleability of time.  So I’m using footnotes and flashbacks and flip-flopping chronology and dreams to try to mirror those sensations for the reader, and I’m pretty pleased so far with how I’m doing—especially since it’s just a first draft and I’m writing fiendishly!  It also happens to be (I think) very, very funny.  Funny in pitch dark, irreverent, grotesque, heart-wrenching ways.  Which is exactly what I’m going for!

 

I tend to heavily overwrite on my first drafts; I’m not always sure what I want to say, or what I want to happen.  So I kind of “doodle” my way toward the (soy-) meat of the scenes and the socio-political themes.  Then, in the second draft, I edit heavily, with the aim of cutting at least 20 percent or so.  Couple examples:  The first draft of my (rewritten) first novel High Society was about 355 pages, and now it’s at 285 (24.5% cut).  The first draft of my third novel Redwood Falls was 460 pages, and now it’s 365 (26% cut).  Of course it would be nice if I could just write it the “correct” length the first time around, but that’s just not how it pans out with my writing style and abilities.  And hey—all that extra writing, and hence editing, that I have to do because I have what Stephen King calls “diarrhea of the word processor”—it just means I get more practice.  And even though I’ve been writing novels for 11 years now, there’s always room for improvement!

 

Happy NaNoWriMo, and good luck for Week 2!

My NaNoWriMo Challenge

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November is National Novel-Writing Month, as many of you know, and many of you maybe don’t know. Every year, aspiring writers are challenged to complete an entire novel in just this one month (50,000 words is the low-end cutoff for a piece to be considered a novel; between 30k and 50k, it’s considered a novella. Fewer than 30,000 words is the accepted range for a short story. Most novels by writers who actually get paid and have agents and editors and other professional-type attributes tend to be between 80,000-120,000 words).  This year I will join in for the first time. But—me being me—I’m going to do it differently than most participants.

I’m currently working on my prison memoir, Rebel Hell: Doin’ Time For Barely a Crime. I started November already about 95,000 words in. Before I started that, I completed a 300,000+ word epic, ultra-militant animal liberation novel called The Liberators. So basically, I’ve been writing the equivalent of a novel a month for about the last 4-6 months, ha! I don’t need the NaNoWriMo Challenge to write a novel—I’ve already completed 6 of them, plus halves of 3 others! But I’m approaching a difficult stretch of my prison memoir, so I’ll play along and use NaNo as motivation to continue kicking ass on the memoir. My goal is to write 40,000-50,000 words on the book this month. I’ll post weekly updates with my progress, and perhaps some juicy excerpts.

I could work on what will be my next actual novel—Aran Kerplowski and the Polish Family Circus—and easily bang out a first draft, or at least 50,000 words of a first draft, this month. I have enough material in my head for it to complete a draft. But I think I need to write that particular novel at a slower, more deliberate pace. It will be of a higher quality that way, and like I said, I most certainly do not need NaNo and a feverish write-no-matter-what challenge to complete any novel. So instead, I’ll just challenge myself to continue my heavy, feverish, dedicated work on the prison memoir—which I think is an extremely funny, heart-wrenching, politically important book. I also think it may be the novel that helps me break out for a wider audience, since prison stories and shows and movies are so popular.

Happy Writing!!  Don’t let it drive you too crazy…

SCARE-EE

I Almost Died Today

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So I went cliff-jumping today—I’ve gone several times as an adolescent and teenager, but I only did a 10-foot jump, at Slide Rock outside Sedona, Arizona.  But today I did one that was over 20 feet and one of 30 feet.  I think it’s important for writers to push themselves to the brink, stand on the edge and look down (or in this case jump), in order to come back and report to the masses what it’s like.  At least it’s important for serious Gonzo-type writers like me, who believe in doing things most people wouldn’t do, both physical and mental (interpret the latter any way you want, but I will say that drugs are bad and I would never take them, especially the psychedelic, consciousness-altering ones that I’m talking about taking, entering that other realm, and coming back to tell you what it’s like).  And by physical I mean stuff like serious cliff-jumping, swimming with deadly sharks, skydiving with or without a parachute, traveling to sketchy places, and just living dangerously in general.

Anyway, the cliff-jumping was utter amazingness.  It was at an old dam somewhere in the mountains of Southern California, and it’s my new favorite spot in this wretched wasteland.  The jumping was nothing; I don’t fear heights—in fact, I LOVE heights.  Here are a few pics from the adventure, and a video of me jumping.

Looking down from atop the dam.

Looking down from atop the dam.

 

With my old high school buddy Marcus, who brought me to this great place.

With my old high school buddy Marcus, who brought me to this great place.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKEk8pQFDf0&feature=youtu.be]

No, it wasn’t the treacherous rocky cliffs that almost killed me.  It was the path back up to the road.  I was in something of a hurry, as the lovely woman I’m dating arrived sooner than I expected and the path down to the dam is far too difficult and complex for her to do solo.  So I was rushing, and wasn’t paying close attention to traveling back up the way I’d come down.

That would’ve been the smart thing to do.  Which is probably why I didn’t do it.  My dumb Polack ass.  Instead I just took the first path I found, which brought me to an EXTREMELY steep and perilous incline, 20 feet to the top.  It was mostly loose sand, with some loose rocks thrown in for extra fun.  When I say steep I mean like about as much as this:  /  (!!)  There was nothing to grab onto either—all the roots of the surrounding vegetation were tiny.  I tried going up sideways.  Lost my footing and slid down 5 feet.  Screamed obscenities.  Tossed my canvas bag up to the top—missed once and it slid back down.  It didn’t help that I also had my good camera with me, which meant a heavy over-the-shoulder case, which continually threw off my delicate grasp on balance.  I just could NOT gain purchase.  Finally I tried crawling, digging my hands into whatever bits of rock or hard soil I could find.  I made it to within 5 FEET of the top.  Then I slid all the way back down on my ass and arms and hands, scraping off skin, gathering momentum.  I only stopped myself from crashing in a heap on the rocks below by reaching out and clasping an outcrop of rock, Tom-Cruise-Mission-Impossible-2-style, near the bottom.

My arm.

My arm.

Ouchie.

Ouchie. 

Then I went a little bit north, gushing sweat, scraped and bleeding, gasping for air, on the verge of an asthma attack and a panic attack and passing out from heat exhaustion (my water was in the bag that I threw to the top of the incline) in the 95 degree mid-day, and found a much easier way up.  By the time I got to the road and my lady friend—sitting in the turnout on the other side of the road—saw me, I could barely walk.  My arms and legs and shirt and shoes and socks were SOAKED, and caked in paste-ish dirt-mud.  I collapsed onto my knees, feeling like I was going to vomit.  After 10 minutes of rest and almost-passing-out and gasping and some lukewarm iced tea, I felt like I’d make it.  Barely.

And you know what?  I’m actually GLAD it happened.  Given that I have a depressive mind/mood, I go through many of my days not feeling much, sort of drifting, floating.  But after that short stretch of absolute terror, after looking death or at least severe E.R.-level injury in the face, and coming out on top, it made me feel ALIVE.

Now whether being alive’s a good thing or a bad thing…it depends on what minute you ask me  😉

Smitowicz Out!
BarbaricYawpingJan @JanSmitowicz

Submission Bonanza!

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This is a cool post I came across on Lightning Droplets; it is both interesting and useful.  I definitely don’t have the time right now to submit to 30 magazines in one month, but I will be using the well-researched links to LitMags to submit some of my shorter pieces of fiction and narrative nonfiction!  This is super helpful, since the links to 30 different Mags are all collected right there in one place; it saves others the time of sifting through and trying to figure out which ones take unsolicited submissions, etc.  Check it out, and good luck!

Submission Bonanza!: Racking up Rejections, or 30 LitMags in 31 Days.