Indies on the Rise

I recently came across a statistic indicating that independent bookstore growth is on the rise--make that steady growth since 2009. Need a colorful graphic for that? Check it out here.

Which begs the question, in my mind, why the growth? I've got a few thoughts...

1. Bookstores smell better than the sterile void of cyberspace shopping at Amazon.
Nothing smells better than a new book. Well, okay, I'll give you fresh chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. But gobs of books on shelves? Oh yeah! That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

2. Personal interaction with a wizened bookseller who knows "just the right book" for you.
When you get to know an indie book guru, the flip slide is that they get to know you. Knowledge is power, my friend...the power to recommend some kicking books that you might not've discovered otherwise.

3. It's quaint to stroll down to a bookstore and peruse the shelves.
Re-read that sentence. Quaint. Bookstore. Peruse. Are you getting a warm fuzzy? That's because bookstores ARE warm and fuzzy. There's a certain aura surrounding a bookstore that hearkens back to yesteryear. It's relaxing and blissfully stress free. Plus it's way cheaper than getting a massage.

4. Independent bookstores are on the rise because there's not much difference between big box booksellers and big website hockers.
The thing about indies is that by their very nature they are different. They cater to a unique clientele instead of the masses.

So take a field trip this week and check out a nearby independent bookstore. I'm not saying you have to ditch Amazon completely, just enhance your book buying experience by branching out a little.

Writing Nook Take #1

I'm on the search for a cozy library home in which to pen my next Great American Novel. Want to come along on the journey?

Surfing on a MacBook Air

Just because I needed to escape the bizarro freak show that is my life, after I spent a mindless hour or so watching reruns of the original Twilight Zone, I topped that off by surfing the net. You are about to reap the benefits of that search. Don't worry. I kept it writing related so no need to hide the children's eyes or plug their ears. You don't even have to put away the cat.

I wanted to see what would come up first for certain writerly words, specifically involving the word write. Here goes...

The first site for the word WRITE is, naturally, the definition. Who gets the bragging rights for that? Merriam-Webster of course.

Next up I tried my luck with the word WRITER. Wikipedia headed the list, but we've all been there, done that. So I'm going with the second site on the page, which is Writer: the internet typewriter. It looks like some kind of freebie word processing program thingamabob. Personally, I use Word.

WRITING was my next word. Wikipedia trounced the competition, once again. We'll go with entry numero dos, which is Writing.Com It's an online community for writers of all interests and skill levels. Looks like there's lots to do there, so you might want to check it out.

And lest we forget past tense, I gave WROTE a whirl. This time I did go with the Wikipedia entry. It's all about John Fogerty's 10th album "Wrote a Song For Everyone." I didn't know any of the songs. Actually, I'm not even sure who John Fogerty is.

Last but not least, I googled WHY WRITE? The first entry was from the British Library. It's a very short history of marks and symbols used for writing.

This was an interesting exercise, but not nearly as fun as pinning on Pinterest. Hmm. Maybe next time I could combine the two and do a search for words involving pin.

Driving With Dekker

My last car trip was with Ted Dekker. While I drove from Minneapolis to Indianapolis, I listened to the audio version of Boneman's Daughter. Before I get into commenting on Ted, can I just say that hearing a man do female voices is freaky? I mean, yeah, I know the entire story was supposed to be creepy, but the dude's falsetto tone added an extra eew factor.

Now then, dare I admit I've only ever read one other Dekker? That was Showdown, and frankly, I wasn't that impressed. The writing was fine, but nothing that made me underline a catchy phrase or want to cry because I wish I would've written it first. The story moved along all right, but not at a breakneck pace that made me sit on the edge of my seat. All in all, I really didn't see what the Dekker fangirls were foaming at the mouth about.

Obviously I wasn't that put out, though. I figured any author can have a mediocre book, even one with a big name, so I decided to give him another try.

This time I still didn't find the magic of a Crichton or the killer prose of a Steinbeck, but the story pulled me in from the beginning and kept me engaged throughout. If you like scary (I'm talking serial killer kind of fright), then you'll want to scoop up a copy. But if you're easily grossed out, definitely pass.

Dekker's okay, but honestly? I probably won't go out of my way to score any more copies of his books. Hear that, Dekkerites? That's one less fan you'll have to elbow out of the way at his next signing.

How Short Can Short Be?

A story doesn't have to be thousands upon thousands of words. A lot can be said with bare bones, leaving all the fill-in-the-blanks up to the reader. Sometimes those kinds of stories are the most haunting.

Need an example? Here's a tale in only two sentences:

"The last man on earth sat alone in a room.

There was a knock on the door."

~ by Fredric Brown

Makes you wonder who--or what--is making the knocking noise, eh? And what happened to all the rest of the people, leaving only one to sit in a room? Nuclear destruction? Some kind of rabid virus to which a single person was immune? Personally, I wonder what the room looked like. I see it with cracked plaster walls, a single light bulb hanging by a frayed wire, a fine layer of dust coating everything--even the man.

Here's an even shorter story by Ernest Hemingway:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

You can't help but wonder why those shoes were never worn. My brain takes an immediate left into sadness by assuming the baby died. But for those of you who are more optimistic, maybe the mama simply hit a hot shoe sale and the lucky baby had so many, the kid merely grew before he could wear them all. Maybe it's none of the above and the parents' income took a nosedive so they had to sell the baby's shoes for the moolah to survive.

See, it's really not that hard to come up with a short story. The trick is in evoking some kind of emotion in the reader. Here's my shot at it...

Thorn. Flesh. Mother.

What questions or mind pictures does this raise? Have at it in the comment section or try your own hand at composing a shortie.

Pigeon Holed

While I was at the ACFW Conference a week or so ago (yeah, I'm still banging on that drum), I pitched an idea to an editor for a historical I've got floating around in my grey matter. She smiled politely and even nodded in the right places, but she didn't go for it. The problem with my story is that there's not one Amish character in the dang thing, and besides Yoders and lots of cows getting milked, the only other kind of historical they're acquiring is prairie romance...which is basically the same thing but with tall grass.

But that didn't stop me. I knew this particular publisher was also looking for contemporaries with humor and mystery, so I pulled out a story I've been working on with a buddy. It's a wacky crime solving tale with 2 widowed sisters-in-law who live in a retirement community. The editor smiled and nodded, then asked me which genre I wanted to write in, historical or contemporary? Serious or humorous?

Ummm....all of the above?

Let's just say that appointment went on a non-stop trip to Nowheresville. It did, however, force me to revisit my stance on the issue of writing in only one genre.

Question: Does a writer have to write in one genre only?
Answer: No

Did I seriously say that out loud? Yep, and I do so knowing such a view goes against what most every agent and editor will tell you.

Question: Who in the bleepity-bleep do I think I am disagreeing with the all-powerful and wise publishing professionals?
Answer: A Big Nobody

But (and I've always got a big but) that doesn't mean I can't hold a differing opinion. The thing about writing in two genres (and I don't advocate writing in many more than that) is if you have a passion, why restrict your storytelling to a particular box?

Oh, I know. It's a marketing nightmare. It makes branding nearly impossible. Readers won't know what to expect. Blah, blah, loud and obnoxious raspberry noise.

Call me schizophrenic (go ahead, I've been called worse) but I honestly do have a passion for each of these stories even though one is set in the pre-revolutionary war era and the other is modern day. I thought I'd solved this dilemma by writing time travel, which encompasses any time period. It was a great idea literally speaking, but money-making wise, not so much.

Question: So as I sit down to write today, what story should I work on?
Answer: Umm. Yeah. Great question.

Maybe I'll just crawl back into my Regency pigeon hole and nest for the winter.

Question Jar Take #37