Why we're all liars

Are you fucking kidding me?

Imagine this. I wait outside the front of my house for the postal carrier, pretending to trim the trees. When he or she comes by I say, “Hey, be careful. My neighbor is letting his dog wander loose, and it's a mean one.”

Or, I go down to the grocery store and stand by the entrance while I pretend to text my wife and ask what kind of cheese she wants me to get. When a customer with either darker skin or wearing some kind of religious clothing clears the checkout line I go up to the manager and say, “Excuse me, but that person just pulled some steaks out from underneath their coat.”

Or, I drive down to Brownsville, at the Mexican border, and I run around yelling, “The Mexicans are coming! The Mexicans are coming! Their tanks will be here in fifteen minutes!”

Or, I take a bus to Boston, Massachusetts, and run up and down the streets yelling, “The British are coming! The British are coming! They're worried about Trump taking power and they're going to invade!”

Now at what point did your disbelief give you pause?

A few days ago a man named Edgar Maddison Welch scared the hell out of some people and could have gotten those people and himself killed. The details are few and far between right now, but what's generally agreed on is this: He read some writings online that claimed a certain pizzeria was just a front that masked child abuse. He believed those writings strongly enough to arm himself and go down there. He fired his weapon inside the business, and later he was arrested.

Now, we haven't heard directly from him (and if he or his lawyer have any sense at all, we won't), but a couple of facts stand out.

1. He didn't go in shooting, wasn't focused on killing every adult in the building.
2. One phrase keeps being used over and over again, in quotes. Self-investigate. Again, we haven't heard from Welch's lawyers (by now he should have some), but whoever they are they haven't come forward to denounce this quote as false, and every time it's repeated it digs this man's grave a little deeper. A very specific grave.

Now I've stated my assumptions first. If any of them turn out to be false, then my conclusion is invalid for Mr Welch, but my point is still going to be valid.

I don't think he is a fanatic. We've seen a lot of fanatics lately, in this country and others, and they go in with guns blazing, intent on racking up as high a body count as they can. Blood is the goal for fanatics because as far as they're concerned they're the ones god chose to whip the whole world into shape, and when you're having that intimate a tea party with your spook of choice, blood is the only drink you serve.

So if he isn't a fanatic, what is he?

Naïve. A naïve fool.

If you just got an incredulous look on your face, please understand my terms. There's no pain or damage that a fanatic can inflict that a fool can't match. Anyone can inflict pain and shed blood. You. Me. Anyone.

Again, how did he wind up where he is now? He read a story online, something along the lines of the bait stories that leap out at you while you're waiting in line at the grocery store, and he went in there ready to shoot. If you claim he isn't a fool, show me what scale he used to judge that all the people in there were part of that conspiracy, and that's why he didn't mind driving them into a panic. Show me where he studied the architecture of the building to be sure that whatever point he fired that weapon at didn't have a brick wall or metal pipes or something else solid enough to shatter the round and send fragments into the crowd. You fire a rifle inside, you're gambling with your own life and with other's lives. He's a damn fool.

Go back to those example I gave you above. Some of them I think most of us would fall for, but they get progressively ridiculous. Now add a fact to each case. In the first, I've been feuding with my neighbor because his dog has been doing his business on my lawn. Second, I'm wearing a tee shirt that says 'God bless the KKK.' Third, I've set up a little stand by the side of the road, and it has a big banner that says, 'Anti-tank rockets, $500 dollars apiece.' Fourth, if anyone stops to listen to me explain my claim, I tell them that in order to get the whole story they'll need to buy my book, and I just happen to have a few copies with me. In other words, in each case I have a reason to lie that benefits me personally. Now does that fact give you pause, even in those cases that seemed straightforward?

Then put your pause function on speed-dial, because you're going to be using it. Everyone has a reason to lie. Why? It's fun to lie. Why the hell do you think I want to make my living doing it? Why do you think damn near everyone does it, every single day of their lives? It's free, it gets the liar some attention, and it's easy. Now I'm not talking about the simple lies that make a person's day easier. 'Damn, honey. I meant to unload the dishwasher but I forgot.' 'Honey, you know I would never forget your birthday. I had reservations for dinner but the boss says I have to work late.' Those are lies of convenience. They're a quick shot of bullshit to cover up mistakes, and so, we benefit from telling them. But the person who first claimed that J. Edgar Hoover liked long dresses and frilly undies? That friend of yours and mine who swears that their cousin's neighbor once popped her poodle in the microwave to dry it off? They get that moment when we fall for it, and that shared magic when a good story finds an audience. Storytelling is magical, and magic can be worked with truth or bullshit. That's the power of magic.

But please don't start believing in spirits to the point of handing over money to Madame Zelocka, who claims she has an urgent message from your-long departed Uncle Phil. Believe in fairies if you want to, but not to the point of hateful words for someone who doesn't. Don't be so ready to believe that hundreds of people can consciously work together to keep a secret, a secret that's spread all over the web. If you do, you're a fool. Not evil, but a fool.

Enough with the blogging. Let me get back to telling lies that I'll get paid for.

Back to writing.

To hell with you. I am the exception.

Coming toward the end of another year. Not the best one, true. But who knows what the future holds? Not me, says the flea.

Another Halloween has come and gone, which in itself should have prodded me to write. This year I played with an interpretation of Krampus, cuddly Santa's uglier, meaner big brother, as my costume. It still needs some tweaking, but I got a lot of comments on how cool it was, and one of the best complements you can get that special day of the year. 'Trick or trea –.' That's the golden moment when someone a third of your height looks up at you and forgets that the secret code phrase ends with a plea for goodies. That's when they look up at you and maybe see what you're trying to show them; the dark, special magic that our ancestors once wove by sharing stories over campfires. I might have inspired a budding young storyteller this October night. Or one of America's future serial killers. I take no responsibility either way.

Of course we also had the annual turkey massacre, which my wife and I celebrated with our traditional pasta. Let me sum it up thusly: Yum.

This entry's title needs some backstory. I haven't gone to many conventions lately, a trend I plan on breaking, soon. But there were a few I used to go to quite regularly, always finding some good panels where I could ask questions of people who have fought, and won, the same fight I'm in right now. The student learns from the master, so it is written.

Yet inevitably the master says or does something that makes the student yell, “Are you f---ing kidding me?” Or at least, that's what sometimes happens.

Was at a con once upon a time, went to a panel, someone asked a question. So far so good. Now I don't know if this lady, sitting among the other writers on the panel, who answered that question and most of the other questions just didn't get enough sleep the night before, if someone ran over her dog the day before she came to the con, or if she was just constipated. But that day her answers were the most condescending, pedantic, shallow, shovelful of crap I had ever heard at that con or any other gathering where the point was supposed to be to enlighten. Not only were we all told to not mind when our stories were rejected, we all had to parrot a neat little phrase back at this woman, like good, obedient schoolchildren. I am not the exception. Repeat after me, I am not the exception.

She was annoyed, because often when she edited for anthologies, people would send her stories that exceeded the requested word count, or were in a genre other than the one asked for. She was really upset when one of the attendees asked what the hell the traditional phrase, 'not what we're looking for at this time' meant, venting some of the frustration that builds up when your story doesn't make the cut and all you get is a vague, one-sentence reason on your e-mailed rejection slip and you can't get any useful information out of it. Just move on and send it somewhere else, was her answer. It's just rejection. It's nothing personal.

Let me tell you this, you reading these words I don't know where and I don't know when. You are the fucking exception, from the atoms that make up that very tip top fraction of your highest hair to that spark inside that you might call your soul. You are the cog in the machine that decides, you know what, today I'll see what happens if I start spinning in this other direction, and to hell with the machine. You are the crazy one who dreams. When someone tells you that you aren't, laugh at them, give them a single-finger salute, or if you have one handy, feel free to throw a bucket of warm piss on them. They've earned it.

Did she have a point? She had a piece of a point, I'll give her that. The woman is sharp, and knows her stuff. Does she know more than me? Oh hell yes. That doesn't mean that she had the right answer, or that if she did, that she provided it. 

Her point, her whole point, was about her, and her ego. The point she should have had, because she was addressing a bunch of frustrated people who had shelled out money to be in that room, was to not let that aching, enduring sting of rejection be the deciding factor. To take that rage and despair that always pops back up and channel it into hunting down another agent, or open anthology. To once again pound the damn keyboard to crank out yet another pitch.

Also, just send it somewhere else? If you've been at this a while then you know that there's no magical list of people sitting anxiously at their PC's with money burning holes in their bank accounts, waiting for quality (fill in your genre) stories. Are there some lists? Hell yes, and praise (fill in your deity) for that. These are often set up and maintained by other writers, some for free, some for pay. I've never heard of anyone getting rich or even just making a living from such a list. Nor do I expect to hear about one anytime soon.

Yeah, that bit of a point that she had. If you send a fantastic comedy story to someone who is reading for an anthology full of noir thrillers, you're going to get rejected. You might even annoy the editor so much that they remember your name and bite you in the ass later. Can you afford to take that chance? I have listened to enough editors to know that the only thing worse than sending them an e-mail asking if the word count they listed is a hard limit is not even asking and sending in a story that's larger than they asked for. If your submission is ten or thirty words over the limit, they PROBABLY won't care. But they decide that, not you. If that overworked editor is putting together a paying anthology or magazine issue and they've put out a general call for submissions, then they're probably going to get a thousand submissions, or more.

That means, if our anthology has room for ten stories, that almost a hundred times more stories will be rejected than will be accepted.

So yes, pay attention to what they ask for. Sticking out by breaking the rules is going to get your hard-written tale yanked out of the running. But don't stop sending things in. Send in stories that will pass through all the filters. That's what those requirements are.

But remember this. Ten of those hypothetical people who sent stories in, got into that book.

Who are those ten, then? Well by definition, they're the exceptions.

Have I made my point? If I haven't, let me pick up a hammer and make it. Saying 'I am not the exception' means accepting that 'I will not get picked.' The minute I accept that, I'll delete this blog, burn my computer with all my stories stored on it, and drill out the part of my brain that dreams. When that woman talked to me and everyone else in that room like we were nothing better than cogs, why did she do it? Because she was annoyed. What did she tell us? Don't get annoyed.

Okay. Let's check the horse's vital signs. It's dead, Jim.

The con in question took place a few years ago, and I've been mulling over whether the incident needed to be talked about ever since then. If she or anyone else recognizes themselves in the above anecdote and needs to tell their side of it, that's what the comments section is for. Ball's in your court.

Also, while putting this down I came up with some other points that might give everyone an idea of what it's like to be on the receiving end of all those submissions, and it may be next week's post. We'll see.

In the meantime, I am the exception, after all. I'll keep writing.

One of those moments in life that are all too rare

Every once in a while, a bunch of different events get scheduled in the same period. That's been the case these last two months. Right before A-kon I attended the wedding of some friends, and had just a few days to get ready for Dallas. A-kon was a success, and I've got an upcoming post detailing my adventures there. Hint: people lost their pants.

But last month, well last month I flew out to Nevada, put on a suit, and watched as my daughter walked up onto a stage, was handed a diploma, and then moved the tassel on her cap from one side to the other.

I'm proud of her. I'm happy that I was able to be there to witness her milestone achievement.

Nope. Those words don't do the moment justice.

Maybe I'm just getting old and sentimental (yeah, fuck you too), but I want to get this right. I want to put down in words how I feel, describing it well enough so that a thousand years from now when time-traveling bug-eyed aliens from Neptune browse the web, they'll find this post and say, “Okay, we understand.”

I was there when my daughter was born. She was tall and strong as a baby, and she only got taller and stronger as time went on. When she was, I think, five years old, she challenged something I was telling her, an event that found its way into the story I was then writing.

Her mother and I divorced when she was still young, and I had to sit down with her one day and tell her that when she came home from school that afternoon that I wasn't going to be there. That memory still hurts.

Through the years we've been separated by as little as a hundred miles and as much as the entire length of the country. Time went on, without all those day-to-day moments when life happens. That's a loss I can never make up.

But last month I hopped on a plane and flew to Nevada. The desert climate didn't faze me, but the elevation was murder. I spent a short day talking with her and getting as caught up as I could, and then I stood in line, then took a seat along with a thousand other parents, all of us waiting for our turn to witness for our children. There were signs forbidding horns, balloons, and big gaudy banners, and I saw dozens of each before the ceremony began. I should have brought some.

They didn't call the class up in alphabetical order, so everyone kept following along with the names as they were listed in the schedule, holding it up and carefully moving their finger down each line as the names were called out. (this all happened in a college auditorium, so I also should have brought some binoculars) Somewhere, deep down and propping up all that eagerness and enthusiasm, I don't think there was a person in that building that wasn't holding the door to their anxiety closet shut as hard as they could. I think we all shared a secret dread that the name we were waiting for would never be called. That someone would go through all the paperwork one last time and find some signature missing or some box not checked and say, “Whoops. Well at least we caught it before they tried to graduate.” Bet it was even worse for the ones waiting to be called.

I waited. Her boyfriend's family waited. Everyone waited.

They called her name. A thousand people watched her walk across that stage to get a handshake and a diploma, and none of them had a bigger smile or a more swollen chest than me. If I could have opened the roof of that building to shout to the whole world, 'Look at what my daughter has achieved,' I would have done it, and you would have heard it.

My daughter has graduated.

Still smiling about it. I'm happy to have written about it, too.

Still here, and still -

Short update, because I'm writing this as I'm prepping to head up to Dallas for Project A-Kon. Claudia has expanded her business, teaming up with a friend of hers who is also an artist, and founded LuxWyrks. Lots of new stuff, including postcards with swearing fairies. So if you're up there this weekend, stop by the booth in the Artist Alley and say hello!

Last entry detailed my first shot at sending Roja to an agent, and since you haven't heard me singing (wherever you happen to be) then you've probably realized that fame and fortune haven't yet found their way to my door. That first agent declined, as did the second. So as I'm packing, I'm also taking the draft of my next pitch to work on, and I've already got the agent selected.

Still writing.

So this is the deep end

Been away for a while, but it's been productive time. Got rid of some stumbling blocks that have been preventing me from building a website, and found a glaring error in my current book that I can fix. Claudia has been published, again, so now she and I have started a little book collection of our successes.

I also, as of tonight, put together a query package for Roja and sent it to an agent. What comes to mind is the moment a few (cough) years ago when I was young and didn't know how to swim. I was in a pool with some other naïve kids listening to a nice lady explain how to not drown when I took a step forward to get some space around me. The water was clean but not clear, so I didn't know I had been standing on a raised platform against the side of the pool and suddenly the cold, heavy water was six inches deeper than I was tall. I remember treading water, or doing something like it, and realizing I was suddenly in very deep shit. I've had that same feeling once or twice since then, but there's nothing like the first time.

Fortunately, I didn't drown, because the nice lady patiently picked me up and got me back on the platform. I learned how to swim, and ended up doing my part to teach a brand new generation of naïve kids how to not drown a few years later. Hitting the send button tonight was like taking that one extra step all over again. Yep, this is cold, heavy water, and boy is it deep.

I'm not going to name the agent. The research I've been able to do clued me in on the incredible amount of BS that already gets flung at people who do that job, and the last thing I want to do is add to the pile. Trust me, if things go well people will hear me singing their praises from the rooftops.

Now? Well it's time to wait. I'll touch base with all those people who are reading In The Dark for me, catch up on all the reading that I've fallen behind on, and get back to plugging away on The Red Man Burning.

It's time to write.