Requiem for a library

I went to the central branch of my local library today, hoping to do some research for my story Night Shift. I'm looking for information on Assyrian and/or Babylonian ritual. This is the sort of thing my library, IMHO, used to excel at -- books on subjects that were not well-known. Back in the 80s and into the 90s, I used to "lose" hours in that building. I'd get caught up looking through book after book, utterly absorbed in all that knowledge. Well, no more. Today visiting the library was more like visiting a morgue.

I had heard several months ago that the library closed its second floor and put a lot of its books into the closed stocks, because they didn't have the staff to take care of a large circulating collection. I don't question that. I'm well aware that public libraries across the country have had to cut hours drastically because they don't have the funding for staffing.

Still, there's a difference between hearing that and going to the rooms where the shelves are only 10 - 20% full and there are huge gaps in the Dewey numbers of the few books that are on the shelves. The mythology section is reduced to books on Judaism, Islam, Christianity and Buddhism. A section about religious history only had books relating to those same religions (and a couple other books).

There was nothing on ancient cultures. Honestly.

Time was when I could wander the aisles, picking up a book here and another there, and skim through them to find out if they had any info I wanted. Sometimes I would just photocopy a few pages rather than check the book out; sometimes I would come home with 6 or 8 books. The library was my portal to everywhere and everywhen. I found books on subjects I had no idea existed. You know what I mean? And I'm only talking about non-fiction; in the fiction areas, all those stories just waiting for me to find!

Today I spent about 15 minutes in the library and left empty-handed. Except for a strong sense of loss. 

My options are to try to continue online research on my own; go down to whichever college libraries I can reach by bus and try to explain what I need; or use the public library's "Book a Librarian" service where they match you up with an expert librarian for all of one hour at a time.

I don't blame my library at all. I blame politicians who repeatedly cut funding for institutions like public libraries. It's times like this I am ashamed to belong to a society that lets this happen. But have you noticed how the politicians always appear in expensive pinstriped suits? There's always money to bump up their salaries, isn't there?

My library has become a kind of anti-TARDIS, much smaller on the inside than it appears on the outside. I wish I knew some hotshot author who could pull some strings somewhere to help with research like this! What about the public library where you live? Have you been there lately? Does your town still have one? What are some of your favorite library memories?

Image By Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

That's a hot potato!

Sheesh, I just don't believe in coincidence. Someone in my local writers' group commented that in one of my chapters, it would add some realism and spice to a scene if I had a character not just mention that Gloria Estefan was on the radio, but use a specific lyric.

Yeah, I thought, that's a good point. Readers could see that and instantly connect with that moment by hearing the song in their heads. But I'd already read contradictory information about whether writers (especially unknown ones) could do that. The next day, one of the members emailed me a link to a wikipedia article on "fair use."

Ha ha. It's not that simple anymore, folks. The subject came up almost on the same day at Critique Circle where someone posted a link to a British article describing how the writer had to pay big out-of-pocket money to use lyrics in his story, or get slapped with a lawsuit.

There were more links to more articles. Critique Circle's blog talked about it and provided the link to the Public Domain Information Project. Now, I trust what that website says. The music industry, from what I've read in a variety of places, is very, very sensitive about the slightest possibility of theft, and its lawyers are willing and eager to sue. The lawsuit doesn't have to have merit to damage a writer's reputation.

Someone in my local writers' group suggested that if I use an intentionally misquoted lyric, I can't be sued because I'm not using the actual lyric. I love that these guys are trying to help me out, but that just isn't a chance I want to take.

Have you seen Roni Loren's blog post on how she got sued over using images she thought were free? People do get sued over things they had no idea were illegal.

So the only lyrics you'll see in my WIP are the ones I write myself. Anyway, I'm thinking that the absence of other people's lyrics near mine will make mine stand out in a great way :)

Happy writing, peeps. Stay safe: legally as well as physically.

"writing what you know" the painless way

We’ve all heard the admonishment “write what you know”. That’s how the best stuff gets written, even in fiction, right? Never mind that inexperienced writers of sci fi and fantasy don’t get much help with applying that decree. My novel is about a guy who starts out in a street gang in Los Angeles then becomes involved with a rock band. I didn’t know facts about those things; I wasn’t even sure I knew much about guys, though that can be a problem no matter how much experience is involved.

I was a little worried about it, but the story was intended to focus on character interaction. The music part was supposed to be in the background. Ha!

A curious thing happened, gradually. I did believe that the better you know your characters, the better your story will be. When you know what really makes them tick, they come alive not just for you but for readers. Writing a convincing gangbanger meant trying to find out what that life was like—in reality, not assumptions.

No, I didn’t prowl the streets. I read. Mind you, I needed info about the lifestyle in a very particular place and time, and I discovered that in fact, not everything is on the internet. A freaking lot of stuff is, but not everything. And people can be willing to tell you that what you’ve written is “off” but not offer to help with facts. So that part is the weaker area of my research. But I haven’t given up.

Sandy is a musician in a major rock band. Okay, specifics on how high-profile, high-income folks live is also a bit of a weak spot, but I was able to find info on the music business. Music has always been the soundtrack to my life and what keeps my heart beating. So I’ve paid attention over the years to interviews. Back when roadies still set up the stage when the audience took their seats, I’d always bring binoculars and study what was happening onstage. During a show, I’d watch performers when the spotlight moved *off* them.

Everyplace I thought I might read, hear or see something interesting, I paid attention, and often picked up a tidbit or two.

Then I realized that I couldn’t keep *everything* about the music business in the background. Neal roadies for Sylvyr Star and that couldn’t be glossed over. People have written books for public consumption about how to be a roadie! I couldn’t function without the internet. Found a documentary that follows Rush’s road crew on tour.

And that’s how writing what I love turned into writing what I know. Find the thing that you can honestly say is your reason for living, and no matter what you have to do to turn it into a book, it won’t be work. Love your subject and you’ll love research. I can prove it J

Connecting espionage, electricity, Macy's store windows, and the Beach Boys

"Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage" by Albert Glinsky

This book is 342 pages, in hardcover.  If you think you're going to go from Russia in 1896 to the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" without a lot of stuff in between, you're gonna be disappointed. 

I'll be honest: I tried reading every page of this book, but about a third of the way through, I gave up.  Firstly, Leon Theremin was heavily involved in industrial spying for the Soviet government during his years in America, and the details of that keep popping up between exhaustive discussions of Theremin's musical work.  I didn't need an exact list of music played at every concert appearance by Theremin.  Knowing how insanely complicated the man's story is without such minutiae, I would have expected Glinsky to make more of an effort to present it in a more understandable way.  But maybe the editor insisted on adding stuff.

I'll go back to the book in the near future, though.  I found out all kinds of really cool trivia: a few people were actively working on the concept of television in the 1880s.  By 1924, Theremin's electric burglar alarms were protecting the Soviet State Bank and some American businesses.  He had a metal detector in Alcatraz. 

By 1927, he mused over how to combine music, touch, movement, and fragrance, anticipating virtual reality by a few generations.  He'd already successfully combined his electromagnetic musical instrument (known as the theremin) with a color-wheel that projected changing hues which corresponded to pitch changes. He wowed audiences with a music and light show many decades before disco and lasers.

He used an early sort of hologram in Macy's windows, showing a mirror that people always stopped to look into. This interrupted a relay, which made an ad appear in the center while the mirror's border remained.  In the '30s, this was nothing short of an actual miracle.

I didn't get to how the theremin led to the development of the Moog synthesizer, which led to electronic music as we know it.  There were glimpses of how and why that happened.  Leon Theremin's life seems to have been directed, in matters small and large, by the hand either of God or the devil: maybe both.  At one point, he married a (mostly) African-American woman 20 years his junior.  He flaunted their relationship despite how it hurt his friendships.  In 1938, this was one of the biggest scandals around.

Theremin's life is worth reading about for the sheer adventure of it, but I also had to think about where American society has been over the decades.  The USSR became Russia again but a lot of other things haven't changed.  This well-dressed, unassuming Bolshevik, entranced by the possibilities of electricity, wound up changing our lives in real ways.  I absolutely think his life would make a perfect PBS miniseries.  If I had the writing chops, and the proper research contacts, I'd make one hell of a trilogy of it.  I leave that to those better connected.

A swig of the bubbly

Well, you never know where research for your novel will take you.  With rock musicians, even fictional ones, you can't just say "booze" over and over.  You go to England and you can't keep saying "pint" over and over.  This turned out to be a lot of fun so I want to get the list on a publicly accessible site.  I've added a stand-alone page for it.

If you have additions or corrections, do leave a comment here.  If you can, please let me know what region of what country (or least what country) the word or phrase is used in.

My story takes place from 1988 to 1992, but I'm not limiting additions to the list to those years.  Hoist a tall one and peruse.  Dang, that's not on the list! 8-0

Writing how-to: There is no "try", do or do not.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King
Published by The Editorial Department, 1993

It’s almost enough to scare a non-published writer away from the whole business: “Self-editing is probably the only editing your manuscript will ever get.”

But maybe that’s a good thing. Sink or swim, as they say. If you’re not willing to do the serious work to make your manuscript the best you can, you’re probably not offering something to the readers that’s worth their time. From what I’ve been seeing on the bookshelves, too many authors are getting published way before their manuscripts are good enough.

They also say that the best way to learn editing is from editors, and these two have enough cred for me.

I decided to take my writing as far as I can. I’ve spent my own money (earned from a part-time job) on books for research, spent untold hours on the internet for research, spent years writing various parts of my current Work in Progress: to chuck all that because I’m not sure how good I can edit my own stuff would be a colossal waste. Besides, Neal won’t let me.  He's laid a geis on me.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-gei1.htm

He guilts me into continuing by telling me that he depends on me to tell the story, and keeps ranting that it must be told. He can’t write it in his dimension and transport the manuscript to mine, so I have to do the writing work.

*sigh* I had no idea, many years ago, that people I can’t touch and can only see sometimes would completely take over my life. “Nobody told me there’d be days like these.”

I do have questions about the relevancy of a how-to book published 17 years ago. I don’t agree with everything Browne and King say, though I don’t know if conventions have changed or I just don’t grasp the point. Either is possible. ;)

But this is still a great book! Browne and King don’t talk down to writers, they say there’s more than one way to do things, and something I really like is that they give exercises using real manuscripts. At the end of the book they offer their answers, adding that somebody reading out there might come up with a better way to do it. It’s fun to rewrite John le Carré or Lewis Carroll. There are examples from workshops Browne and King have given and examples of early drafts of well-known novels.

To illustrate how different people see the same writing, they include reviews of well-known authors or books. I get a perverse kick out of reading a less-than-glowing review of Anne Rice. But chances are that because she’s established a fan base, she’s going to keep selling even if some people think her writing is slipping.

“Self-Editing” also offer checklists, synopses of each chapter in the form of bulleted lists. This is great for reminding yourself of the high points, but I’d recommend rereading the whole book periodically anyway. Like a gripping novel, this book doesn’t waste time or words. It tells you exactly what you need to know and why, because in writing, you have to know why you’re doing or not doing something.

Browne and King helped convince me to keep writing and to get better at editing myself. They also confirmed - unintentionally on their part, I’m sure - that while a writer can aim to please as many readers as possible, she or he will never please everybody. Even among his immense fan base, Isaac Asimov sometimes disappointed. Even he had manuscripts turned down.

I really don’t think there is one perfect way to tell a story, because every reader puts their own spin on it. If I spend ten years on a project, and have it published believing I’ve gotten across every point and every scene exactly “as the story demanded”, there will still be people who don’t like the whole thing, people who will say I used too many adverbs, people who say I used too much internal monologue and people who say I didn’t use enough. I can’t put my vision of the story into peoples’ heads. Moviemakers can’t do that either. I’ll get as close as I can, I will wrestle and fret and rewrite, but I’ll still expect that some people just won’t get on board. That’s fine, I’m not happy with everything I read either. There will always be a bunch of authors to choose from.

But I digress. I also like Browne and King because they realized the contributions of the company pets to the book project were at least as valuable as what the humans offered. As somebody who deals with unauthorized lap landings from one of the cats while I’m trying to write, this is important!

Research that doubles as hope

Wild Thing, by Ian Copeland
Simon & Schuster, 1995

Ever wonder what it would be like to have a spy in the family? Somebody who really travels around the world, cutting back-room deals with power brokers in Third World countries, helping topple regimes and setting up others, helping set up something like the CIA? Wouldn’t it be awesome to live like Bond?

Ian would tell you there are good and bad points to a life like that. His dad really was a spy. His dad really did help organize the CIA. Ian eventually became a top booking agent for bands like The Police (founded by his brother Stewart), but getting up there was hard, hard work. The book started out as just a research read for me, but I realized that it’s also very inspirational.

The book is described on the cover as “the backstage, on the road, in the studio, off the charts memoirs of Ian Copeland”. You wonder when you see a title like “Wild Thing” how much of an exaggeration it is, just to get your attention. This is no exaggeration. In the first couple of chapters, I completely forgot to pay attention to how he wrote.

There is so much crammed into this book I don’t even know how to hit the highlights, in a blog. Crossing country after country on a half-dead motorcycle with no money and one good friend! When Communism was still alive and well, this was taking your life in your hands.

I had a hard time taking Ian seriously at first. He says that his mother, before she married Ian’s dad, worked for British intelligence during World War II specializing in blowing up bridges so the Germans would be disrupted. She eventually became a highly respected archaeologist. She got so caught up in it that she maybe paid less attention to Ian and his siblings than was good for them. With his dad often away from home - which could be in Damascus, Cairo, Beirut or London - for months at a time, Ian, Miles and Stewart found creative, sometimes destructive, ways to occupy their time. Their sister seems to have stayed out of the family histrionics.

What started to make me like Ian was his admitting that sometimes, he just hated being told what to do by his father. Not having the slightest idea what to do with his life, at eighteen Ian joined the U.S. army, got sent to Vietnam and made sergeant by nineteen. That only impressed his father temporarily, because after his discharge, he couldn’t find work in London or America. Ian spent enough time in both places to be considered a Yank in Britain and a Brit in America. As you might expect, that seemed to have helped in some ways and hurt in others.

Ian talks about being tossed out of tube stations in the London area for vagrancy, not finding anything to eat, not having one cent in his pockets, and sometimes really being in a deep funk. His roller coaster of a life occasionally sat for a while at the top of a hill then caromed straight down and crashed, but somehow, sooner or later, he'd crawl back up.

I’ve never had to sleep on benches and I haven’t wondered how the hell I was going to find food. Sometimes opportunity found Ian, rather than the other way round, but a lot of his success was made or kept by sheer determination. For somebody with only a part-time job, no publishing credits and no "ins" in publishing, I have a long, hard road ahead if I want to make it there. But as Ian says, perseverance is everything. :) I see now what it means to "make your own luck."

Research I've read

"Life on Planet Rock" by Lonn Friend (editor of RIP magazine 1987 - 1994)
Morgan Road Books, 1986

Wow. For anybody who loved '80s and/or '90s rock-n-roll (and I know I ain't alone here), this book is it. He offers this quote early on:
"There is nothing stable in the world; uproar's your only music" (John Keats)
I can't argue with that! Fortunately for Lonn, his personality helped him reach out to those whose work he loved. He connected with people immediately, adjusted himself to make artists comfortable, and was allowed into their lives as deeply as the artists' own families.

Unfortunately for Lonn, his own life fell apart because of it. He had a wife and daughter but got divorced. He lost his own identity for a while. I don't condone leaving your family at every opportunity, but Lonn has a box of memories that is priceless.

He says his magazine covered "hard rock" and "metal", though he seems to blur the definitions of those labels. For me, Metallica is metal: hence the name, duh? Whatever. That hardly detracts from the book.

Lonn got started at a Larry Flynt publication. He was there for a few years and that background helped open doors for him as he moved through the music world. If you admire Chuck Berry, you'll want to skip that part.

He makes one big mistake. "Sitting passively in your seat with your toe tapping and head bobbing works for an Eagles or Elton John concert..." 'Scuze me? I've been to Elton shows, and believe me we did not "sit passively". For anybody unfamiliar with rock concerts, sure, we sit sometimes, mostly during ballads. People lucky enough to get floor seats don't hold still or sit much at all. Maybe I misunderstood Lonn, but he seemed to think certain acts under the "rock" label didn't generate much fire during shows.

I was at a Bruce Hornsby show as recently as summer of 2009. You can't confuse Hornsby with Springsteen: they're different types of rock musicians. But, I was still shoved up against the stage barrier and had to listen to people howling "Bruuuuuuuuce" in my ears, waving and jumping and screaming. People pushed themselves in front of me. The only "passivity" happened as joints were passed, don't drop that please!

Again, didn't seriously mar the book. Lonn clearly did a few things right. His daughter thinks of Slash as "Uncle" :)

Research I've read

"Written in my Soul: Rock's great songwriters talk about creating their music"
by Bill Flanagan (Comtemporary Books Inc., 1986)

Flanagan quotes Bob Dylan as saying that up until Eric Burdon recorded it, "House of The Rising Sun" was sung from a woman's point of view.

That's fascinating all by itself. Frankly, I've only ever heard Burdon's version, and couldn't think of the song any other way. Changing the gender of the POV person in a song like that changes the whole flavor of the piece. Makes you think about the words you choose.

Chuck Berry's interview was illuminating. He seems, at least at the time he spoke with Flanagan, to have been mostly after money (although Lonn Friend's book, discussed next, indicates Berry was also after women). Here I thought Berry was gonna be at least somewhat appreciative of the public's wild acceptance of the unique way he approached rock, but he says he just wanted commercial hits.

Maybe that shouldn't surprise me. Commercialism didn't arrive with the Charlie Brown Christmas special.

Sting, Bono, Pete Townshend, Richards and Jagger, Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello and Van Morrison are also included. Keith Richards came across as being concerned with creating good songs, shattering my assumption that he was mostly interested in money.

I didn't learn much about "how to write songs" because the artists talked about ideas and generics, how insubstantial the whole process is - like fiction writing. Paul Simon, in particular, veered off into how he changed chords and got so technical, I was lost early in the conversation.

I like Flanagan's interview style. He kept it easy and friendly. The artists appeared to enjoy discussing their work and their lives with him. I'd love a second volume.

Research I've read

“Sound Recording Handbook”, by John M. Woram
Howard W. Sams and Company (1989)

Seriously, this got really interesting.

Waveform … It’s like seeing a TV special about ocean waves. You find out water waves go down below the surface a long way - I’ve forgotten how far, but many dozens of feet - but you only see the top bit. You don’t realize, watching one come running straight at you, that it’s dragging its feet along below the surface. But when that wave knocks you on your ass, hello!

Same with sound waves.

Spherical waves, plane waves, the speed of sound! Density, elasticity and temperature of the air! To anybody recording sound, this stuff matters. It seems that, for sound engineers as well as the rest of us, the devil is in the details.
Threshold of pain - someday I’ll write a poem based on that phrase. Something with a title like that might make a great song too. Phase shift - great heavens, it’s a miracle anybody can memorize this stuff and be able to use it. (If I read it correctly, the threshold of pain is about 140 decibels.)

Psychoacoustics - is that a great word or what?

Threshold of feeling - yeah, gotta use that too, somewhere. That’s about 120 decibels. Not much space between smiling and screaming.

Microphone manufacturers … yeaahh, I don’t really need to know that. But I did find out there is a specific mic type often used to record drums. Drum kits also normally are recorded with several mics.

I gotta say, since I’ve started reading more about what goes on in recording studios, I’m able to hear things in the headphones I had no idea were there. I pay particular attention to percussion; maybe it’s because my heart has a beat. Whatever, I’ve been in love with percussion since I first became aware of rock-n-roll. I can’t play a lick - oh that was a bad pun!

I knew there was more to making records than putting people in a room with instruments and vocalists, telling them to rip into it, pushing ‘play’ then backing off. I’ve never been able to talk to anybody about it, though. I didn’t realize that sometimes a sound is added that’s more felt than heard. I hear triangle dings in songs that I never guessed were there. Sometimes, I get so caught up in listening that I completely forget what I was writing about. So many of the songs I’m completely in love with were recorded in bits and pieces, but the finished product sounds like everybody did their parts together, at the same time, in one effortless session.

Sound engineers and producers, my hat’s off to you. I hope to create the same illusion through my story.