MFA vs. MBA/ Residential Interiors

This is on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca: 

Nov. 11 MFA vs. MBA: I cut out this Globe and Mail article “Sure, young artists need moral support.  But they also need cash money” by Judith Timson back in Aug. 12, 2010.  This article talks about working in the arts and how it’s a struggle.  Artists need to be paid and have moral support.  Here’s the article:   
  
I recently asked a new acquaintance what her grown kids did for a living and she scrunched up her face and said, apologetically, "You're going to hate me." What? Was one of them in Millhaven on drug charges? No-o-o.

She smiled and said, "Two lawyers and a doctor!"

Bingo. For a second, I did sort of hate her. We whose grown children (many of them following our example) have gone into the arts are filled with legitimate worry these days. In a post-recession world, will these aspiring musicians, writers, theatre directors and journalists even do as well as we did?

And in a media climate in which reporting on the arts can mean shovelling trash like "Charlie Sheen pleads guilty to assaulting wife," will anyone even notice them?

I keep hearing that the MFA is the new MBA, but I don't see any solid evidence of it. The kids who are graduating from business courses or into the professions still start their working lives making thousands more than almost all arts graduates, who, unless they strike it big, will never catch up.

I am surrounded by creative types - a son in theatre, a nephew who scored brilliant marks to achieve a science degree but is now making music, the son of a good friend who is doing visual art in New York, another who is a budding concert pianist, and of course would-be writers as far as the eye can see.

I go to their shows, read their blogs, scan their websites, and it's all so rewarding. They've graduated from at least the first rung of university and are pouring their passion and soul into what they do. Many of them are truly talented and their early reviews reflect this.

What they don't get is what they really need - not just critical affirmation, but money. No institution - except for those ubiquitous government granters - pays them what their burgeoning art is worth. And so the first thing they learn is how to work the grant system, presumably so they can end up just like a middle-aged screenwriter friend of mine who wryly says her epitaph will be, "She died waiting for funding."

The money is obviously a problem, but so is the moral support. In lawyer or doctor-laden families, artists are often viewed as the black sheep. A musician and producer friend says that at least 20 years into his career, family members would ask "are you still doing that music thing?" (They would never say, "Are you still a doctor?" Many assume that an artistic career is a temporary madness.)

We whistle appreciatively and congratulate the kid (and her parents) when she gets into med school, and I'm not denying that is a huge accomplishment. But it takes a special kind of courage to put yourself out there as an artist, to face down what famed American choreographer Twyla Tharp once listed as the five deadly fears of an artist, among them, "people will laugh at me," "someone has done it before" and "once executed, the idea will never be as good as it us in my mind."

Of course, there is a false dichotomy in framing this as an arts-versus-business thing. As Louise Garfield, executive director of Arts Etobicoke, a non-profit community council, points out to me in an interview, "professional career artists do not have the lock on creativity and parents worried about the financial futures of kids who choose the arts shouldn't worry - because professional business people don't all have the lock on financial management." In fact, she says, artist types are often very good financial managers. Because they are on such strict budgets, they've had to be.

Ms. Garfield lists some of the benefits of a career in the arts, sounding rather like an army recruiter ("There's no life like it!"): "The fulfilment of creative aspirations and passions. The quality and tone of their lives. The vibrancy of their intellect and emotions. Adventure, exploration, drama, deep feeling, playfulness, hilarity, camaraderie and FUN." (The next sound you hear will be lawyers jumping ship.)

But here's the real bottom line: Many of these kids starting out will one day be the ones making the art, the plays, the concerts, the books, that all of society eventually experiences and celebrates, doctors, lawyers and hedge-fund managers among them. Given the right support, what they will eventually contribute to our quality of life is immense.

So the next time an anxious parent says her kid is pursuing theatre or dance, just whistle admiringly, will you? And maybe ask if there's a website to view their work, or when their next show is, or even how you can make a donation.

Who knows, years later they might even thank you when they accept their first Dora or Tony.
Unless, of course, they've packed it in to manage a hedge fund.

Dec. 21 Master of Arts in Communications and Technology: It was the end of Aug. 2014, and I saw an ad in the Metro about these information sessions at the University of Alberta Extension.  I saw “Communications and Technology” info session, so I went there.  Then I see that it was a masters program.  Does anyone remember the blog post “Help Tracy get a Job/ Generation Boomerang” where I listed I didn’t want a masters degree?

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2014/06/help-tracy-get-job-generation-boomerang.html

Yeah, well I was there for the whole hour and watched the video and learned some things about the program.  I had another info session for Residential Interiors to go to after this.  I’m writing about this because I finished reading the brochures for both programs.

Here’s what I got from the website:

“The Communications and Technology Graduate Program at the University of Alberta offers a theoretical, historical and practical examination of communications in the era of the Internet, social media and the mobile device. 

Communication is examined across all contexts in the program: interpersonal, small group, public speaking, organizational, mass, and intercultural. The competencies to be achieved by graduates include the following:

• Theory and its application to practice
• Knowledge and its use in problem solving
• Critical thinking as the foundation for leadership skills
• Research as the basis for innovation and change”

http://www.mact.ualberta.ca/

Residential Interiors: I wrote a little bit about this in the blog post “Metro classes/ Residential Interiors.”

http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2014/09/metro-classes-residential-interiors.html

I read the brochure and now looked it up.  There is a new course called “Feng Shui Design for Residential Interiors.”  You know I’m interested in Feng Shui and I had to read it.  I’m sure some of you guys are laughing at this part: 

“In this course we will consider the life energy of form, placement, colour and material that work to create balance in your living and working environment. Learn to apply the ancient principals of Feng Shui on energy flow, yin and yang, the five elements, and the eight directions to your interior and exterior space. We will read our floor plans to see how to transform any space into an aesthetically pleasing inspired living environment that supports relaxation, well-being, success, and good relationships.

Restricted to Residential Interior Certificate program students and Corequisite EXRI 4676”

The Psychopath Test/ Charlie Bouthuell found

This is on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

The Psychopath Test is a book review and the rest is about the news.

Dec. 13 The Psychopath Test: I cut out this Edmonton Journal book review called “Exploring the mind of a psychopath a crazy, yet fun, ride” by Robert J. Wiersema on Jul. 31, 2011.  He reviews The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson Riverhead.  Here’s the whole article: 

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has looked at a newspaper or watched the television news lately that we - and I use "we" advisedly - are surrounded by crazy people. From alleged child killers to "journalists" who think themselves within their rights to tap cellphones in pursuit of a story (or, more cynically and realistically, to sell papers), we are surrounded by actions of power and violation, committed without a thought to their effect on their victims.

Those behaviours fit neatly in the criteria devised by Canadian psychologist Robert Hare in the test he devised for detecting psychopathology ("Item 8: Callous/Lack of Empathy," "Item 6: Lack of Remorse of Guilt"), a document and process at the heart of Jon Ronson's transfixing new book, The Psychopath Test.

Starting with the mystery of an enigmatic book sent anonymously to many of the world's top scientists, Ronson ventures increasingly deeply into the heart of madness, searching for answers to the mysteries of the psychopaths among us. What he finds, however, are only more questions.

Psychopathology, for example, doesn't appear as a disorder in the DSM-IV-TR, the psychological bible and desk reference, and his investigation into why not raises questions about that text and the diagnostic powers accorded it.

Similarly, while he initially resists involvement with the branch of Scientology dedicated to the discrediting of the psychiatric profession, he comes around to appreciating their concerns after interviewing a resident in a "treatment facility" who faked mental instability to escape a criminal sentence, but has been caught in the psychological bureaucracy ever since.

"It is an awful lot harder, Tony told me, to convince people you're sane than it is to convince them you're crazy."

Ronson's descent into madness takes him into the worlds of business and broadcasting, to a seminar where Hare teaches professionals how to use his test, and into the history of psychopathology and the industries it has engendered. As a journalist, Ronson is riddled with anxiety and self-doubt.

(Upon first reading the DSM, he attempts to figure out how many of the 374 conditions it describes apply to himself. The dozen he identifies may, in fact, be a conservative number.) Ronson lurches through this ramshackle journey, constantly doubting his own conclusions and even his understanding of himself.

Far from being problematic, his personality quirks make the author perhaps the perfect, fumbling guide to a strange and often contradictory world. It is stated, early on and with some certainty, that one out of every hundred people is a psychopath.

As Ronson digs more deeply, however, he begins to question not only the number, but the process of diagnosis and the definition of psychopathology. It's a fascinating, thought-provoking, equally disturbing and amusing journey, a wonderful read, and if Ronson doesn't come to any great conclusions, it is likely because there are none to be found.

This lack of any great answer goes a great distance to supporting what comes to seem the central, unstated premise of the book as a whole: The line between sane and crazy is never clear, and becomes murkier by degrees the more you study it.

Robert J. Wiersema is a Victoria-based bookseller and author. His latest novel is Bedtime Story.

http://www2.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=7b3286d2-0a1a-4b40-a7bd-3ec0bc90f38f

Beauty queen killed: This is a news email.  The above was a non-fiction true crime book review.  This story of Beauty queen Monica Spear was murdered.  This is news way back in Jan. 10, 2014.  Here’s an excerpt: 

Beauty queen Monica Spear posted scenic photos and videos of the Venezuelan countryside online in the days before her death.

Now, days after attackers gunned down the soap opera star and her ex-husband, investigators say Spear's camera was a key link that helped them track down her killers.

Police found the camera inside the home of one of seven suspects authorities have arrested in connection with the slayings, the head of Venezuela's national crime investigation agency said Thursday. Four suspects are still on the loose, he said.

No one has been charged, but officials say there is evidence linking the group of suspected gang members to the double homicide.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/world/americas/monica-spear-venezuela-beauty-queen-killed/index.html

My opinion: That’s sad, but at least they caught the killers.

Charlie Bouthuell found: Does anyone remember this story way back in Jul. 11, 2014?  It’s this 12 yr old black boy who went missing.  The story was then broken by Nancy Grace where she tells the father Charlie Bothuell IV that his son Charlie Bothuell V has been found alive in his own basement.  Here’s the video.  I don’t really like Nancy Grace, maybe because of the accent.  But I had to watch this because it was so interesting to see the dad’s reaction that his son was found alive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAQTR6_FTyI

Here’s an excerpt of an article: 

Michigan state officials set in motion the process of stripping a couple of their parental rights after their 12-year-old son was discovered hiding in the basement of their Detroit home and accused his father and stepmother of abuse.

Detailed allegations of physical and mental abuse were filed this week as the state tries to terminate the parental rights of Charlie Bothuell IV.

Monique Dillard-Bothuell, the boy's stepmother and mother of two other children, is also at risk of losing custody after it was revealed that she had allegedly threatened her stepson. No criminal charges have been filed against the parents.

I checked my basement,' Bothuell said. 'The FBI checked my basement. The police checked my basement. My wife checked my basement. I've been down there several times. We've all been checking.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2689251/I-make-disappear-Boy-12-locked-basement-11-days-claims-stepmother-spoke-sharp-knives-tormented-endless-workouts-officials-strip-parents-custody.html

Youtube comment by Andrew A:  “Hey finding a black person in the dark is hard okay.”

My opinion: I thought Andrew A was kind of funny.  Now that I read this article, I can believe the step mom is on the abuse and hiding her stepson.  I don’t know if the dad was in on it too.

Teen mugshot: Now to end the email/ blog post with something light.  This was on Yahoo news on Aug. 19, 2014:

“Best police photo ever? Teen gets mugshot wearing T-shirt with previous mugshot on it”:  Look at the picture.  I thought it was interesting.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/teenager-poses-greatest-mugshot-ever-while-wearing-previous-113456969.html

Dec. 15 Maus: On Nov. 22, 2014, I Google “Elizabeth Withey not necessarily an easy read about the Maus comics.  Instead I got this other article of hers about the Life of Pi author Yann Martel.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Elizabeth+Withey+Yann+Martel+connects+with+readers+STARFest/10318253/story.html

The article I was really looking for was about this:

Maus is a graphic novel completed in 1991 by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman. It depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. The book uses postmodern techniques—most strikingly in its depiction of races of humans as different kinds of animals, with Jews as mice, Germans as cats and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. Maus has been described as memoir, biography, history, fiction, autobiography, or a mix of genres. In 1992 it became the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus

Dec. 28 2014 Hall of Infamy Awards: Each year, there is the Globe and Mail travel section written by John Lee who compiles all the funny, crazy travel stories of people’s bad behaviors when they’re traveling and on vacation.  Here’s one: 

The “You Put Your Right Leg In” Award

… goes to the drunken passenger on a flight to Scotland from Tunisia who was so incensed that her increasingly shouty demands for “cigarettes and a parachute” were being ignored that she removed her prosthetic leg and threw it at flight attendants. After kicking at the crew with her remaining leg and allegedly slapping a nearby child for good measure, the woman was restrained. The plane was diverted to London Gatwick, where police escorted her from the flight – and the remaining passengers reportedly started singing the Hokey Pokey.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/travel-news/some-learn-the-hard-way-globetravels-2014-hall-of-infamy-awards/article22211869/

"Storytellers have a right to fair pay"/ literary agents

This is on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca: 

Nov. 5 “Storytellers have a right to fair pay”: I cut out this Edmonton Journal article called “Storytellers have a right to fair pay” by Joanne Harris on Jul. 18, 2014.  The subtitle is: “Writers' income has plummeted in last decade.”  Here’s the whole article:

Samuel Johnson once said: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."

If so, then there are a lot of blockheads (including me) in the books business, and a lot more eager to enter it. Most authors are driven to write - would probably write whether or not they were ever published or paid, just for the joy of it.

This is their strength and their downfall. With the exception of a canny few who treat art as a business, writers are often reluctant to think of their work as just another product. We do not like to think of our books as units, to be bought and sold.

And yet, to the publishing industry, that's exactly what they are: the product of thousands of hours of work - of editing, copyediting, design, marketing, proofreading and promotion. It takes a lot of people to help create and publish a book. And although the creator - the writer - is surely the most important of these, the average author's earnings have fallen quite dramatically over the past 10 years or so.

Part of the problem is that, thanks to the media, the public has a distorted view of what the average author's life is like. Not everyone can expect the kind of success earned by Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling. If anything, quite the reverse. According to the recent survey by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society in the U.K., the average fulltime author's earnings have dropped by 29 per cent since 2005. The number whose sole income derives from writing has been slashed from 40 per cent to just 11.5 per cent.

I am one of the lucky few who still earns a better than-average salary just from writing. But that hasn't always been the case. For 15 years, I worked full-time as a teacher, making progress on my novels whenever I could. Most successful authors have known a time when their work was not as successful, a time when they struggled to make ends meet (as did Rowling before her Potter novels took off). As a result, we know full well that the world does not owe us a living.

But the drop in authors' earnings is not simply due to market forces. Pressures within publishing; the emphasis on marketing the bestsellers at the expense of the mid-list; the easy availability of free digital content; a public increasingly used to the lower pricing of ebooks - all these have played their part in making authors feel the pinch. A few of us are wealthy. But most - yes, even ones you've heard of - are finding it harder to earn money creating the books that they, and you, love.

Some of this is due to exploitative contracts, the fact that our work is shared or downloaded online without permission. But if even authors are reluctant to see what they do as a real job, deserving of a real salary, then who can blame the public for taking advantage of their work? There are things that can be done: Make it easier to pay for copyrighted content online; encourage publishers to be more forthcoming with their data; track down piracy; combat the apathy of those who see copyright theft as inevitable; draw up fairer contracts. All these things are practical solutions to a very real problem.

But the most important - and possibly the most difficult - thing is to promote respect and appreciation for writing, of whatever sort, and for those who produce it. The authors whose books we enjoy have the same right to fair pay as the actors we watch on TV, or the people who empty our trash cans, or anyone whose labour brings us any kind of benefit. Yes, most authors love writing. That doesn't mean others should benefit from their work for free.

Stories - even fairy stories - are not just entertainment. Stories are important. They help us understand who we are. They teach us empathy, respect for other cultures, other ideas. They help us articulate concepts that cannot otherwise be expressed. Stories help us communicate; they bring us together; they teach us different ways to see the world. Their value may be intangible, but it is still real.

That's why our politicians, far from closing libraries, should be opening new ones. That's why our thinkers, instead of dismissing fairy tales as fantasy, should celebrate creativity. That's why our schools, instead of teaching literature in the way that gets the best grades, should be using it to fire pupils' enthusiasm and imagination. In the dark old days, the storyteller always had the best place by the campfire. Those days may be gone, but the power of story remains. It's time we acknowledged that, and brought our authors out of the cold.

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=748ad158-a9d9-4c72-838b-94c70ce6ec33

A Creative Mom: I cut out this Edmonton Journal article “Who’s their big inspiration?  A creative mom” by Elizabeth Withey on May 10, 2014.  It was in time for Mother’s Day.  It interviewed people who are visual artists, musicians, architects and writers.  Here’s an excerpt of one of the moms:

Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail Writer and Edmonton's historian laureate, age 31:
"My mom, Mary Metcalfe, went to Carleton journalism school and really fell in love with communications and always nursing this creative side of herself. I saw, growing up, that she could make a living with words and ideas, which was pretty inspirational. She branched out on her own and started her own communications consultant company. She has also written a trilogy of contemporary women's fiction. In the last five years her focus shifted to novels and she looked for an agent but had battled cancer and realized the clock was ticking, so she decided to self-publish. Then she created her own publishing company, Laskin. She is also freelance editing and doing other writing work.

"She's a talented writer but she's always been really good at encouraging writers and she's been my editor since grade school. In large part I became a writer because of her, and also because of my dad, Jacques Chenail, who's heavily involved in translation. My mom's entrepreneurial spirit really influenced me and showed me I could go outside the traditional routes of academic writing or traditional publishing and make my own path. And she's always surrounded me with books and opportunities to meet with books and other writers in the literary community in Ottawa where I grew up."

My opinion: It was uplifting and inspirational to read.

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=eb5345f6-53a7-4bd1-8e6d-031101e4aef0&p=1

Dec. 13 Literary agents: I found this article “‘A Right Fit’: Navigating the World of Literary Agents” by Michael Bourne on Aug. 15, 2012.  It was in my “parking lot” email and it was probably during the beginning of 2014 when I was going and deleting my old emails.  This is a long article about how Bourne struggled to find a literary agent and his tips on how to get an agent.  Here is an excerpt: 

If that sounds like I’m saying, “It’s all about who you know,” that’s because that is exactly what I’m saying. You can rail about how unfair that is, and how it makes publishing into an incestuous little club, and to a degree you would be right: a lot of very dumb books get published because somebody knew somebody. But that’s the way the machine is built, people. It may come a-tumbling down in the near future in the face of e-books and indie publishers, but for now, if you want to get published by a major publisher, you have two choices: you can keep banging your head against a wall and be angry, or you can figure out how to get yourself into the club.

To do that, you have to immerse yourself in the literary community. Five years ago, with my first book, I sent roughly 60 query letters to agents and editors at smaller publishing houses. I had an MFA, a few publications in small literary magazines, and not much else. My success rate – that is, the percentage who asked to see all or part of the manuscript – scraped along at about 10%. It was, let me tell you, dispiriting as hell. Then I went to a couple writing conferences, and my success rate began to climb. I met agents in person and told them about my book. I met other writers who referred me to their agents. By the end, my book was getting read by about half of the people I sent it to, a fair number of whom seriously considered taking it on.

That experience, painful as it was, taught me more about writing than I ever would have expected. Agents and editors began writing me real letters, not form rejections, but long, thoughtful responses telling me precisely where they had stopped reading with interest and why. Until then, I had always written for other writers – classmates, friends, the dead greats I imagined myself competing with – but that experience taught me to write for a reader, a smart, curious person who just wants to be told a good story.

http://www.themillions.com/2012/08/a-right-fit-navigating-the-world-of-literary-agents.html

My opinion: It was a very informative article on how to get an agent.  I agree with the last part where the experience of him getting rejections, but he also learned a lot about writing.  I can relate because when I was pitching my script The Vertex Fighter to producers and writers-in- residences (mainly in 2008-2010, a little in 2011-2012), I got a lot of good feedback.

I got a lot constructive criticism on how to improve my script because they are objective.  All those people who read my script and I talked to, I have never met them.  They can really read the script and see the pros and cons. 

Dexter TV show/ When She Woke book

This is on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca: 

Dec. 9 Dexter TV show: I cut out this article called “Sympathy for the devils” by Jeff Lindsay in the National Post on Jun. 29, 2011.  He wrote the Dexter books which became a TV series.  I only saw the first 2 seasons of the show.  I saw the first season on CTV.  Then I had to rent the dvds from Rogers Video.  Later I was able to watch the rest of season 2 on Showcase.

This is a really good article because it’s insightful and deep about the human condition:

I MAKE my living writing about a serial killer. It’s a pretty good living, and quite frankly, that surprises me. When I wrote my first book, “Darkly Dreaming Dexter,” the story of a sympathetic killer, I thought I was writing something creepy, repellent, perhaps a little wicked. To balance that, I also made him vulnerable and funny, I gave him a fondness for children, and I wrote in the first person — all elements intended to bridge the gap between a homicidal psychopath and readers, who I assumed would, nevertheless, be appalled. 

They weren’t; they liked him. Before publication, a nice-looking yenta from marketing took me aside and confessed, “I maybe shouldn’t say? But I have such a crush on Dexter.” So did other readers. The book took off like a dark little rocket. One of the early reviews even said it “breathes new life into the genre,” which meant there was a serial killer genre. 

I found that amazing: I had done the darkest, least lovable thing I could think of, and a whole genre was there ahead of me. 

People, I realized, like to read about serial killers. And as I found myself on the telephone with Hollywood, arranging for Dexter’s translation into a series for Showtime, I began to think that was pretty funny. “Lovable serial killer.” Ha ha ha.

And then bodies turn up in real life and it isn’t funny anymore. 

This time, it’s along a beach on Long Island. Our shock blooms as phrases pop out from the news coverage: “at least eight bodies” and “three or even four killers.” We read more — we can’t help it. We’re sickened and disgusted, but we need to know. And the more we know about the scene, the more we really are horrified. The ghastly image of this beach as a dumping ground for bodies is bad enough. But then four of the bodies, wrapped in burlap, are thought to be the work of one person: a serial killer. 

There’s a special sense of dread that comes with that phrase, “serial killer.” It represents an inhuman psychology that is beyond us, and because of that, we can’t look away. 

We can all conceive of killing someone in self-defense, or in combat. But to kill repeatedly, because we want to, because we like to — that’s so far outside ordinary human understanding that we can’t possibly have an empathetic response. The word “evil” seems a bit quaint and biblical — but what else can we call it? 

I was brought up to believe that death and money are private, and I was taught to have only contempt for people who slowed down to gawk at an accident. I can’t help feeling that this is similar — but I watch, too. Have I become what my mother called a rubbernecker and what my father, more bluntly, called an idiot?

Maybe so, but I have lots of company. Not just Americans, either; the Dexter series has been translated into 38 languages, and sensational news of serial killers regularly floods in from Russia, China, all over the world. People everywhere are willing voyeurs to mayhem. And when we learn of serial murders like the recent case at Gilgo Beach, our “dark watcher,” that small part of us that just can’t turn away, perks up and pays attention. 

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We don’t become evil because we dwell on it. In fact, one reason we gawk is to reassure ourselves that we could never do such a thing. When we stare at carnage we feel fear and revulsion, and that tells us with certainty that creating this kind of horror is beyond us. 

And it is. Serial killers are psychopaths, and current research in brain mapping indicates that psychopaths are born, not made. There is an actual, physical, difference in their brains; you can’t become a serial killer by reading about one, any more than you can get magical powers from reading “Harry Potter.” You can watch “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” 20 times and it will not inspire you to butcher the neighbors. We can no more move from watcher to killer than we can breathe water.
 
But a homicidal psychopath — a serial killer — delights in killing. He often taunts the rest of us in some way as part of his fun. The evil creature that has been dumping bodies on Gilgo Beach has used his victim’s cellphone to call her sister. 

It’s inhuman cruelty, but the research I read to write my “Dexter” books predicts that, when they catch him, he will probably look just like us. He will be known as a charming and thoughtful co-worker, a nice man who helps his ailing neighbor carry her groceries, and no one will have suspected what he really is. 

This is the theater of paranoia, and it grips us, too, because we need a way to see the clues that must be there. Who among your friends and colleagues might be staring at your back and sharpening a knife? 

You can’t know; but by watching, you know it could never be you. I think that’s good. We can’t deny that evil exists — but it’s not who we are. And the existence of evil implies its opposite: there is good, too. 

As ordinary human beings, we live somewhere in the middle, jerked back and forth by circumstance, never quite reaching either extreme. And if you never understand someone who lives at the evil pole, no matter how much you rubberneck, that’s good.

It means you’re only human.

Jeff Lindsay is the author, most recently, of “Dexter Is Delicious.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/opinion/25Lindsay.html?_r=0

When She Woke book: I cut out this book review “Plausibility makes Jordan's dystopia all the more chilling” by Robert J. Wiersema in the Edmonton Journal on Nov. 6, 2011.  He reviews the book When She Woke by Hillary Jordan.  

This is about women’s rights, pro-choice, and a dystopian thriller without teenagers in it.  There are already a lot of young adults books in a dystopia like The Hunger Games.  This is a strong book review.  I haven’t read the book, but reading this review really made me think:

When Hannah Payne wakes, it is to a prison cell. She has been sentenced to 30 days in solitary confinement, her every move broadcast on television. That is not the full extent of Hannah's punishment, however. Upon her release from prison, everyone who sees her will know, immediately, of the nature of her crime. Her skin has been genetically dyed bright red, and she will live as a Chrome, a walking testament to her transgression, for 16 years.

Hannah's crime? She had an abortion.

In the dystopian American future of Hillary Jordan's new novel When She Woke, abortion is illegal. The country has swung to the far right following a series of terrorist attacks and the Great Scourge (an antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhea) which swept across the country, killing and rendering survivors infertile. The religious right seized on the spiritual punishment aspect of the Scourge, and the perils of a declining population, and used the fear to strip women of their rights. In Hannah's world, the Secretary of Faith is at least as powerful as the President, and young women like her are forced to break the law, to seek out makeshift surgeries.

Hannah's imprisonment, however, is only the beginning of the story. Her release from prison marks the start of an exodus that will ultimately transform the young woman, and lay bare to the reader the machinations of a world that is all too plausible and possibly inevitable - given the rhetoric surrounding the upcoming U.S. election. From a faith-based halfway centre (The Straight Path Center) to an underground railroad for Chromes fleeing the United States north to Canada, from the omnipresent computerized tracking Hannah is subject to to the scorn and abuse she receives even from family members, When She Woke is an at times horrific journey through a culture only slightly removed from the present.

To her credit, Jordan never overplays her hand, never resorts to the obvious. Thus, comparisons between the world of When She Woke and contemporary American culture are left implicit, and for the reader to ponder. She focuses, instead, on Hannah's story.

That's a wise choice. Hannah is a brilliantly wrought, compelling character, swept up in forces largely beyond her control. Raised in a religious home, the only act of rebellion for the young seamstress who works at a bridal salon is making beautiful, glamorous dresses that will never be worn. That is, until the day she meets charismatic Reverend Aidan Dale. Hannah falls in love with the clergyman, and the two begin the affair that will end with her procedure, and her trial. When she is asked who the father is of her unborn child during the proceedings (along with the identity of the abortion provider), she refuses to answer, despite the fact that six years will be added to her sentence.

How Hannah reconciles herself with Dale and their relationship is but one component of her burgeoning selfhood, the independence and wisdom she develops and acquires over the course of the novel. Hannah's is a powerful journey, both within and out in the brutal, dystopian world, and one that readers would do well to accompany her on.

Robert J. Wiersema is a writer and bookseller in Victoria. His latest book is Walk Like a Man: Coming of Age with the Music of Bruce Springsteen.

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/sundayreader/story.html?id=15f91e21-9075-4b2f-a492-7dcddf16f8bf

Call Me Mrs. Miracle TV movie

This is on my blog www.badcb.blogspot.ca: 

Dec. 9 Call Me Mrs. Miracle: I saw this TV movie Call Me Mrs. Miracle on Dec. 12, 2013.  I might as well write about it now during the holiday season.  I only watched this because my favorite Edmonton actor Eric Johnson was in it.  The alternate title is Miracle in Manhattan.

There are these beautiful shots of NYC during Christmas.  It starts off with Jake (Eric Johnson) in his apartment in the morning.  He’s reading the newspaper about the hot new robot toy this season called the Intellytron.  An Asian woman news reporter also talks about the toy.

Holly (Jewel Staite from the TV show Firefly) is taking care of her 10 yr old nephew Gabe (Quinn Lord) because his dad is a soldier in Iraq.  They talk about Intellytron.

Holly is buying coffee, and she doesn’t have her card so Jake buys it for her.  She has a tendency to ramble.

Jake goes to work at a department store.  He is the manager and his dad JR Finley is the president.

JR: I made you the store manager, and now you made the decision to not sell the Intellytron.

Jake: I’m willing to put my job on the line if we don’t sell all the toys.

Holly enters her fashion job.  Her boss Lindy (Lauren Holly) is uptight and will be on the Shopping Network soon.  They talk about Holly’s reversible dress design.

Jake is the department store and an ornament drops and Jake picks it up.  He meets Mrs. Miracle (Doris Roberts).  She’s happy and peppy.

Jake: I don’t remember HR calling and telling me about hiring you.

The sales associate Gloria (Patricia Mayen-Salazar) says: I thought you hired her.

Jake: I didn’t.  She could be a confused old woman who wandered in.  Call HR.

Holly and Gabe meet Mrs. M when they look at toys.

The toy dog talks as Holly pulls it’s string.  It says in Mrs. M’s voice: “Your love is here.”

Holly and Jake meet again and she tells him about Gabe and how his mom passed away.

Mrs. M (to Holly): Gabe loves you.  Your efforts will be rewarded.

Holly introduces Gabe to her boss Lindy.

Gloria sits with Mrs. M at lunch and Mrs. M bought enough for 2.

Gloria: Those are the food my grandma made.  I called HR and there’s no record of you.

Mrs. M: They hire so many people, I’ll straighten it out.

Lindy goes on the Shopping Network.

JR is standing outside and meet Mrs. M.  Mrs. M tells him that Jake is busy with inventory.  She then introduces Gloria to JR and JR remembers her.

Mrs. M: You two can share a cab because you live 6 blocks away.

So she plays matchmaker here.

Jake then comes and Mrs. M tells him that he has to go home.

Jake: My mom died on Christmas Eve, and my dad thinks it’s disrespectful to celebrate Christmas.

Mrs. M: You should walk home to clear your head.

Holly and Gabe go to a chestnut vendor and meet Jake.  They go on a horse carriage ride.

Jake: Toys should spark the imagination.

They then take a special car service home.  Jake then asks Holly out and she says she has work and can’t get a baby- sitter for Gabe.

Jake: I’ll bring the food.

The next day Gloria tells Mrs. M: JR and our cab broke down and we had dinner.  We have a lot in common.  My husband died the same year his wife died.

Holly is at work.

Lindy: You want me to go to a retail shop and look at the people and see what kind of customers we have?  We only do high end.

JR talks to Mrs. M.

Mrs. M: If I sell out the toy store, you throw the holiday Christmas party.

JR: Okay.

Mrs. M: I’ll plan it.

Holly and Jake at her apartment.

Jake: My mom died 20 yrs ago on Christmas Eve.  It was a car accident with 2 cabs on a snow storm.  We go on an island vacation.  It’s more of an escape.  I never told anyone that.

Holly: It’s good to say things out loud.  It put things in perspective.

Holly reads her fortune cookie: “Your efforts will be rewarded.  That’s what Mrs. Miracle said.”

Jake reads his: “One kiss will change your life.”

Jake: I can’t tell you.  Maybe I’ll whisper it.

Jake kisses her.

Clothing store.  Mrs. M sees Lindy there.  Mrs. M is looking for a dress for a Christmas party so you can wear it from work to night.  Lindy looks around at the customers.  Lindy goes to work and sees everybody’s sizes and decides to go from 0-16 and go to the Shopping Network again to sell Holly’s dress.

On TV news it’s reported that after playing with the Intellytron, the toy explodes and sets on fire.

Jake and Holly play Monopoly at her place and they then go to a restaurant.

Lindy is on the Shopping Network again and says the dress “avoids the walk of shame.”

Mrs. M (to Jake): Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

Holly then remembers she has to pick up Gabe from school.

Gabe: You said we were going to go shopping on Thurs. for dad’s gift.

Holly apologizes.

1 hr 20 min into the movie, Holly goes to work and gets a call that Gabe is not a school.

Lindy: I have an announcement about you.

Holly: So you can say I’m fired for lousy sales?  Fine, I quit.

Holly leaves work and gets a call from Mrs. M that Gabe is at the store.  Holly yells at Gabe and Gabe yells back about how there are only 3 days left till Christmas and he has to get something for dad.  She writes an email to her brother Mike about how hard it is to be a parent and then decides to write a happy email.

Jake gets a plane ticket to an island, but wants to celebrate Christmas.  Holly and Jake are decorating the tree at her place.  On TV news, Mrs. M is there and says: “I work at Finley’s and we don’t sell Intellytron.  Proceeds go to children whose parents are in the military.

Gabe bought Holly a music box with a little ballerina.  He had gone to the store to buy it for her.  They hug.

JR reads his Christmas cards.

Jake tells Mrs. M that he saw her on TV last night. 

It starts snowing. 

The store is busy.    

JR (to Jake): You authorized the proceeds (of the charity).

Jake: Yes.

JR: You were right about old toys.

Jake: I know about being happy than being right.  So I’m not fired?

JR: I didn’t plan to fire you.  I’m planning on giving this company to you to run.

JR: This is the train set your mom and I bought for you the week before she died.  I held onto it.

They hug.

A military solider Mike enters: I just came back.  What toy can I buy?

Jake: Have this train set.  For free.

JR (to Jake): You have your mother’s heart.

They go across the street and the Christmas party is on.

Jake: Don’t you have a plane to catch?

JR: I’m not escaping anymore.

Lindy tells Holly that she wasn’t going to fire her, but to say that her dress sold well and that she can still work there.

Holly reads a Christmas story to Gabe.  There’s a knock at the door.  Gabe’s dad Mike enters.  (It’s the military solider at the store.)  Gabe hugs his dad.

Mike: My commander drew straws for Christmas, and I got to go home.

Mike and Gabe watch the train set.

Jake calls Holly to come to his party.  Jake meets Mike again.  Gabe and Holly there.  Jake gives Holly a present and it’s a gold thimble necklace.  When they were playing Monopoly, she talks about her lucky thimble.

Mrs. M: Your wish for your dad to be here came true.

Gabe: I didn’t tell you that.

Mrs. M: I have to go.  Little boys and girls need me.

Mrs. M walks away and fades away.  A star twinkles in the sky.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1708459/

My opinion: I thought this TV movie was average.  I only watched it because Eric Johnson was in it.  If he wasn’t in it, I wouldn’t have watched it.  It’s a light, happy, and fun TV movie.  There’s some drama.  My main problem with it was that there wasn’t a lot of conflict in it.

The only conflict I really felt was when Gabe was missing and wasn’t at school.  There’s some drama about Jake’s mom dying 20 yrs ago, and JR losing his wife.  There’s drama with Gabe’s mom dying and Holly having to take care of him while her brother is the military.  Jake and Holly both had stress at work.

Then again, it’s a Christmas TV movie so there has to be all these warm and fuzzy moments in it.  I do recommend you watch it to get into the holiday spirit.

Cosmo book by Spencer Gordon

This is on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Nov. 11 Cosmo book by Spencer Gordon: On the back of  the National Post article called “Self-publishers can’t afford humility” by Melissa Leong on Dec. 15, 2012, there was a book review.  It’s called “Gone Pop, like the World” by Natalie Zina Wahschots.  She reviews the book Cosmo by Spencer Gordon.  It’s a very strong article.  Here’s the whole article:

We are drenched in pop culture. We exude it from our pores, the unctuous and faintly sparkly residue of a life spent constantly plugged into the cultural milieu around us. Our relationships to television shows become love stories, the books we read provide supporting characters in our lives, the bands we listen to are as crucial to the structure of our days as the score of a summer blockbuster. Pop culture saturates us, but it is notoriously difficult to write about. The nuances of obsession and fandom, the precise and constantly evolving language of pop-cultural references is slippery, ever-evolving and difficult to manage. Most writers shy away from direct cultural references in their works, ostensibly to avoid creating an instantly dated text and alienating a potential audience outside the scope of those references, but also because writing around our relationship to the media we consume is frankly really hard. The Canadian landscape, the structure of memory, the geography of the body — those CanLit tropes are static, familiar and often relatively easy, smooth and navigable as opposed to the white-noise fizz and popping technobabble of pop culture.

With Cosmo, his debut collection of short fiction, Spencer Gordon prefers to dive headfirst into the roiling mass of the contemporary cultural moment, insisting the loud, bright water is fine. In a recent interview, Gordon stated that while he does not consider his engagement with pop culture to be a pervasive theme in his text, he does strive to “bring pop culture up to the level of other pervasive daily experiences, like using forks and spoons,” to make cultural references ordinary, and to stand against the notion that such references are somehow gauche. According to Gordon, “pop culture is culture, and ignoring it means we are deliberately distorting reality in service to a middle-class idea of what ‘proper’ literature should depict.”

Cosmo engages with pop culture in a paradoxical way; at once, the references feel perfectly natural, none overstated or artificially highlighted. The references, all of which are sharp and funny, are interwoven deftly, never heavy-handedly. Nevertheless, they stand out for their very presence, defiant simply by existing. Whether or not it was intended to be a central theme of the text, when Cosmo details Matthew McConaughey driving out into the desert on a personal journey of discovery, or explores the depth of the relationship between a young fan and professional wrestling, it cannot avoid making a statement. The relationships that the characters in Cosmo have with the culture that surrounds them are just as real, just as complex and potent, as the relationships they have with each other.

While this engagement with popular culture stands out as Cosmo’s most immediately defining characteristic, what the book reveals more slowly is the dexterity of the prose and the deep emotional authenticity of the narratives. The characters in Cosmo wear their wounds openly, defined by the damage the world does to everyone by the simple horror of living. Each character is defined by their isolation in some way, and the desire to reach out; the narratives themselves often unfold as these efforts to make connections either succeed or fail. This is especially interesting in the context of fame Gordon continually explores throughout the text. Public identity, the politics of fame and fandom come up as themes in the stories again and again, both as a way for characters to attempt to connect with each other and a lens through which Cosmo continually explores the specifics of loneliness.

It succeeds not only as a well-wrought and keenly written collection of narratives, but also as a work of analysis.

In weaving fame and popular culture into Cosmo, Spencer Gordon smudges the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, smearing real-world cultural references and famous figures, from Leonard Cohen to Miley Cyrus, all over the structure of his narratives. The stories engage with the ways in which the characters grapple with their own loneliness, forge and fail relationships, and also define their own relevance to the world, all within a larger cultural context. This makes Cosmo not only a collection of fiction but also a work of cultural criticism. It succeeds not only as a well-wrought and keenly written collection of narratives, but also as a work of analysis. The ways in which Gordon breaks down the barriers between music writing and fiction in particular (such as in the story “Transcript: Appeal Of The Sentence” which takes the form of a single, run-on sentence in which the speaker defends their love of pop star Miley Cyrus) is extremely exciting.

Perhaps the most defining moment is Cosmo comes in the very last story, “Lonely Planet,” wherein an aging porn star dons a dinosaur costume in a desperate bid to remain in the limelight. The story is notable for how well it navigates the fine lines between hilarity and desperation, the ridiculousness of the moment juxtaposed again the terrifying ache of impending irrelevance. Cosmo is a rare book in that it is brave enough to explore the ways in which being loved in private has a very real counterpoint in public, in the form of fame, public identity and cultural cache. In doing so, Gordon dissects the very idea of the authentic in an increasingly public world in which the self is ever more constructed.

My opinion: What stood out to me was in the beginning about how writers don’t write pop-cultural references because it will be instantly dated.  That’s why I don’t write pop culture in my scripts.  However, there was a time way back in 2009, the Edmonton Public Writer in Residence Chris Craddock pointed out that in my Rain script there were TV and movies references that were either real or fake.

What also stood out to me was this line: “The story is notable for how well it navigates the fine lines between hilarity and desperation.”  That reminds me of Dateline: To Catch a Predator where a 35 yr old guy was going to date a 12 yr old girl.  There were all these Youtube comments that some said it was sad and others said how it was ridiculous. 

The Shape- Shifters (about ghost-writing)

This is on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:


Nov. 5 The Shape- Shifters: I cut out this National Post article called “The Shape- Shifters” by Mark Medley on Mar. 12, 2011.  It’s about ghost-writing and the picture was really captivating.  It’s a man typing on a laptop, and this ghostly woman figure is floating behind him.  You can click on the link below and see the picture.  Here’s the whole article:

This is the 12th instalment in our series The Ecology of Books, examining the complex interrelationships that comprise Canada’s publishing industry — from small-press proprietors to the country’s biggest houses, from booksellers to book bloggers to book reviewers. Today, Mark Medley communes with ghostwriters.

Keith Hollihan wrote 15 books over the course of a dozen years before finally publishing one with only his name on the cover. He wrote about history, finance and the environment. He explored subjects ranging from sports network ESPN to real estate giant RE/MAX. One of his books was even featured on The Daily Show, though Hollihan watched the segment on TV like everyone else while the author traded jokes with Jon Stewart. Search his name on Amazon and you’ll get a few hits in return, including his recently released debut novel The Four Stages of Cruelty. Yet these books represent a fraction of his total output.
“When I say I ghostwrite, and I explain what that means,” Hollihan says, “people just seem to be really surprised that the name on the book is not always the name of the person who wrote it.”

Ghostwriters are the imposters of the publishing industry; they’ll adopt a different identity depending on the situation — an actress one instant, an athlete the next. They make their living by transforming into different people, and are rewarded very handsomely for their work. “I’ve been described in various ways,” says John Lawrence Reynolds. “Most commonly as a mercenary writer.”

Reynolds might just be Canada’s most successful ghostwriter. He’s worked with Brian Tobin, former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador (All In Good Time); Buzz Hargrove, former head of the Canadian Autoworkers (Laying It On The Line); Robert Milton, president and CEO of Air Canada (Straight From The Top); Frank Odea, co-founder of Second Cup (When All You Have Is Hope); and Robert Herjavec, of CBC’s Dragon’s Den (Driven).

“My name may not be on the cover,” he says, “but it’s always on the cheque.”

Indeed, ghostwriting can be much more lucrative than publishing under one’s own name. Reynolds, who lives in Burlington, Ont., has published six books of his own but doesn’t hide the fact that ghostwriting pays the bills. “I think it’s safe to say that 20% of the writers make 80% of the money,” he says. “And I wanted to be in that 20%. You can take a longshot and hope that you break with fiction — à la Margaret Atwood, I suppose — or you look for a more commercial way to do it.”

Another “ghost” said “if you’re not making at least $50,000 on a book, it’s not worth it.”

This can partly be attributed to the fact that many of those who hire ghostwriters come from the business community. “At some level, it’s a calling card, and it’s a loss leader, so they’re a little more amenable to the financial side of the whole thing,” says Hollihan, a Canadian writer who now lives in St. Paul, Minn. As well, those successful enough to warrant a book likely don’t have the time to spend a year writing it. “Writing is a full-time job unto itself — it’s more than a full-time job. How do you then do that and run a company [or] speak at 100 different places a year? I just don’t think it’s possible. So I kind of assume that anybody who’s got a public career is pretty much using the services of somebody out there.”

There’s no textbook way to become a “ghost.” Some are constantly on the hunt for new clients, researching and then approaching potential subjects and selling them on the idea of a book — the legacy argument. Others, like Reynolds and Hollihan, have established themselves to the point where subjects approach them. Sometimes, the publisher will sign a subject to a book deal before finding a suitable ghostwriter. “It’s not an easy place to get a start, because we tend to go back to the same people over and over again,” says Jim Gifford, HarperCollins Canada’s editorial director for non-
fiction, who’s worked on books such as the late hockey enforcer Bob Probert’s Tough Guy and Rick Hillier’s A Solider First, which was ghostwritten by former National Post reporter Chris Wattie. According to literary agent Hilary McMahon, “Once you get a good reputation as a ghostwriter, then publishers come to you.”

For Toronto writer Christopher Shulgan, who has published two well-received books under his own name, it was an out-of-the-blue call from a man looking for a ghostwriter that kickstarted his new career; Shulgan had been recommended by literary agent Beverley Slopen (who isn’t even his agent). A National Magazine Award-winning journalist, Shulgan approached the job no differently than if he was writing a (long) magazine profile; he met with the subject of the book — who wishes to remain anonymous — at least once a week for five months, and interviewed people from every phase of the subject’s life. “There are stories in there he didn’t even remember,” Shulgan says. It’s not simply a matter of transcribing interviews; the ghostwriter, in some respects, becomes their doppelgänger.
“For me, a ghostwriter is someone who gets along extremely well with the person they’re writing about,” Gifford says. “Who gains their trust, who knows what to put in the book — along with what not to include in the book.”

Working so closely with a subject for an extended period of time means a ghostwriter must be sure before agreeing to write the book. “I’ve turned down at least as many ghostwriting projects as I’ve accepted,” Reynolds says. If the chemistry isn’t there, or if he can’t envision spending a year of his life with the subject, he won’t do it. And though he’s never left a project once he’s signed on — “Once you’ve volunteered for the army you don’t leave when the guns start going” — he includes a clause in every contract that allows him to remove his name from the project, just in case.

Shulgan has no such qualms about the subject of the book, and enjoyed the experience so much that he’s signed up to ghost another; it doesn’t hurt that the money will allow him to escape Toronto for a couple of months this summer to finish work on a long-simmering novel. And while Shulgan was more than willing to discuss his experience, not everyone is so keen to associate themselves with the trade. “There is a perception that you’re supposed to be embarrassed that you’re doing it,” he says.

“I can’t give you any specific names, but I’ve worked with major novelists,” Gifford says. “Some people are known as very literary writers, and they just want to maintain that image.”

Yet it isn’t as secretive as one might expect. None of the writers interviewed for this story say they’ve had to sign confidentiality agreements, though there is an implicit understanding that a ghostwriter will keep quiet. It is, after all, not their book. “You’re still a storyteller, but it’s not your voice and it’s not your story,” Reynolds says. “And if you can’t accept that, you’re the wrong person for this racket.”

It’s not the ghostwriter’s voice, and it’s not the ghostwriter’s story, but they are the ghostwriter’s words. Thus, when Hollihan tells people his line of work, the reaction is decidedly negative. There’s something “sacred” about a book, he says, and the existence of a ghostwriter is an affront to the idea of authenticity — this notion that the name on the cover should be that of the person who wrote the words inside.

“I think everyone knows that Sarah Palin probably couldn’t write her way out of a baggie — of course everyone knows she uses a ghost,” says Allan Gould, a Toronto ghostwriter and author of close to 40 books. “Certainly if J.K. Rowling had someone write her stuff for her, we’d say ‘Hold on.’ But in the case of non-fiction — I mean, I can see it as an ethical question, but it doesn’t have to be. Anyone’s who literate enough to shell out $29.95 or $36.95 for a hardcover knows damn well that the person who runs this billion-dollar company is probably too bloody busy to write it himself.”

Books are held to a higher standard, it seems. Damien Hirst doesn’t paint all his paintings — the concept might be his, but he has a team to pull them off. Singers routinely record songs they did not write — “What’s an Elvis song?” wonders Hollihan — and several ghostwriters trotted out the example of politicians delivering speeches they didn’t write.

“Aren’t we all savvy enough to realize Andre Agassi didn’t write his book?” Shulgan asks. And perhaps we aren’t giving enough credit to readers, who surely know Snooki didn’t type every word of A Shore Thing — though in Canada most ghostwriting is confined to non-fiction. In any case, “I actually think a lot of what I did was not writing, but was almost editing.” His subject was a great storyteller; Shulgan just shaped the stories. “What’s inauthentic about that? These are stories that happened to this guy. He has and had ultimate control over what appears on the page. On some level, I’m the cameraman and he’s the director.”

In any case, the subject always has final approval. That doesn’t necessarily mean they read the book. The “authors” of one of the first books Reynolds ever ghostwrote once appeared on CBC for an in-depth interview not long after their book was published. When the host asked them a question about a specific chapter, they froze. “The two supposed authors looked at each other,” Reynolds laughs, “and I said to my wife ‘They haven’t read the book. They haven’t read their own book!’ ”

Still, despite a seemingly inexhaustible supply of people — and organizations — who want to tell their story, and require a professional writer to do so, literary agent Linda McKnight cautions her authors against ghostwriting. “People write because they want to write, and usually they have something else that’s intriguing to them, that’s exciting to them, that just gets them going. And it’s not ghostwriting.”

“There comes a point in every ghostwriting project, and I would surmise, in every ghostwriter’s life, when he or she says ‘OK, I’m getting tired of writing this person’s story, I’ve got to start writing my own,’ ” says Reynolds, who will publish a novel in 2012 called Beach Strip.
His name will be on the cover.

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/03/11/the-shape-shifters-canadian-writers-on-ghostwriting/

My opinion: It was an interesting article about something that not a lot of people talk about.  I’m sure we were all skeptical with celebrities writing books.  Amy Poehler from Saturday Night Live and Parks and Recreation released her memoir Yes, Please.  I read an excerpt in the Globe and Mail.

It was an average story about her taking her 2 sons to look at the moon.  Now, she I believe wrote her book.

I would like to see my name on the cover of a book, or in an article.  I do have my name on my blogs.

Melissa Leong’s self- publishing (Part 2)

This is on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Nov. 11 Melissa Leong’s self- publishing (Part 2):  I cut out the second part of Melissa Leong’s article about self-publishing her vampire book on Amazon.  It’s in the National Post called “Self-publishers can’t afford humility” on Dec. 15, 2012.  The illustrated picture had Leong taking off a baseball cap with the word “author” on it, and underneath it is another baseball cap with the word “publisher” on it.  Here’s the whole article: 

After I clicked “publish” on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program, I sat back and waited for my life to change.

It was as if I thought self-publishing my teen vampire novel, What Kills Me, would be transformative: kind of like when Prince Adam raises his sword and becomes He-Man. Following six months of writing and spending about $2,000 preparing my ebook for publication, by the power of Amazon, I was now an author.

Except that putting your book for sale on Amazon feels like dropping a single grain into a bag of rice — you need to paint it green or point it out, or else how will anyone distinguish it from the rest? So nothing happened. And I felt no different.

So I went to a bar across the street and had a sad mid-afternoon drink by myself. What I realized over a spicy Caesar was that I had to get a publicist. But I could only afford one who would work for an occasional spicy Caesar. Top (and only) candidate: Me.

At first, I found it hard to market my book. I think it’s because my dad taught me that it’s not nice to brag, which was never a problem since as a kid, I had subterranean self-esteem. That first month, June, 67 of my friends and family bought copies of my book. Some lied about buying a copy. I knew because of this exchange:

Family member: “I bought your book but I forgot to bring it for you to sign!”
Me: “But it’s an ebook.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Thank you so much.”

By August, I had pitched 150 different book blogs. I printed and handed out bookmarks at book fairs. I Tweeted. I posted on Facebook. I hosted prize giveaways. I used Pinterest, LibraryThing, Triberr, Goodreads, GooglePlus and other platforms that I had never even heard of. I even paid someone $15 to make me a book trailer (another person, who has directed several high-profile book trailers, quoted me $10,000).

I gave away hundreds of free copies in exchange for honest reviews. I answered dozens of Q&As with bloggers (Who was your favourite author growing up? Stephen King. Which would you rather be a werewolf or a fairy? A fairy. Less shaving).

And I wrote dozens of essays and blog posts on everything from bullying to monsters to self-publishing. I gave the U.K.-based Dark World Books $375 to organize a blog tour for me, where I would appear on a different blog every day for four weeks.

How does anyone do this with a full-time job and other responsibilities? Well, keep the hours of a vampire.
A warning though: weeks of no sleep turned my sharp and efficient brain into mush. One day, Zombie Melissa got an email to interview “the president of Ups Canada.” I called and told him in a voicemail how happy I would be to chat about “Ups” — as in “up” and “down.” The moment I put the receiver down, I froze. Oh. My. God. UPS Canada Shipping.

That night, I went to bed early. But for a month after, my friends called me “Ups.”

So what did it all mean for sales? What was the, uh, upside? July and August saw incremental increases. Someone commented on a blog post: “I’ve seen this book around. Looks good. I might buy it.”

Who cares if she bought it? She had “seen my book around!” That warranted a happy dance. I did a lot of those — my happy dance looks like I’m playing the drums while running in place — for every small success: When Kayla Curry, another indie author, became the first stranger to “like” my fan page on Facebook. When Thomas Winship, author of Vaempires, gave What Kills Me a five-star rating. When I was a youth, no one wanted to be my friend because of my dark, messed up imagination. And suddenly, I had a gang of freakishly nice indie authors, all with dark, messed up imaginations, who were keen to help me with advice and promotion.

I published my ebook for Kobo using Kobo Writing Life, and for iTunes and Barnes & Noble using the digital self-publishing site Smashwords. I even produced a paperback version through Amazon’s CreateSpace.

Then in September, readers started to buy. I had dropped the price of the ebook from $2.99 to $0.99 to attract more customers. (Amazon gives you 35% royalties on anything under $2.99 and 70% for anything over.) I broke into Amazon’s Top 100 best sellers list in the occult and kid’s action and adventure genres.

I remember where I was for many of my mini-milestones and weirdly, some of those
moments involve vampires.

On June 9, I was in New York interviewing True Blood’s Alexander Skarsgård when I saw my first review by a reader; “I could not put it down,” the U.K. reader wrote. (What a great dream, I thought, somebody pinch me, hell, bite me — preferably Skarsgård.)

On Sept. 11, I was sitting in the media lounge at the Toronto International Film Festival, writing a story about Neil Jordan’s latest vampire flick when What Kills Me hit No. 6 in occult. I went into the hall and did a happy dance in front of a very puzzled TIFF volunteer.

On Oct. 3, Pixel of Ink featured my book as the “hot deal” of the day. I had never heard of Pixel of Ink, a site that promotes free and bargain Kindle Books, but sales spiked. Every time I refreshed my screen, a dozen people had bought. Overnight, it hit  No. 1 in occult, No. 4 in action and adventure, No. 4 in horror (three spots after Stephen King).

Most impressively, it ranked No. 221 out of more than a million books in the Kindle store.

A book is generally considered a Canadian bestseller after selling 5,000 copies. What Kills Me has now sold more than 6,000 books. So far, I’ve received two cheques in six months for about $600, which doesn’t cover my initial investment, but I started out expecting to gain nothing but experience, knowledge and a sense of accomplishment. If I had to, I’d do it all over again exactly the same, the “ups” and the downs.

I’m especially grateful for the reception. The book is scored 4.3 out of 5 after 368 ratings on Goodreads and has 85 five-star reviews on Amazon, none of which I paid for (I know, the insanity — you can actually buy reviews). Three different producers have approached me to talk about television and movie opportunities. And best of all: weekly fan mail.

When I look back at the journey, writing the novel was the easy part. “You need to treat it like a business,” Mark Lefebvre, director of self-publishing and author relations at Kobo Inc., told me.
I had not been prepared for that. But still, I had carved a place for myself out of nothing. That is the real battle of an indie author. We are masters of our own universe. And we must raise our own swords.

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/12/14/self-publishers-cant-afford-humility/

My opinion: Wow, that’s a lot of work to get publicity for your book.  I did notice how 3 different producers wanted to talk to her about TV and movie opportunities.  I have thought about writing my script The Vertex Fighter into a book version, but I’m not really interested in it.

I have always been writing scripts since I was 14 yrs old.  When I was 18, I tried writing something in a book format, but then I start writing it in script format.