Ask the Author: Leo X. Robertson
Answered Questions (20)
Leo X. Robertson
1. "Two words," he said. "Vegas, baby!"
2. “Tonight,” she said, “we’re watching ‘Across the Universe.’ It’s a musical with the songs of The Beatles, about the Vietnam War, featuring Salma Hayek!”
3. He told her to get out of those pyjamas and put on her snow boots. He needed her to attend, and be his designated driver to, some bullshit work event.
4. You wake up hungover beside a cute guy. Over coffee that morning you discover he’s one of those people who speaks with an English (British) accent for no discernible reason.
5. “Leo I can’t believe you forgot you can’t buy beer from Norwegian supermarkets after 6pm, and not at all on Sundays. The rest of the weekend’s gonna be dry.”
6. The phone rings with an unknown number. It might be important but probably isn't.
7. You look up your ex on Facebook. He's doing just fine.
8. "I swear to God," she said, laughing, "I should just go to therapy." Her boyfriend hesitated.
9. Dear Leo,
First of all, thank you for submitting your short story for our consideration. Unfortunately...
10. The 2020 results are in. Four more years!
2. “Tonight,” she said, “we’re watching ‘Across the Universe.’ It’s a musical with the songs of The Beatles, about the Vietnam War, featuring Salma Hayek!”
3. He told her to get out of those pyjamas and put on her snow boots. He needed her to attend, and be his designated driver to, some bullshit work event.
4. You wake up hungover beside a cute guy. Over coffee that morning you discover he’s one of those people who speaks with an English (British) accent for no discernible reason.
5. “Leo I can’t believe you forgot you can’t buy beer from Norwegian supermarkets after 6pm, and not at all on Sundays. The rest of the weekend’s gonna be dry.”
6. The phone rings with an unknown number. It might be important but probably isn't.
7. You look up your ex on Facebook. He's doing just fine.
8. "I swear to God," she said, laughing, "I should just go to therapy." Her boyfriend hesitated.
9. Dear Leo,
First of all, thank you for submitting your short story for our consideration. Unfortunately...
10. The 2020 results are in. Four more years!
Leo X. Robertson
Suck ma wiggly dick!!!!!
Leo X. Robertson
mine and my friends's's
Leo X. Robertson
As usual, I started off trying to out-wit your response (“So essentially you want another book written that no one asked for/ will read?” was the best I came up with) but ended up settling on making a sobering point instead!
I’ll blog-post this also to maximise readership because as far as my experience goes, this is what I advise:
Any writer reading this should go sit down and write me a story called “The Acorn.” It’s as good a stimulus as any other. Calling it “The Acorn”, by the way, is non-negotiable. I’m a writer. I have convictions.
Writers have one week to do it. If the week passes and the story’s not done, bye bye. Oh, your kid, your dog, the connection wasn’t good, the idea didn’t come—do I give a shit? Bouncers outside Glasgow nightclubs told me the following when they spotted that I was clearly too drunk to let inside: “Try somewhere else.” (I say this to the writers, and it has the same implication: it won’t work here or elsewhere.)
If they write the story, they should then not just send me that story and think I should be thankful to have used any of their time at all, start blogging about it, ask me and others to like rate comment subscribe, no: that seems professional, but it isn’t.
They should wait a week, take another look at the story, see that it probably sucks, edit it if it’s salvageable OR write me a second story titled “The Acorn.” They should keep writing stories titled “The Acorn” until they have written the best thing they’ve ever written in their entire lives, just because some guy on the internet told them to!
Welcome to the creative process. Isn’t this how themed anthologies are formed? Isn’t writing more about grit, persistence, work, perspiration, than it is inspiration? Yes. Does a writer need to be an insufferable ponce in order to get a few words on the page? Talking about what she does, why she does it, what type of fucking pencil she uses, the difference she’s making? Absolutely not. Just get it done. Feed the muse anything and sit patiently awaiting what she gifts you (this is not poncery because it’s how the process actually works.)
Once you’ve spent a good deal of time discovering these stories inside you/ in the ether, about acorns, you realise, wow, so I could sit down any day and discover a story about anything?! Now you understand the importance of writing everyday. Now you’re hooked. Now you must. Now you are a writer. Because anyone can write a million-word novel without any restrictions on time or quality. Anyone can write A story titled “The Acorn” (I was going to say “a story about an acorn”, but it doesn’t have to be), but few have the tenacity to write five, ten, fifty, and pick the best. There’s no guarantee, even, that after fifty, any of them are good. (Unlikely, but possible.) Writers acknowledge this uncertainty, and write in spite of it. No one is asking us to do this, so we must impose the constraints on ourselves and take them seriously. Good writing loves constraints.
Okay so from here on out I start making up statistics to make my point. The statistics might even contradict each other, but this is a work of fiction: the point is the point.
For this anthology to exist, out of 10000000000 writers on this site, I’d need about 1000 to read this. That already disqualifies the project, but let’s assume they do.
Out of 1M words that get written for this project, we end up with 50k worth reading. This sounds wasteful, but it makes sense: we don’t know who’s writing what or why. 50k is miraculous. This is how we get it.
500 like this answer/post. 100 send me something. Pretty much all of them think I’m joking about them having to write even more than one story. I accept this not only because I have to, but because developing the abilities of writers as a result of this project is just a nice effect it could possible have, but it’s not the goal. It’s a numbers game. I reckon 10/100 stories are good: I either get these from ten authors who’ve written ten stories or from a hundred authors who wrote just one each. What do I care? Despite how much writers complain about rejection, they do the bulk of the work themselves.
Of 100 authors, 50 send me something great. 10 send me something transcendent.
I encourage the 50 who were shortlisted. I’m sure I would love to sit and provide them detailed edits, find gentle, personalised ways to tell them to keep going, but who has the time? I’ll send them what I come up with. I don’t have to.
70 of the ones who didn’t get accepted send me bitter, angry retorts. But I’m a writer: it’ll take more than that to sully the experience. I can’t let it have me sitting around writing stories about narcissistic idiots just because they’re the majority. (Anymore!) Characters should be original, special, interesting. I’ll give these people no further attention. They don’t deserve it.
3 of the ones who didn’t get in thank me for my time and say they’ll read and promote what we end up making. I encouraged 50 in the hopes of catching these 3 writers in my encouragement net. These are writers who were almost there and will make it next time. Or the time after. Or the time after that. Or the time after that. Providing the next rounds of rejections don’t break them. They might.
I send edits to the remaining 10. If these anthologies take off, I’ll have the right to be a bit more strict about what I accept, and won’t accept anything that even needs editing. A few fight me on the edits. Sometimes that’s what writers do, sometimes it isn’t. We must have convictions without being dickheads.
I make us a book. We get disheartened because it takes six months longer than we expected, but it gets done eventually. Writers are patient.
Of the 10 who sent stories, 7 get as far as telling their friends and family, though I begged all of them to do it. Why am I the one doing the begging? This is as much their opportunity as it is mine. Whatever: I accept it. Someone has to do it. At least if it’s me, I know it’ll get done.
The 3 others, despite me having informed them of the competition they eliminated, are too shy, don’t want to bother anyone—and they won’t. 5 of them thank me for my hard work. 4 get actively involved in marketing.
Would I have a story in this book? Interesting question. If I decided “yes”, I would write and write until I had a story whose quality I felt was undeniable and then send it to those other writers to see if they agreed. I think the point is, if I decided “yes”, I would do anything to make it happen; if I decided “no”, I would do something else.
3 of us go on a tour. We are The Acorn. Who’s to say this doesn’t turn out to create a wonderful book anyway? Still doesn’t mean it will sell, necessarily. We just have to decide whether or not that was really the goal. If it doesn’t sell. It might! You might say that’s what makes it exciting. I say, you might as well see it that way, because either way, that’s how it is. A writer would choose to see it as exciting, just as a committed partner might choose to stay with their loved one, year after year, after the initial spark of ignition has faded and now she must decide, year after year, if it’s worth continuing to stoke the engine. Half of all marriages fail? I would’ve thought 90%. But that’s no slight on marriage. If anything it’s a testament to the robustness of marriage, because whether or not you’re intelligent, you can make it work—sometimes.
If we get frustrated, we just need to remember our pretty cool origin story. G asked R for a writing idea. What they did next will shock you.
Assuming 1000 people who are prone to calling themselves writers read this:
You think I’m not serious? PM me for an email address to which you will send your acorn stories. This single step of active participation has eliminated 90% of the writers. (Writers aren’t lazy, don’t make excuses, but most of the ones who call themselves “writers” do, are.) Those of you who get in touch, you have one year’s worth of weeks to write a great acorn story.
You won’t. You might not participate because you don’t know who I am: fair enough. You might succeed elsewhere, but if you haven’t participated because all of this sounds like too much hard work, I doubt it. If you are inclined to retorting bitterly and angrily to rejection—either through an email you actually send to an editor, or one you just write in your head—it’s either out of confusion, because you don’t know about the above process (if so, I hope this helped—keep at it, mate! Be one of the 3 this encouragement reaches!); or you do know about it, and you know you’re the one holding yourself back. I thought you were passionate about this. So did you.
Don’t get in touch just to tell me this was useful. That’s why I wrote it. Go write something else. In so doing, help me to survive with very little indication that I’m making a difference, let alone a positive one. Writers need this training. Also, I stopped caring what people thought about me long ago. I think that’s dangerous and exciting. Stating it outright might make me sound unlikeable. It might quality as “telling.” But you’re a writer in my flock: we respect one another. You assume I was aware of these writing principles a priori and decided to go against them; you realise it would be inappropriate to point them out.
I’m away to write something else. Excuse me. After that, I’m gonna play Zelda: Breath of the Wild, until my eyeballs melt, as is my wont, after the work is done.
I’ll blog-post this also to maximise readership because as far as my experience goes, this is what I advise:
Any writer reading this should go sit down and write me a story called “The Acorn.” It’s as good a stimulus as any other. Calling it “The Acorn”, by the way, is non-negotiable. I’m a writer. I have convictions.
Writers have one week to do it. If the week passes and the story’s not done, bye bye. Oh, your kid, your dog, the connection wasn’t good, the idea didn’t come—do I give a shit? Bouncers outside Glasgow nightclubs told me the following when they spotted that I was clearly too drunk to let inside: “Try somewhere else.” (I say this to the writers, and it has the same implication: it won’t work here or elsewhere.)
If they write the story, they should then not just send me that story and think I should be thankful to have used any of their time at all, start blogging about it, ask me and others to like rate comment subscribe, no: that seems professional, but it isn’t.
They should wait a week, take another look at the story, see that it probably sucks, edit it if it’s salvageable OR write me a second story titled “The Acorn.” They should keep writing stories titled “The Acorn” until they have written the best thing they’ve ever written in their entire lives, just because some guy on the internet told them to!
Welcome to the creative process. Isn’t this how themed anthologies are formed? Isn’t writing more about grit, persistence, work, perspiration, than it is inspiration? Yes. Does a writer need to be an insufferable ponce in order to get a few words on the page? Talking about what she does, why she does it, what type of fucking pencil she uses, the difference she’s making? Absolutely not. Just get it done. Feed the muse anything and sit patiently awaiting what she gifts you (this is not poncery because it’s how the process actually works.)
Once you’ve spent a good deal of time discovering these stories inside you/ in the ether, about acorns, you realise, wow, so I could sit down any day and discover a story about anything?! Now you understand the importance of writing everyday. Now you’re hooked. Now you must. Now you are a writer. Because anyone can write a million-word novel without any restrictions on time or quality. Anyone can write A story titled “The Acorn” (I was going to say “a story about an acorn”, but it doesn’t have to be), but few have the tenacity to write five, ten, fifty, and pick the best. There’s no guarantee, even, that after fifty, any of them are good. (Unlikely, but possible.) Writers acknowledge this uncertainty, and write in spite of it. No one is asking us to do this, so we must impose the constraints on ourselves and take them seriously. Good writing loves constraints.
Okay so from here on out I start making up statistics to make my point. The statistics might even contradict each other, but this is a work of fiction: the point is the point.
For this anthology to exist, out of 10000000000 writers on this site, I’d need about 1000 to read this. That already disqualifies the project, but let’s assume they do.
Out of 1M words that get written for this project, we end up with 50k worth reading. This sounds wasteful, but it makes sense: we don’t know who’s writing what or why. 50k is miraculous. This is how we get it.
500 like this answer/post. 100 send me something. Pretty much all of them think I’m joking about them having to write even more than one story. I accept this not only because I have to, but because developing the abilities of writers as a result of this project is just a nice effect it could possible have, but it’s not the goal. It’s a numbers game. I reckon 10/100 stories are good: I either get these from ten authors who’ve written ten stories or from a hundred authors who wrote just one each. What do I care? Despite how much writers complain about rejection, they do the bulk of the work themselves.
Of 100 authors, 50 send me something great. 10 send me something transcendent.
I encourage the 50 who were shortlisted. I’m sure I would love to sit and provide them detailed edits, find gentle, personalised ways to tell them to keep going, but who has the time? I’ll send them what I come up with. I don’t have to.
70 of the ones who didn’t get accepted send me bitter, angry retorts. But I’m a writer: it’ll take more than that to sully the experience. I can’t let it have me sitting around writing stories about narcissistic idiots just because they’re the majority. (Anymore!) Characters should be original, special, interesting. I’ll give these people no further attention. They don’t deserve it.
3 of the ones who didn’t get in thank me for my time and say they’ll read and promote what we end up making. I encouraged 50 in the hopes of catching these 3 writers in my encouragement net. These are writers who were almost there and will make it next time. Or the time after. Or the time after that. Or the time after that. Providing the next rounds of rejections don’t break them. They might.
I send edits to the remaining 10. If these anthologies take off, I’ll have the right to be a bit more strict about what I accept, and won’t accept anything that even needs editing. A few fight me on the edits. Sometimes that’s what writers do, sometimes it isn’t. We must have convictions without being dickheads.
I make us a book. We get disheartened because it takes six months longer than we expected, but it gets done eventually. Writers are patient.
Of the 10 who sent stories, 7 get as far as telling their friends and family, though I begged all of them to do it. Why am I the one doing the begging? This is as much their opportunity as it is mine. Whatever: I accept it. Someone has to do it. At least if it’s me, I know it’ll get done.
The 3 others, despite me having informed them of the competition they eliminated, are too shy, don’t want to bother anyone—and they won’t. 5 of them thank me for my hard work. 4 get actively involved in marketing.
Would I have a story in this book? Interesting question. If I decided “yes”, I would write and write until I had a story whose quality I felt was undeniable and then send it to those other writers to see if they agreed. I think the point is, if I decided “yes”, I would do anything to make it happen; if I decided “no”, I would do something else.
3 of us go on a tour. We are The Acorn. Who’s to say this doesn’t turn out to create a wonderful book anyway? Still doesn’t mean it will sell, necessarily. We just have to decide whether or not that was really the goal. If it doesn’t sell. It might! You might say that’s what makes it exciting. I say, you might as well see it that way, because either way, that’s how it is. A writer would choose to see it as exciting, just as a committed partner might choose to stay with their loved one, year after year, after the initial spark of ignition has faded and now she must decide, year after year, if it’s worth continuing to stoke the engine. Half of all marriages fail? I would’ve thought 90%. But that’s no slight on marriage. If anything it’s a testament to the robustness of marriage, because whether or not you’re intelligent, you can make it work—sometimes.
If we get frustrated, we just need to remember our pretty cool origin story. G asked R for a writing idea. What they did next will shock you.
Assuming 1000 people who are prone to calling themselves writers read this:
You think I’m not serious? PM me for an email address to which you will send your acorn stories. This single step of active participation has eliminated 90% of the writers. (Writers aren’t lazy, don’t make excuses, but most of the ones who call themselves “writers” do, are.) Those of you who get in touch, you have one year’s worth of weeks to write a great acorn story.
You won’t. You might not participate because you don’t know who I am: fair enough. You might succeed elsewhere, but if you haven’t participated because all of this sounds like too much hard work, I doubt it. If you are inclined to retorting bitterly and angrily to rejection—either through an email you actually send to an editor, or one you just write in your head—it’s either out of confusion, because you don’t know about the above process (if so, I hope this helped—keep at it, mate! Be one of the 3 this encouragement reaches!); or you do know about it, and you know you’re the one holding yourself back. I thought you were passionate about this. So did you.
Don’t get in touch just to tell me this was useful. That’s why I wrote it. Go write something else. In so doing, help me to survive with very little indication that I’m making a difference, let alone a positive one. Writers need this training. Also, I stopped caring what people thought about me long ago. I think that’s dangerous and exciting. Stating it outright might make me sound unlikeable. It might quality as “telling.” But you’re a writer in my flock: we respect one another. You assume I was aware of these writing principles a priori and decided to go against them; you realise it would be inappropriate to point them out.
I’m away to write something else. Excuse me. After that, I’m gonna play Zelda: Breath of the Wild, until my eyeballs melt, as is my wont, after the work is done.
Leo X. Robertson
Noooo! Is that what you think they were up to? Well, here's one for you then: how can someone be so bitter and yet naive at the same time?
Leo X. Robertson
Dude, if I had enough imagination, any given day would do. Why did I do that? What did she mean by that? Why is he so angry at me? Why am I so mad at her? What are all these feelings I'm having?! AHHH
Leo X. Robertson
Scathing Hillary Clinton—at least I'd know she meant it!
Plus, something something satire, dot dot dot, one day I could be president, am I right? (Just don't tell anyone I was born in Kenya.)
Plus, something something satire, dot dot dot, one day I could be president, am I right? (Just don't tell anyone I was born in Kenya.)
Leo X. Robertson
Cheers as always for your interest, Harry!
I do have a concept for another Sadwhitepeopledrinking novel, but since it took 24 years to populate RVP with a full cast of assholes, I imagine Untitled Sadwhitepeopledrinking Project will be a 50th birthday gift :)
Still, if I can get Italo! out soon, you won't have to wait long for more stupid humour and antics!
I do have a concept for another Sadwhitepeopledrinking novel, but since it took 24 years to populate RVP with a full cast of assholes, I imagine Untitled Sadwhitepeopledrinking Project will be a 50th birthday gift :)
Still, if I can get Italo! out soon, you won't have to wait long for more stupid humour and antics!
Leo X. Robertson
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
Leo X. Robertson
Omg. Eeven altho I read all my stuff liek a gajillion tiems befour releecing, there is, I blieve, one embarassing misteak in each book of mein. Each tiem I'm redarfting I have to lewk up the derifference betwene 'lay' and 'lie', and I have bean noan to stair at the werd 'brung' untilll I'm cornvinced it's gewd Anglish.
Leo X. Robertson
555. Forgiven!
8.8776. Pringles. Save the can and fill it with coins. I see your moment on the lips and raise you a lifetime of savings!
Don't know about you, but I could do without the monsters, but I agree: no internet? Totally no life!
Dear Mt, you have made me more than big-ass HappY! Million thanks yourself ;)
8.8776. Pringles. Save the can and fill it with coins. I see your moment on the lips and raise you a lifetime of savings!
Don't know about you, but I could do without the monsters, but I agree: no internet? Totally no life!
Dear Mt, you have made me more than big-ass HappY! Million thanks yourself ;)
Leo X. Robertson
3. I hate beautifully maniac hoho translation. But 6 languages is far too many! If ever ever ever one of my books should be translated (Spanish version of Findesferas is on the list) I would do it myself, as I've heard horror stories of the hoho variety. Then I would hope similar languages would use the Spanish version as the basis (Portuguese, Italian...) but tbh I'm still working on getting it right in English!
3 (part 2). Ahhh I've got it! Brain over heart? It's a tough one for sure. Use both! Or, where does intuition come from? Use that :)
4. Ach, you know if I was being all virtuous I'd tell you that being famous is not the point of writing (and it isn't), but I don't know if that impulse ever leaves... anyone! I know in a kind of vague sense why I write, but I don't imagine my reasons would be the same as yours :) I know the fun and fulfillment is interaction with readers, communication: those are good reasons to write. There are things you can write that you'd never say :D
3 (part 2). Ahhh I've got it! Brain over heart? It's a tough one for sure. Use both! Or, where does intuition come from? Use that :)
4. Ach, you know if I was being all virtuous I'd tell you that being famous is not the point of writing (and it isn't), but I don't know if that impulse ever leaves... anyone! I know in a kind of vague sense why I write, but I don't imagine my reasons would be the same as yours :) I know the fun and fulfillment is interaction with readers, communication: those are good reasons to write. There are things you can write that you'd never say :D
Leo X. Robertson
I love these questions!! Your passion transcends language! :) 1. A big big thing is relaxing. You have to take it easy. I don't think there's such a thing as "editor's block", so any mistake made on a first draft can be corrected. Just write something, anything! Get it down, look at it later :D 2. GREAT question- if I understand it. What authors do I connect with on a visceral level? I think books might be better, as authors can be hit or miss. Eugenide's The Virgin Suicides, Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin, Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, most Murakami novels, and Peake's The Gormenghast Trilogy. So, six in total! (By the way, if you don't understand my answers, just send me a personal message if you want clarification :D)
Leo X. Robertson
Hi Lixian,
Thanks for my first author question!
Biggest inspiration is probably the "pajaro choguy" song mentioned in the book (Pajaro Choguy - Paraguay Purahei is on Youtube) then Buena Vista Social Club, which is not Paraguayan at all, but this book was I guess dedicated to my Paraguayan husband and his family, and we like BVSC.
Finally, for spacey scenes (and as you are a fellow writer, I recommend for writing productivity in general) the soundtrack to the game Machinarium is great! Ambient, non-intrusive and about an hour long, so you can write for as long as you're listening and take a break afterwards.
I'm really interested, as I suppose you are, in music's influence on writing and you'll definitely see more of this in my work- coming soon!
Cheers,
Leo
Thanks for my first author question!
Biggest inspiration is probably the "pajaro choguy" song mentioned in the book (Pajaro Choguy - Paraguay Purahei is on Youtube) then Buena Vista Social Club, which is not Paraguayan at all, but this book was I guess dedicated to my Paraguayan husband and his family, and we like BVSC.
Finally, for spacey scenes (and as you are a fellow writer, I recommend for writing productivity in general) the soundtrack to the game Machinarium is great! Ambient, non-intrusive and about an hour long, so you can write for as long as you're listening and take a break afterwards.
I'm really interested, as I suppose you are, in music's influence on writing and you'll definitely see more of this in my work- coming soon!
Cheers,
Leo
Leo X. Robertson
I can't think of anything less facetious to say than that I get inspired to write.
It's the same concept behind so many things. Wanna be creative? Be creative. Wanna be productive? Be productive. Wanna be inspired? Be inspired. Wanna run faster? Run faster. Wanna be happy? Be happy. If everyone was willing to accept the Gaiman-esque principle of how simple, how easy and how hard all of that is, we'd end an enormous number of pointless careers so yeah that's how I get inspired to write :)
It's the same concept behind so many things. Wanna be creative? Be creative. Wanna be productive? Be productive. Wanna be inspired? Be inspired. Wanna run faster? Run faster. Wanna be happy? Be happy. If everyone was willing to accept the Gaiman-esque principle of how simple, how easy and how hard all of that is, we'd end an enormous number of pointless careers so yeah that's how I get inspired to write :)
Leo X. Robertson
Hm. I'll say something about upcoming stuff later, but Findesferas came about through my chats with my Paraguayan husband's grandmother; she talked a lot about the wars that went on in their home country in the past; I investigated and found it really interesting. And whenever I go into a bookshop and look at the historical/ war fiction, so much of it is World War II; when I look at the popular scientific non-fiction, so much of it is astrophysics. So I wanted to combine the non-fictional science that interests me as a chemical engineer as well as re-tell the story of the war that devastated Paraguay, and I'm very pleased with the results.
Leo X. Robertson
Sooo much stuff like you would not believe. I'm 'bout to hit y'all like a litorrential storm of somewhat amusing wordplay (eg. just there), insight an' cool imagery etc.
Leo X. Robertson
Writer's block isn't a thing- laziness and inertia are, though. I fend them off by giving into them for a while- I play videogames and listen to podcasts and something usually clicks.
Leo X. Robertson
It's like talking without being interrupted. I know. I knoooooow!
Leo X. Robertson
Google "Advice for aspiring writers".
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