Robin Tompkins's Blog: Rob the Writer - Posts Tagged "book-lovers"
Sad Fishes and Other Animals…
So, I have been thinking about what I wrote in my previous post. ‘My Writer Brain, or, ‘Here Kitty, Kitty…’ To save you going back to check it out, it was about the idea that stories feel like they are in some way, already there, like an artifact waiting to be dug out of the ground.
I decided that that was something I related to, that it felt right. Adding to that, I said that if it was like archaeology, then there was that moment when you just catch site of the corner of the artifact sticking out of the ground, when you say to yourself, ‘it’s worth digging here.’
I then asked, ‘where does that first inkling come from?’ Answer, my ‘Writer Brain. This whimsical, capricious and somewhat feline part of my consciousness, that is not really under my control. It sucks in real life and spits out fiction. You know, in its own time, when it thinks it will, if it can be bothered. Unless you try to ignore it, at which point it needs you to know what it needs you to know, now, right now!
So, where do the, ‘Sad Fishes,’ come in?
I was thinking that sometimes I do get an idea of what ‘Writer Brain,’ has been getting up to while I’m not looking. I wrote a story called ‘Sad Fishes.’ Haven’t read it? No, no, I would have been more surprised if you had. That’s OK, I’m used to it. 😊
Anyway, one day, out of nowhere, part of a song arrives in my head. Not an earworm from the radio, a new song, one I had somehow managed to write, without actively trying to. Now, I love music, I have wide musical tastes but I am not musical… My singing would clear a good-sized room faster than a fire alarm. I don’t write songs.
But here in my head was…
Sad fishes, sad fishes, they’re eating from dishes,
Sad fishes, sad fishes, they’re dining at sea.
The next day I had…
They eat off fine china, from a sunken cruise liner,
Sad fishes, sad fishes, they’re dining at sea.
Now the good Captain’s table, is for all that are able,
Sad fishes, sad fishes, they’re dining at sea.
I then realised, that I had to set to and work out what the song meant. Finish the song with my conscious mind, not, ‘Writer Brain.’ Once I did, I would know what the story was about and I could write it.
Well, I did and the story is in the ‘Omar,’ collection if you are curious about how it turned out.
Not the point of this blog piece though.
Where did ‘Writer Brain,’ find the ingredients for the song that led to me unearthing the story? That’s the point.
Well, I think I know… most of the time I don’t but this time, I think I do.
I had been listening quite a lot, in that way you do sometimes, to a particular album. It had become a temporary obsession.
The album was ‘Keep it Unreal,’ (the 10th anniversary re-issue) by famously fish obsessed DJ and Musician Mr Scruff. In particular, I now see three tracks in a new light… ‘Get a Move On,’ ‘Shanty Town,’ and ‘Fish.’
I do not pretend to understand the exact process, ‘Writer Brain,’ used to arrive at ‘Sad Fishes,’ but I am totally convinced that this is where it started from…
I decided that that was something I related to, that it felt right. Adding to that, I said that if it was like archaeology, then there was that moment when you just catch site of the corner of the artifact sticking out of the ground, when you say to yourself, ‘it’s worth digging here.’
I then asked, ‘where does that first inkling come from?’ Answer, my ‘Writer Brain. This whimsical, capricious and somewhat feline part of my consciousness, that is not really under my control. It sucks in real life and spits out fiction. You know, in its own time, when it thinks it will, if it can be bothered. Unless you try to ignore it, at which point it needs you to know what it needs you to know, now, right now!
So, where do the, ‘Sad Fishes,’ come in?
I was thinking that sometimes I do get an idea of what ‘Writer Brain,’ has been getting up to while I’m not looking. I wrote a story called ‘Sad Fishes.’ Haven’t read it? No, no, I would have been more surprised if you had. That’s OK, I’m used to it. 😊
Anyway, one day, out of nowhere, part of a song arrives in my head. Not an earworm from the radio, a new song, one I had somehow managed to write, without actively trying to. Now, I love music, I have wide musical tastes but I am not musical… My singing would clear a good-sized room faster than a fire alarm. I don’t write songs.
But here in my head was…
Sad fishes, sad fishes, they’re eating from dishes,
Sad fishes, sad fishes, they’re dining at sea.
The next day I had…
They eat off fine china, from a sunken cruise liner,
Sad fishes, sad fishes, they’re dining at sea.
Now the good Captain’s table, is for all that are able,
Sad fishes, sad fishes, they’re dining at sea.
I then realised, that I had to set to and work out what the song meant. Finish the song with my conscious mind, not, ‘Writer Brain.’ Once I did, I would know what the story was about and I could write it.
Well, I did and the story is in the ‘Omar,’ collection if you are curious about how it turned out.
Not the point of this blog piece though.
Where did ‘Writer Brain,’ find the ingredients for the song that led to me unearthing the story? That’s the point.
Well, I think I know… most of the time I don’t but this time, I think I do.
I had been listening quite a lot, in that way you do sometimes, to a particular album. It had become a temporary obsession.
The album was ‘Keep it Unreal,’ (the 10th anniversary re-issue) by famously fish obsessed DJ and Musician Mr Scruff. In particular, I now see three tracks in a new light… ‘Get a Move On,’ ‘Shanty Town,’ and ‘Fish.’
I do not pretend to understand the exact process, ‘Writer Brain,’ used to arrive at ‘Sad Fishes,’ but I am totally convinced that this is where it started from…
A Single Sentence…
So, what do reviews mean to an indie author? Well, I’ll tell you, they mean everything, they mean the world. Does that sound a bit over the top? It isn’t. I can’t overstate how important they are to us.
One of the reasons, quite frankly, is because they are so hard to get. The same reason gold and diamonds are worth so much, they are a scarce commodity. Only a very small percentage of those who buy a book will stop and rate it, even fewer will review it. The irony of that, is that when deciding whether to buy a book, the first thing anyone does, is to check the reviews. No one wants to write reviews but everyone wants to read them.
They are especially important for indie authors. We already have a bit of a mountain to climb, getting people’s attention and getting them to take us seriously. It is even harder to try and persuade people to buy a book with no reviews.
It’s not just that though. Indie authors are generally not in it for the money, because we know there isn’t really any money in it, not for most of us anyway. We do it because we love it and because we want other people to love what we do.
Most of the time though, it’s like going out into the middle of a field and shouting at the clouds. I’m going to do something that’s a bit frowned upon now, I’m going to quote myself… yes, I know but I think I put it quite well over on my website, where on the homepage I say…
“I'm going to paraphrase Steven King now (if you're going to do a thing like that you should always warn people first). He said something along the lines of...
If telepathy is transmitting thoughts and images from one mind to another, then telepathy is real. Writing is telepathy.
It's also lonely... You send your work out into the ether and have no idea how it is doing. Like packing your children a lunch, sending them off into the world and then... and then... they don't call, they don't write...
So, why not let me know how the telepathy is going?”
Without reviews, we don’t know how the kids are doing. Are they well behaved? Do people like them? Has anyone fallen in love with them? What have they been getting up to?
So, why aren’t there more reviews? I have some thoughts on that.
There is of course the obvious, people just don’t like your book but they don’t like to say. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. Horrible thought but it is one all writers have to live with if we publish our work. Silence, feeds into our, ‘imposter syndrome,’ and self-doubt, it can give us some very bad days.
The next obvious one is, ‘life gets in the way,’ people really do mean to review you but ‘stuff happens,’ and they never get around to it. Time goes by and then it sort of feels too late. (It isn’t, we will take the review and thank you for it).
The other one I hear a lot is, ‘who wants to know what I think? I’m nobody, who cares what I have to say?’ We do! We really, really do! You’re our readers we absolutely, definitely, incontrovertibly want to know what you think. Anyway, what on Earth do you mean, ‘I’m nobody?’ You are somebody, you are you and you are absolutely unique in the universe. Your opinion is as good as anyone else’s and likely better than many with louder voices.
Then we come to what is probably the biggest one. ‘I was going to review your book but I didn’t know what to say.’
So many people are put off leaving a review, because they feel like they have to write a ‘book report,’ like they have gone back to their school days, or because they think they have to come up with something witty or insightful to say, that others will judge them on the quality of their review.
Many people love to pen an in-depth review and we are always up for reading them but there is no need to do that if you are not comfortable with it. Genuinely, don’t worry about it. A single sentence will do, whatever you want to put. ‘Such a good book, I loved it,’ or, ‘I so enjoyed this, I hope there will be a sequel,’ Is just as valid as any other review. It may not be witty, or insightful but if it is how the book made you feel, then it’s fine.
Just one more thing and then I will have had my say on the subject of reviews.
Please be kind.
The thing is, authors are people too, if you see what I mean. We have this mad urge to write and publish books, nobody asked us to, you didn’t ask us to, I get that. If we stick our heads above the parapet then we can expect that we might get shot at. Still, we have all the same problems as anyone else, some people have easier lives and some harder and that is the way of the world. Most indie authors shoehorn a little writing into their lives where they can. The book you review could represent two years of stolen Sunday afternoons, or eighteen months of early mornings before work.
Just remember, that when you review an indie author’s book, you are not reviewing the latest budget dishwasher from a faceless corporation, or even the latest blockbuster by a million selling author who doesn’t even read their own reviews and never sees the bad ones anyway. No, you are talking directly to the person who wrote it and it’s their baby.
I know it can be fun to dismantle something with a witty turn of phrase but you know, you wouldn’t go up to someone in the street, slap their kid twice around the back of the head and say, ‘You have such an ugly kid, you should be ashamed.’ You wouldn’t, would you?
One of the reasons, quite frankly, is because they are so hard to get. The same reason gold and diamonds are worth so much, they are a scarce commodity. Only a very small percentage of those who buy a book will stop and rate it, even fewer will review it. The irony of that, is that when deciding whether to buy a book, the first thing anyone does, is to check the reviews. No one wants to write reviews but everyone wants to read them.
They are especially important for indie authors. We already have a bit of a mountain to climb, getting people’s attention and getting them to take us seriously. It is even harder to try and persuade people to buy a book with no reviews.
It’s not just that though. Indie authors are generally not in it for the money, because we know there isn’t really any money in it, not for most of us anyway. We do it because we love it and because we want other people to love what we do.
Most of the time though, it’s like going out into the middle of a field and shouting at the clouds. I’m going to do something that’s a bit frowned upon now, I’m going to quote myself… yes, I know but I think I put it quite well over on my website, where on the homepage I say…
“I'm going to paraphrase Steven King now (if you're going to do a thing like that you should always warn people first). He said something along the lines of...
If telepathy is transmitting thoughts and images from one mind to another, then telepathy is real. Writing is telepathy.
It's also lonely... You send your work out into the ether and have no idea how it is doing. Like packing your children a lunch, sending them off into the world and then... and then... they don't call, they don't write...
So, why not let me know how the telepathy is going?”
Without reviews, we don’t know how the kids are doing. Are they well behaved? Do people like them? Has anyone fallen in love with them? What have they been getting up to?
So, why aren’t there more reviews? I have some thoughts on that.
There is of course the obvious, people just don’t like your book but they don’t like to say. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. Horrible thought but it is one all writers have to live with if we publish our work. Silence, feeds into our, ‘imposter syndrome,’ and self-doubt, it can give us some very bad days.
The next obvious one is, ‘life gets in the way,’ people really do mean to review you but ‘stuff happens,’ and they never get around to it. Time goes by and then it sort of feels too late. (It isn’t, we will take the review and thank you for it).
The other one I hear a lot is, ‘who wants to know what I think? I’m nobody, who cares what I have to say?’ We do! We really, really do! You’re our readers we absolutely, definitely, incontrovertibly want to know what you think. Anyway, what on Earth do you mean, ‘I’m nobody?’ You are somebody, you are you and you are absolutely unique in the universe. Your opinion is as good as anyone else’s and likely better than many with louder voices.
Then we come to what is probably the biggest one. ‘I was going to review your book but I didn’t know what to say.’
So many people are put off leaving a review, because they feel like they have to write a ‘book report,’ like they have gone back to their school days, or because they think they have to come up with something witty or insightful to say, that others will judge them on the quality of their review.
Many people love to pen an in-depth review and we are always up for reading them but there is no need to do that if you are not comfortable with it. Genuinely, don’t worry about it. A single sentence will do, whatever you want to put. ‘Such a good book, I loved it,’ or, ‘I so enjoyed this, I hope there will be a sequel,’ Is just as valid as any other review. It may not be witty, or insightful but if it is how the book made you feel, then it’s fine.
Just one more thing and then I will have had my say on the subject of reviews.
Please be kind.
The thing is, authors are people too, if you see what I mean. We have this mad urge to write and publish books, nobody asked us to, you didn’t ask us to, I get that. If we stick our heads above the parapet then we can expect that we might get shot at. Still, we have all the same problems as anyone else, some people have easier lives and some harder and that is the way of the world. Most indie authors shoehorn a little writing into their lives where they can. The book you review could represent two years of stolen Sunday afternoons, or eighteen months of early mornings before work.
Just remember, that when you review an indie author’s book, you are not reviewing the latest budget dishwasher from a faceless corporation, or even the latest blockbuster by a million selling author who doesn’t even read their own reviews and never sees the bad ones anyway. No, you are talking directly to the person who wrote it and it’s their baby.
I know it can be fun to dismantle something with a witty turn of phrase but you know, you wouldn’t go up to someone in the street, slap their kid twice around the back of the head and say, ‘You have such an ugly kid, you should be ashamed.’ You wouldn’t, would you?
Truth is Stranger Than Fiction… Is it though? Is it Really?
So, people do say that, “truth is stranger than fiction.” Then, people say a lot of things, most of the time without even thinking about what they are actually, saying. Time honoured phrases, that trip off the tongue in certain situations, platitudes and cliches. Conversation on auto pilot.
“So, I turned round and said…”
“Then he turned round and said…”
Stop it both of you, all that turning round is making me dizzy.
“Well, you know what they say?” No, no I don’t and I don’t think you do either.
“The best laid plans…” You’re quoting a poet and you probably don’t know it.
Anyway, you get the idea. That one though, “Truth is Stranger Than Fiction.” That one always makes me go, “nope,” really it isn’t, not most of the time. Give me fiction any day. Then, I would say that wouldn’t I, you know, because I write fiction.
Most of the time, the truth is dull, the truth is a spoil sport.
UFOs? Misidentified stuff, clouds, balloons, party lanterns, birds, satellites, commercial aircraft, military aircraft… maybe the odd sneaky secret aircraft.
Ghosts? Psychology and circumstance, insects and animals, the wind, the light and pareidolia.
Cryptids? Misidentified ordinary everyday animals, psychology and circumstance, wishful thinking.
The truth even spoils things that are absolutely one hundred percent real.
Dinosaurs for instance. For a long time, we thought they were these gigantic, scaly dragon-like creatures, like nothing alive today. Turns out, that apart from those properly enormous guys with the long necks, most of them were nothing like as big as you think and covered in feathers. The famous Velociraptor wasn’t a scary seven-foot dragon, it was a big, very bitey, turkey. Most of the famous dinosaurs are related to chickens… T Rex, enormous chicken, with big sharp teeth. The age of the dinosaurs? The age of the quite big poultry more like...
Jurassic Park, the epic creatures of Ray Harryhausen… They were so much better.
Who amongst you has fallen for those hyped-up astronomical events? You know the stuff, it gets all over the internet, the TV, print media. “Astonishing sight in our skies tonight, won’t be seen again for a century.” To observe this, “astonishing sight” it is necessary to go out into your garden at two in the morning in the middle of winter with a telescope. The problem is that they are never that astonishing.
OK, to be fair, from an intellectual standpoint I can appreciate that when I am freezing my a** of looking for comet whatever, I am seeing an object that is millions of years old, millions of miles away and not coming back for a hundred years and yes that is astonishing. But… what I am actually seeing in the night sky, is a vague fuzzy blur that I probably wouldn’t even have noticed if I hadn’t known it was there. It is so far away that the telescope I am clutching in my ice-cold hands makes little or no difference to its appearance, turning it into an ever so slightly larger fuzzy blur.
I’ve seen Comets in movies, on TV and in my imagination. They were huge, burning balls of rock streaking across the sky, trailing a fiery tail behind them. Mr Truth says, if they really looked like that and not a small fuzzy blur, then we would all be doomed. Boring!
Then there are all those historical figures who weren’t who we thought they were, or didn’t actually do the thing they were famous for, or go to the place they were famous for discovering. The list goes on.
Oh, so many disappointments…
Truth is stranger than fiction? No, sorry, the truth is a spoilsport. Truth is not stranger than fiction. The truth is almost always much more boring and mundane.
So, buy more books I say, spend more time divorced from reality, reality stinks, retreat from it, get as far away from it as possible. Just do it, you know it makes sense.
***
Disclaimer: This is a light hearted opinion piece, voicing a wildly exaggerated opinion for comedic purposes and not actually a recommendation for a balanced lifestyle. I am not responsible for the mental or physical health of anyone who decides to follow my ludicrous advice.
Afterthought: should internet influencers also post disclaimers like that?
“So, I turned round and said…”
“Then he turned round and said…”
Stop it both of you, all that turning round is making me dizzy.
“Well, you know what they say?” No, no I don’t and I don’t think you do either.
“The best laid plans…” You’re quoting a poet and you probably don’t know it.
Anyway, you get the idea. That one though, “Truth is Stranger Than Fiction.” That one always makes me go, “nope,” really it isn’t, not most of the time. Give me fiction any day. Then, I would say that wouldn’t I, you know, because I write fiction.
Most of the time, the truth is dull, the truth is a spoil sport.
UFOs? Misidentified stuff, clouds, balloons, party lanterns, birds, satellites, commercial aircraft, military aircraft… maybe the odd sneaky secret aircraft.
Ghosts? Psychology and circumstance, insects and animals, the wind, the light and pareidolia.
Cryptids? Misidentified ordinary everyday animals, psychology and circumstance, wishful thinking.
The truth even spoils things that are absolutely one hundred percent real.
Dinosaurs for instance. For a long time, we thought they were these gigantic, scaly dragon-like creatures, like nothing alive today. Turns out, that apart from those properly enormous guys with the long necks, most of them were nothing like as big as you think and covered in feathers. The famous Velociraptor wasn’t a scary seven-foot dragon, it was a big, very bitey, turkey. Most of the famous dinosaurs are related to chickens… T Rex, enormous chicken, with big sharp teeth. The age of the dinosaurs? The age of the quite big poultry more like...
Jurassic Park, the epic creatures of Ray Harryhausen… They were so much better.
Who amongst you has fallen for those hyped-up astronomical events? You know the stuff, it gets all over the internet, the TV, print media. “Astonishing sight in our skies tonight, won’t be seen again for a century.” To observe this, “astonishing sight” it is necessary to go out into your garden at two in the morning in the middle of winter with a telescope. The problem is that they are never that astonishing.
OK, to be fair, from an intellectual standpoint I can appreciate that when I am freezing my a** of looking for comet whatever, I am seeing an object that is millions of years old, millions of miles away and not coming back for a hundred years and yes that is astonishing. But… what I am actually seeing in the night sky, is a vague fuzzy blur that I probably wouldn’t even have noticed if I hadn’t known it was there. It is so far away that the telescope I am clutching in my ice-cold hands makes little or no difference to its appearance, turning it into an ever so slightly larger fuzzy blur.
I’ve seen Comets in movies, on TV and in my imagination. They were huge, burning balls of rock streaking across the sky, trailing a fiery tail behind them. Mr Truth says, if they really looked like that and not a small fuzzy blur, then we would all be doomed. Boring!
Then there are all those historical figures who weren’t who we thought they were, or didn’t actually do the thing they were famous for, or go to the place they were famous for discovering. The list goes on.
Oh, so many disappointments…
Truth is stranger than fiction? No, sorry, the truth is a spoilsport. Truth is not stranger than fiction. The truth is almost always much more boring and mundane.
So, buy more books I say, spend more time divorced from reality, reality stinks, retreat from it, get as far away from it as possible. Just do it, you know it makes sense.
***
Disclaimer: This is a light hearted opinion piece, voicing a wildly exaggerated opinion for comedic purposes and not actually a recommendation for a balanced lifestyle. I am not responsible for the mental or physical health of anyone who decides to follow my ludicrous advice.
Afterthought: should internet influencers also post disclaimers like that?
