Category: Books

Steal Like an Artist

Posted on By Wil

I’ve been struggling a lot to keep writing, to keep creating, to find the inspiration and the focus I need to do my job. A lot of it is related to my Depression, but there comes a point when the difference between being a professional and a hobbyist is actually doing the work, even — especially — when it’s hard.

So this weekend, Anne and I took the kids up to Santa Barbara to celebrate our birthdays (which are all in the next two weeks), and to get a change of scenery for a couple of days. It was a gorgeous trip, emotionally and spiritually, and while it didn’t give me the magic bullet to suddenly break through the struggle I’ve been having, I made a ton of progress, because I read a book that I took with me. Here’s my review that I posted to my Goodreads thingy:

Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon, is essential reading for all artists.

It’s a quick read that you can finish in one sitting, but the ideas and advice it contains will stay with you long after you’ve put it down. Some of Austin’s suggestions will validate what you’re already doing, some will challenge you to fundamentally change a creative practice, others will inspire you to grab a notebook and get to work immediately.

Because it’s such a small and accessible book, you’ll want to go back to it from time to time. Just like Stephen King’s On Writing, as you change and grow as an artist, it reveals new ideas and inspirations to you that you may have missed on a previous read.

This is a fantastic addition to your library, and a wonderful gift for any creative person in your life.

I’ve been profoundly inspired by Austin’s book, because he reaffirmed things I’ve already been doing as an artist, but mostly because he gave me permission to think about the entire creative process differently.

For a long time, I have felt like a travel writer who never leaves the house, and Steal Like An Artist helped me find the door so I can get back on the road.

Books

10 things I want you to know

Posted on By Wil

Things I want you to know about today:

  1. My friend Mikey Neumann’s show Movies With Mikey is being considered for an Emmy. If you are eligible to vote, I hope you’ll vote for him.
  2. There’s a new Tabletop! It’s Mysterium.
  3. I did a new Radio Free Burrito, and I’m quite happy with this one.
  4. I backed this white noise machine on Kickstarter about a year ago, and I’ve had it for about a month. It is the best white noise machine I have ever owned in my life, and I’ve owned a lot of them. If you have trouble sleeping or wake up easily during the night, check out Snooz. (NOTE: This is not an endorsement and I didn’t get anything for mentioning this. I just wanted you to know about it because it’s awesome.)
  5. I traded in my Nexus 6P for a Pixel and holy balls, it’s an incredible smartphone. I think I’m going to trade in my iPad for a Pixel tablet.
  6. I bought about 50 Choose Your Own Adventure books from eBay. Starting with the next Storytime With Wil, we’re going to have a whole bunch of new stories to explore together!
  7. I’m working with my business team to make some Facebook changes, including changing my personal page to a fan page, so we can do more business … uh … stuff. It’s weird. But one of the things we’ll be doing is sharing stories and posts from other sources (I guess this is a thing people do on Facebook now? I’ve been doing it on Tumblr for years, so I guess it’s the same?) and I’m very interested to know what sorts of sites and topics you’re interested in, if you read my dumb Facebook page.
  8. I’m coming to Washington, DC, for Awesome Con this weekend.
  9. My friend Ashly Burch refused to cross a picket line to perform the voice of Chloe — a beloved character she created — for the prequel to Life is Strange. Gamers are, sadly and predictably, being shitty to her about it. I remind everyone that Square Enix could easily bring Ashly back, by signing an interim agreement with SAG-AFTRA, and respecting the contributions Ashly has made to the game. I stand with her, and I wrote about why I do several months ago.
  10. John Doe, from the seminal punk band, X, wrote a memoir about punk in the 80s, called Under the Big Black Sun. In addition to his own memories, he asked other people who were there, like Jane Wiedlin, Henry Rollins, and Jack Grisham. The book is an incredible read, on part with Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, or The Kid Stays In The Picture. But the audio version is sensational, because the essayists who contributed to the book read their own work. If you’re a fan of the music and the musicians, I can’t oversell how great it is to own both audio and print versions, because the photos in the print version are magnificent.

Okay, that’s ten things for you to know. Anything you want me to know?

 

Books

I wrote a supernatural horror story

Posted on By Wil

Last year, a couple of weeks before Halloween, I had this idea to write a short, supernatural horror story. At the time, I was deep in the first draft of the short story that became a novella that really wants to be a novel (which has since been titled “All We Ever Wanted Was Everything”), so switching tracks to work on something different was intended to be a quick detour that would give me something to release for Halloween. WELP. That short story ended up being about 14000 words, which I guess is called a Novelette. Novelette sounds less cool than both short story and novella, but I don’t make the rules, Dottie, I just break them.

My understanding of the publishing business leads me to believe this length falls into a weird place, so rather than try to find a home for it in the traditional publishing world, I’m just going to publish it myself, today. Seriously. There are links to buy it at the end of this post.

Dead Trees Give No Shelter is about Jay Turner, a broken and lonely man who has been adrift since his brother’s murder when they were children. Now, after twenty years away, Jay has come back to his hometown of Garron, Ohio, to uncover the truth about his brother’s death.

Here’s an excerpt:

12:21 a.m. October 16, 2014

Kenneth Blake strained his eyes, looking past his own reflection toward the room of witnesses on the other side of the one-way glass. He hoped that Jay Turner was in that room, hoped that Jay was there to hear him speak one last time.

Walter Davis looked at the phone on the wall. It had rung only once in the twenty-six years he’d been warden, and it would not ring tonight. Kenneth Blake was as guilty as any prisoner who had been strapped to that gurney, and no governor – reelection campaign or not – was going to pardon a child killer. He checked his watch against the digital clock on the wall above the phone. It was time.

“Mister Blake, it is my duty, under the laws of the great state of Ohio, to carry out your execution. It is it your right, under those same laws, to make a statement if you wish.”

Kenneth nodded his head at Warden Davis. He bore him no ill will. The warden was just doing his job, playing his part in the complex machinery of what passed for justice in twenty-first-century America. That Kenneth was, in truth, innocent of the murder of little Charlie Turner, twenty years earlier almost to the day, was of no account now.

He tried to coax some spit out of his mouth, failed, and licked his lips with a dry tongue.

“I just wanna say that I forgive you, warden. I forgive you and the judge, and the prosecutor, because you think you know the truth but you don’t. Mister Turner, if you’re out there, I want to say to you that I’m sorry I couldn’t save your little brother. I done my best, though, and I’m sorry I failed you.”

Warden Davis stood next to the gurney, hands clasped in front of his belt, stoic.

“Mister Blake, may G –”

“But you know I didn’t hurt that boy, because you was there and you saw it all. I know –”

“Mister Blake!” Davis snapped. He took no joy in this duty, but he would be dammed if he’d let this child killer taunt the victim’s surviving brother.

Kenneth continued to speak over him. “I know they made you think you saw something you know you didn’t see, but I know that you know what the truth is. And I know it’s callin’ you the way it called me, but you can’t go back there to them woods, Mister Turner. If you go back there it’s gonna get you, too, just like it got your brother. You gotta break the cycle.”

The Warden looked at the phone one final time, waited, then nodded to his men.

With mechanical efficiency, they moved as one: a button was pressed to recline the gurney, the needles in Blake’s left arm were checked one last time, a black sackcloth was draped over his head.

Kenneth, resigned to his fate from the moment he held Charlie Turner’s lifeless body two decades ago, nevertheless felt cold pangs of fear as the sack blocked out his vision and muffled the sounds around him. He heard the warden speak, and then sodium thiopental pushed him into unconsciousness, before pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride pushed the life out of his body.

When it was done and the other witnesses had left, Warden Davis met privately with Jay Turner. “I wanted to apologize for how Blake used his last words,” he said. “I can assure you that he did not know you were a witness.”

Jay nodded. “I appreciate that, Warden.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Davis said, “what was he talking about?”

Jay sighed. “I don’t know, sir. That’s not really a night that I like to think about, if I can help it.”

“Of course. I’m sorry for asking.”

“There’s no need to apologize. It isn’t the first time he’s said those things, but I’m kind of relieved it’s the last time I’ll hear them.”

Jay didn’t tell him about the nightmares. After all, they were just dreams; they weren’t real. For twenty years, he had reminded himself: they’re just dreams. They aren’t real.

I’m offering this story in both ePub and mobi formats, DRM-free, for $5. If I set everything up correctly, you should be able to download the format of your choice as fast as you can click your mouse.

Because it’s a FAQ: to put the mobi file on your Kindle, you can email it to your Kindle as a personal document, or connect your Kindle via USB to your computer and drag it like you would any other file to any other device. I’m not sure how ePub works for all devices, so you’ll have to check with the manufacturer of yours for specific instructions.

(Please note that I am a total noob with Woo Commerce, and I have no idea how to configure it so that it doesn’t ask you for an address and phone number. Feel free to put fake information into those fields, until I can solve that issue.)

Books

a stranger’s hand, reaching out through time, to touch yours

Posted on By Wil

“We are always getting away from the present moment. Our mental existence, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave.” -H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

During last night’s Storytime With Wil, I unexpectedly noticed something pasted into the back cover of the thirty-five year old book. It was a little slip of paper, one of those ditto runoffs that they used in schools in the 80s, and it told us this book belonged to a kid named Dean, who was in Traverse City Junior High School. It was a child’s drawing of Snoopy, laying on his back, like he does on top of his dog house, only he was on the back of a book which was propped up like an open tent. Along the cover of the book long, skinny letters spelled out R. I. F.

R.I.F is Reading Is Fundamental. R.I.F. is a literacy program that makes a real, meaningful, positive difference in kids’ lives. My school didn’t have R.I.F. (it was a private, religious school, so we didn’t have a lot of the cool public school programs my friends had) but we had our own version of it. We read books, we’d accumulate points, and when we had a certain number of points, we could cash them in for a book of our own. I can’t say for certain, but I’d like to imagine that Dean, in 1981, cashed in some R.I.F points to get this particular copy of The Mystery of Chimney Rock.

I got unexpectedly emotional when I saw this little rectangle of paper, pasted into the back of this book, and I struggled to put my finger on exactly why, until someone in the chat said that it was like a time machine. It’s like someone was reaching through time, and touching my hands. It was this tactile, tangible moment, where I and the 480 or so people who were watching got to make a semi-personal connection with this kid, Dean, who owned and read this book in 1981. I wonder: did he make the same choices we made? How many of the 36 endings did he experience? Did he read it aloud? Did he have friends or siblings who he read with or to? Was he like me? Was he shy and awkward, finding escape and comfort and companionship inside the covers of this book and others like it?

I’ll never know, and I don’t want to know. I just love the mystery, and I love the connection. I love the continuity that exists between someone putting this book into Dean’s hands, thirty-six years ago, and it finding its way into my hands, last night.

So I had this idea to encourage the viewers to donate a book to R.I.F., either by purchasing one from their wishlist, or maybe by donating a book from their personal collection to a library, or a school. I just thought it would be cool to take the joy that I (and presumably some of the viewers) indirectly got from this R.I.F. program, and spread it around a little bit. Because the world is overflowing with sadness and despair right now, and we could maybe chip away at it, just a little bit.

I’d love it if you’d do something to promote literacy in your community, or make it possible to give books to some kids who don’t have the privilege and good fortune we have. We have no idea how we can touch and affect and change a life through a simple act of anonymous kindness, but maybe in thirty-six years, someone will pick up a book that one of us helped put into the hands of a child, and experience the same joy we all experienced last night.