The new book How To Sharpen Pencils by David Rees got me thinking about what other guides might be useful to writers. The genius behind Get Your War On did, in fact, start a pencil sharpening business, and he subsequently wrote the instruction manual in the hopes that all of us might one day be free of the tyranny of not knowing how to sharpen pencils.

Since Rees has the pencil covered, I had to come up with something just as essential. My first idea was a book called How to Not Set Yourself on Fire. Unfortunately, this does not gel with my skill set. My second idea, which can’t guarantee you won’t set yourself on fire, might actually prove a tad more practical for writers struggling to make a living. I call it, Harnessing Your Inner Scrappiness.

Embrace the Loss

The first thing you’re going to want to do is let go of any notion that you will make enough money to eat and pay rent. Eating and sleeping in what society deems a decent shelter is for bankers and doctors. Stop fighting this. Just as what you own ends up owning you, once you live nowhere, you live everywhere. You don’t need a roof. Roofs are bourgeois.

Any Item Can Provide Shelter

I once slept underneath a deflated air mattress, utilizing it as a blanket, as there was no blanket. You know what it was? Warm. And waterproof! Sure, cardboard boxes are classic, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use almost anything to cover and warm yourself. Give that trash bag a nice shake and tuck yourself in.

Any Item Can Be Clothes

Just because you’re homeless doesn’t mean you don’t have a personality. Discover your inner flair. Tie a bunch of shoes together to form a cape. Wouldn’t that discarded oil can make a lovely hat? Maybe you want to string used tissues into a scarf. Only your imagination can stop you.

Put It In Your Mouth

Teach your stomach to digest food alternatives. Start with natural substances like leather and wood. Synthetics are something you’ll want to work up to. Putting almost anything in your mouth will help saliva production, which is good for overall mouth health. And yes, there will be a lot of things you’ll be putting in your mouth. Lots of...things.

Befriend Rodents and Insects

Make nice with the scurrying inhabitants of the underworld. Not only do they know where the food is; if trained properly, they can also provide much needed companionship. The faster you learn to put up with all those itchy bites and strange rashes, the faster you can pretend you’re not talking to yourself. Which you are. A lot.

But maybe scrappiness isn't your thing. There are five gabillion how-to guides out there to show you how to, you know, do things. Perhaps you want to draw manga? Or maybe you haven't figured out how to eat stuff. Or yes, and this is probably necessary. Because you haven't figured that out yet.

Image: The Awl

Let's face it, book tours are weird and (sometimes) boring. On the Awl, nine authors and publicists talked about the best and the worst of the requisite book tour. Their consensus: there's something wrong with the whole setup. So step aside, dudes and dudettes. I'm not like regular authors. This is what I would do if I was on a book tour.

1.

If I was on a book tour, I would wear the same sophisticated, refined Yves St. Laurent suit to every reading. The same way I wear my Clockwork Orange costume for Halloween every year. (I probably wouldn’t stuff a sock down my pants for a book reading, though.)

2.

If I was on a book tour, I would only read the parts of my book with sex orhigh-speed car chases. Anybody can think about philosophical problems on their own. Sex and high-speed car chases, however, are best enjoyed ascommunal experiences. Also, one of my friends got lucky at a Literary Death Match event (probably one that Black Balloon publisher Elizabeth Koch ran, although she's not telling). All it took was a smile, a few literary allusions, and a round of vodka and Red Bull. That’s got to be a good sign.

3.

If I was on a book tour, I would interrupt discussions about my work to dish out Dear Sugar-style advice to the audience:

“Mr. Author, my marriage isn’t going so great. I’m reading your books like my wife told me to so that we have something to talk about when I come home from work. I don’t think it’s working. What should I do?”

“Have you tried stuffing a sock down your pants?”

4.

If I was on a book tour, I would drink a Tom Collins before I got in front of the audience (for the stage fright), and then I’d leave right after the signing for the nearest dive bar (for the non-stage fright). This one time, I met a bartender who was reading Ulysses when he wasn’t pouring shots. He was in the middle of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, and managed to concoct an industrial-grade mojito while reading aloud her words—“What do they find to gabber about all night squandering money and getting drunker and drunker couldnt they drink water”—and laughing the whole way through.

5.

If I was on a book tour, I would bribe my friends to come and be extremely attractive backup readers. They wouldn’t actually read though. They’d just stand around, being wonderful supportive friends. I’d tell them, “You can just stand up in front with me while I read about sex and high-speed car chases. You’ll probably get laid."

Come to think of it, maybe I'd stuff a sock down my pants after all. You never know what the audience is really there for.

image credit: leedsfestival.com. I would probably have a classier outfit.

Welcome our antebellum vampire overlords, infecting young adult fiction with chalky, angular cheekbones and numbing chastity! The undead are everywhere, from Twilight to Seth Grahame-Smith's New York Times bestseller (no joke) Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. I'd managed to steer clear of this post-Lestat world until Vulture highlighted an annoying paradox: fanboys have their Underoos in a knot over the “unrealistic” overhaul of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, yet they seem totally hunky-dory with the idea of Lincoln staking vampires. Here we go!

My beef isn't really about converting Grahame-Smith's tiresome mashup novel into a film. It's a made-for-summer blockbuster, akin to last year'sCowboys & Aliens (which was based off a graphic novel). In effect: pure eye-candy, with historical accuracy totally suspended in favor of dudes on horseback rustling up UFOs or America's 16th President brawling with bloodsucking plantation owners. At least in Vampire Hunter's case, Benjamin Walker (star of Tony-nominated musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) plays honest axe-wielding Abe and scream goddess Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays his wife. I'm hesitant toward director Timur Bekmambetov, whose style is like Michael Bay on pyrotechnic steroids, though he “cut his teeth” on vampires with the frenetic Night Watch—Russia's highest grossing film ever.

It's the silly collision of genres, or stitching a historical figure into the realm of fantasy, that irks me. I'm looking at you, Quirk Books, and your highly lucrative fusing of public domain classics with horror/sci-fi tropes. We can thank Grahame-Smith's mashup debut, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, for launching this peculiar strain. As DreadCentral reported, P&P&Z is now an interactive iPhone- and iPad-capable eBook. However, its big-screen adaptation is in limbo, with Blake Lively, Emma Stone, Natalie Portman et alpassing on the leading role and three directors abandoning the project. I love me some zombies, but I don't need them interwoven with Austen's classic prose. Do fanboys read this shit?

Which brings me to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the archetypal mashup. What began as a grim indie comic parodying Marvel's Daredevil and preempting the mid-80s animal-based action boom (Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, anyone?), spawned a tubuloso animated series and some far-out feature films. Thing is, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's original comic was drenched in vengeance and solitude, versus the kid-friendly, pizza-eating, wisecracking terrapins who made it mainstream—let alone Vanilla Ice's totally bogus cameo in The Secret of the Ooze. As for producer Michael Bay's remarks that the relaunched Ninja Turtles are aliens, director Jonathan Liebesman tried assuaging fan-fears: “anything we expand will tie right into the mythology, so I think fans will go apeshit when they see it.” Translation: this is a money-making franchise, and we don't dare mess that up.

Too early to predict if the turtles go mano-a-mano with Confederate zombies, but maybe that's best left for the pages? Cowabunga!

Image credit: Nerdbastards

The Hunger Games landed the number three spot on the recently released American Library Association’s Top Ten List of Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2011. Um, hello? Complainers? My mom totally just read that book. My mom.

Maybe you think I’m being cute with the whole hunger-kitchen-mom title, perhaps playing the ol' wink-and-nod game, hinting at literary depravity and motherhood, so let me just stop all this conjecture right here and now. I am quite serious. My mom totally read The Hunger Games in the kitchen this weekend. Plus, if I were to imply any wink-and-nod business, I’d sound kind of sexist. Hell, you’re probably the sexist one.

For those zealots who might not immediately understand the implications of "my mom," let me provide a brief characterization. Elementary school teacher for over thirty years. Hates peanut butter. Also hates movies. Hates violence probably more than she hates movies. A major player on the social justice scene, pathologically invested in a Minneapolis Peace Garden.

That’s right. A peacenik school teacher with an aversion to nuts. DevouredThe Hunger Games in one sitting.

But how does my mom reading The Hunger Games have anything to do with you? When I asked her why she’d purchased the book, she said, “There are just some things you do for popular culture.” I don’t understand what this means. Some things you just have to accept without too many questions (like hating peanut butter). The day before I found The Hunger Games in the kitchen, my mother said she was going to “the labyrinth” and when I asked what “the labyrinth” was she started explaining what a labyrinth is rather than provide any concrete information about a physical place. She’s never even done drugs. Why would I think questions are useful?

Nonetheless, I think it’s safe to assume the following:

1. Rather than that idiotic No Child Left Behind bullshit of constant standardized testing, schools will start requiring demonstrations of physical prowess. Childhood obesity solved.
2. Popular culture will dictate moral standards. Oh wait, it already does.
3. The generation of nimble children raised by obese adults will inevitably take over. Our National Anthem will be replaced by Miley Cyrus humming.
4. I will find a Japanese horror film to write as a novel and make one million dollars.
5. Everyone will write a novel with the word "Game" in the title and make one million dollars.

Image: hungergamesmovie.org

Susan Sontag's As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980 is out this week. This central portion ranges from when her hair was jet black to when that famous white stripe started creeping in. And because "Susan Sontag" should always be uttered in the same sentence as "cocktails," I've come up with a white-stripe cocktail with a nice purplish tinge to sip while reading her pensées.

The Sontag

2 parts Creme de Cassis (frozen for two hours beforehand)

1 part Triple Sec (kept at room temperature)

2 parts Sloe Gin (kept at room temperature)

In a pousse-cafe glass, pour in the creme de cassis, which should be already chilled to increase its density.

Hold a small spoon upside down over the cassis, with only the tip touching the cassis (as in the image below). Slowly pour the triple sec over the curve of the spoon so that it will float on top of the cassis.

Using a new, dry spoon, slowly pour the sloe gin over the triple sec in the same way to create a third layer.

Voilà! You now have a white-stripe cocktail as refined as Sontag herself. Now go read about what turns her on.

Susan Sontag image credit: Peter Hujar, Susan Sontag, 1975, time.com; spoon layering image credit: citypages.com

Fan fiction’s loyal partisans were probably tickled pink last week when the story broke that E.L. James’ book Fifty Shades of Grey was going to be optioned for a film.  That book, which began as an imaginative response to the Twilight trilogy called Master of the Universe, explores the hawt hawt hawt relationship between sexual naïf Anastasia and sexually domineering Christian, and will, like Twilight, probably produce a triplet of middling to poor films the rest of us can enjoy on TNT the days we call off sick.

But in these, there’ll be more sex—apparently, one reader had to pop a Viagara just to get through the book. So what makes fans want to write their favorite characters into ropes and ball gags?

Don’t blame the net: erotic fan fiction has been around at least as long as leisure suits, even if it’s blossomed in the interwebs. And sometimes it finds inspiration in strange places: I was startled to come across Caitlyn Reads 2666, an erotic novel putatively riffing on Roberto Bolaño’s grisly epic. It’s hard for me to imagine wanting to embark on a sexual odyssey after reading  “The Part About the Crimes,” but maybe I just need to think with my, uh, teeth more. And to imagine a castle. Complete with a dungeon. Mmm...dungeons.

Whatever impulse sprang these fandoms loose, assuming there’s a common one, it produces highly varied literary products. And the stuff usually isn’t even illustrated. It’s driven by narrative only. Lesser, better mortals might claim that this is rooted in essential differences between genders. Something about the male gaze, blah blah, something about female intuitions and narrativity, blah blah. See, clearly the proof is in evolutionary psychological pudding.

Fifty Shades of Grey stands apart from its estimable kin because of the monetary success it’s enjoyed. Not only has it been a number one bestseller (it had spent 18 days in that spot at Amazon as of April, 3, 2012), but the film contract it garnered is rumored to be on par with The Da Vinci Code. Some people are downright offended that E.L. James is making so much money while riding on the coattails (supposedly) of Twilight; others are celebrating the entrance of fan fiction into the serious literary world (i.e., the one that pays). As for me, I’ll give a nod to Shakespeare’s appropriations and grumble something about stickiness of creativity, especially once money enters.

Because let’s face it, it’s money that’s at stake here. We can argue about the ethics of Fifty Shades of Grey, but really, the ethics behind its creation and that of the rest of fan fiction are the same: writers appropriate other writers’ characters and put them into novel—sometimes really novel, if you catch my drift—situations. Published authors from Anne Rice to J.D. Salinger strongly disapprove; others not so much. Presumably Stephanie Meyer didn’t care about Fifty Shades, or she saw it as a way to increase attention for Twilight.

After all, that’s synergy, my little munchkins.

Image from flickr user Sarah Dawes

[In memory of Adrienne Rich, 1929-2012]

First the undergraduate at Radcliffe College, Harvard, fiercely looking out at the world as her manuscript wins the Yale Younger Poets Prize—

Now, careful arriviste,
Delineate at will
Incisions in the ice.   (The Diamond Cutters, 1951)

—and a calm but insistent feminist writing history through, for example, Emily Dickinson—

you, woman, masculine
in single-mindedness,
for whom the word was more
than a symptom –

a condition of being.
Till the air buzzing with spoiled language
sang in your ears
of Perjury   (I Am in Danger— Sir—, 1964)

—and then a woman, pure and simple, writing capital-H History through her own life—

 I am composing on the typewriter late at night, thinking of today. How well we all spoke. A language is a map of our failures. Frederick Douglass wrote an English purer than Milton's. People suffer highly in poverty. ... In America we have only the present tense. I am in danger. You are in danger. The burning of a book arouses no sensation in me. I know it hurts to burn. There are flames of napalm in Catonsville, Maryland. I know it hurts to burn. The typewriter is overheated, my mouth is burning. I cannot touch you and this is the oppressor's language.   (The Burning of Paper Instead of Children, 1968)

—and determined to root out truth with her writing—

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
 . . . the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth   (Diving into the Wreck, 1972)

—and a poet whose poems, as W. H. Auden said, “speak quietly but do not mumble, respect their elders but are not cowed by them, and do not tell fibs”—

I am a woman in the prime of life, with certain powers
and those powers severely limited
by authorities whose faces I rarely see.
I am a woman in the prime of life
driving her dead poet in a black Rolls-Royce
through a landscape of twilight and thorns.   (I Dream I’m the Death of Orpheus, 1968)

—and herself a multitude of personae, calling herself by turns feminist, intellectual, Jewish, deeply political, mother and wife, lesbian, and yet always human—

If they call me man-hater, you
would have known it for a lie

 . . . But can’t you see me as a human being
he said

What is a human being
she said   (From an Old House in America, 1974)

—and now an elder stateswoman, her life tempered by death—

Burnt by lightning    nevertheless
she’ll walk this terra infinita   (Itinerary, 2012)

—unforgettable, unmistakable, a poet whose lines have wrenched open a space for marginalized voices, a poet to whom twenty-first-century letters owes an immeasurable debt.

Image credit: chicagotribune.com

Bowker, an organization that generates (and sells) all sorts of information—logistical, sales, customer preference—about the publishing industry, just released the results of a study on ebook buying habits in 10 countries, “major world markets” all. The study presents a daunting array of data: correlating likelihood to buy with age, gender, and income; predicting increases in ebook sales in certain markets; differentiating pace of growth across regional markets; et ceteraz. There's a lot to say about the study’s intrinsically fascinating details, but what I really like is the flurry of responses popping up throughout the publishing blogworld—and usually revealing way more about the responders than the data.

Lots of the responses smack of confirmation bias. Printing Impressions, a business publication for American printers—who, obvs, want to find hope for pulp-n-fiber books—highlights a post pronouncing that the breathless predictions of ebooks eradicating printed books and brick-and-mortar stores are “way off the mark.” (Although, R.I.P. Borders.) Meanwhile, Digital Book World looks into the morass of data and sees that “the world has caught up to the U.S. when it comes to e-book buying.” On the internet, everyone wins! But where do I get my ice cream?

And then there are the thought-tickling observations. At MobyLives, Kelly Burdick was struck by the fact that both the French and the Japanese seem less than enthusiastic about purchasing ebooks. French insistence on the sensuous pleasures of reading a bound book? Or, as Burdick suggests, simply a result of the Amazon ebook store being relatively new in France? Time will tell; there’s nothing in the current study to say. Other people found other things significant. And more people will likely write more, shortly: watch them do it, in real time!

That’s the thing about studies like this one. Bowker generated so much data, and then correlated it in so many ways, that without some sober (boh-ring!) statistical thinking, extrapolations begin to look meaningless. They suggest that data can be bent to support virtually any argument. Which means these broad interpretations may reveal less about what’s going to happen with ebook sales and more about what the people jockeying the data want to believe.

For my part, I find it interesting that India leads the globe in percentage of people who have purchased ebooks: I want to see that correlated with pricing in Indian ebook outlets, access to old-fashioned print books, and availability of ereaders, as well as some remarks about the culture of the book in the subcontinent.

I could avail myself of Google and the lieberry. Or I could take my cue from the blogosphere: extrapolate first, ask questions later.

Image via flickr user Josh Bancroft