Vincent Zandri's Blog - Posts Tagged "ernest-hemingway"
"One True Sentence"
Then there was a young man who no longer wanted to pursue a traditional education. That young man would be my son, Harrison, whom we refer to as "Bear" because he looks like one in every bit of that cuddly, dark, and furry curl-up-to-him kind of way. Recently the Bear came to me to ask if he could stop attending his high school (where he was an A student) in order to pursue a writing career. Naturally I was both thrilled and frightened by this notion. While on one hand I was happy that he wanted to engage in a career that has become my own life-passion, I was also concerned that he too would have to experience many of the pitfalls, calamities, frustrations, depressions, losses too many to count, and all those hardships that can go with the writing life, not to mention being scary broke at times.
But having expressed my feelings to him (and some of these so called "expressions" occurred in the form of heated discussions to say the least), I acquiesced to his desires. And I did so for one reason and one reason only. I wanted him to be happy.
Fast forward to the present...
...Get the rest of the scoop at The Vincent Zandri Vox:
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Innocent
But having expressed my feelings to him (and some of these so called "expressions" occurred in the form of heated discussions to say the least), I acquiesced to his desires. And I did so for one reason and one reason only. I wanted him to be happy.
Fast forward to the present...
...Get the rest of the scoop at The Vincent Zandri Vox:
http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
The Innocent
Some Days You Just Gotta Write...
The following blog is "Now Appearing" at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
____________________________________
...And today is one of those days.
After a week of events, marketing ops, meetings with agents and pubs and even Amazon and Google, I have a novel to complete, or let's face it, I'll be out of a job.
Which brings up a HUUUUUGGGGEEEE point (that HUGE thing is me imitating car salesman and villain, Billy Fuscillo, in my digital short, MOONLIGHT MAFIA)...despite the blogs, despite the social networks, despite the virtual tours, despite your Amazon rank, despite the Iphone or Blackberry, despite everything that has everything to do with your books but that also keeps you away from your craft, you must eventually sit down and write.
Which is what I need to do today and tomorrow in order to complete MURDER BY MOONLIGHT...
I hope you decide to work as hard as you can at your writing too...And if you're not a writer, I just hope you plain work hard and enjoy it as much as I do.
Cheers,
Vin
P.S. THE INNOCENT is back on sale all month long...Grab the Top Ten Amazon Bestseller Today!
The Innocent
____________________________________
...And today is one of those days.
After a week of events, marketing ops, meetings with agents and pubs and even Amazon and Google, I have a novel to complete, or let's face it, I'll be out of a job.
Which brings up a HUUUUUGGGGEEEE point (that HUGE thing is me imitating car salesman and villain, Billy Fuscillo, in my digital short, MOONLIGHT MAFIA)...despite the blogs, despite the social networks, despite the virtual tours, despite your Amazon rank, despite the Iphone or Blackberry, despite everything that has everything to do with your books but that also keeps you away from your craft, you must eventually sit down and write.
Which is what I need to do today and tomorrow in order to complete MURDER BY MOONLIGHT...
I hope you decide to work as hard as you can at your writing too...And if you're not a writer, I just hope you plain work hard and enjoy it as much as I do.
Cheers,
Vin
P.S. THE INNOCENT is back on sale all month long...Grab the Top Ten Amazon Bestseller Today!
The Innocent
How to Keep Going the Next Day
The following blog is now appearing at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
I'm often asked how is that I'm so prolific? The answer is simpler than you might imagine. And it came to me not in college or MFA writing school, but instead by reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. It was inside a cold water flat five or six flights above a square in the Montparnasse district of Paris that the would-be Papa wrote some of his first short stories. Stories that would come to change the literary world as we knew it.
He was able to write his stories with confidence day in and day out by following one simple rule. He would write a certain amount of words everyday and then complete the session by ending in a place where he was sure to go on the next day.
While this took severe discipline it was also liberating to know that come the next morning, you wouldn't find yourself staring at a blank piece of paper knowing that the day before you shot your wadd, as it were.
So then, I'm not Ernest Hemingway. But I do write a lot of novels, and the way to do that is not only to sit your butt in the chair and write whether you feel like it or not (this is your job after all), but also to always make sure that you end in a place that will allow you to continue the next day. The best way to do this is to simply make some small notes right on the page below your last sentence. If your character is about to enter an apartment with his ex-girlfriend in order to steal a zip-drive containing secret nuclear information her new boyfriend is about to sell to the Iranians, you might make a note about what route they take in order to get to the apartment, and the steps they take in order to get there without being spotted. That should be enough to get you moving come the next morning. The rest of the chapter should reveal itself organically for you.
Thanks Papa for making my writing life just a little bit easier. I wish I could say the same for writing school.
GET ZANDRI BOOKS: WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Moonlight Rises
I'm often asked how is that I'm so prolific? The answer is simpler than you might imagine. And it came to me not in college or MFA writing school, but instead by reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. It was inside a cold water flat five or six flights above a square in the Montparnasse district of Paris that the would-be Papa wrote some of his first short stories. Stories that would come to change the literary world as we knew it.
He was able to write his stories with confidence day in and day out by following one simple rule. He would write a certain amount of words everyday and then complete the session by ending in a place where he was sure to go on the next day.
While this took severe discipline it was also liberating to know that come the next morning, you wouldn't find yourself staring at a blank piece of paper knowing that the day before you shot your wadd, as it were.
So then, I'm not Ernest Hemingway. But I do write a lot of novels, and the way to do that is not only to sit your butt in the chair and write whether you feel like it or not (this is your job after all), but also to always make sure that you end in a place that will allow you to continue the next day. The best way to do this is to simply make some small notes right on the page below your last sentence. If your character is about to enter an apartment with his ex-girlfriend in order to steal a zip-drive containing secret nuclear information her new boyfriend is about to sell to the Iranians, you might make a note about what route they take in order to get to the apartment, and the steps they take in order to get there without being spotted. That should be enough to get you moving come the next morning. The rest of the chapter should reveal itself organically for you.
Thanks Papa for making my writing life just a little bit easier. I wish I could say the same for writing school.
GET ZANDRI BOOKS: WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Moonlight Rises
The Things I Cannot Control
The following essay is now appearing in slightly different form at The Vincent Zandri Vox: http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/201...
A while back...actually a long while back now...my wife and I were having dinner with artist Richard Prince and his wife back when he kept a house in upstate New York. Prince was already a world renowned artist/photographer at the time and a mega success. But he was also a huge noir fan, a book collector, a rare bookstore owner, and also a writer. As we polished off a bottle of wine together while the girls chatted among themselves, he offered me up a bit of advice that I've never forgotten.
But before I reveal the advice, I should tell you that this was around the time I'd signed on for a big advance with Delacorte Publishing for a two book, hard and soft deal, and if I recall correctly, my first novel, The Innocent (As Catch Can, as it was titled back then), had already been published. So I'm guessing the year was around 1999 or 2000. I remember relaying to Richard about how anxious I was about the book's sales, which at the time, weren't exactly hot. Richard nodded, and listened, and then, sitting back in his chair said, "Listen, the only thing you have control over as a writer, is the writing. That's all you can do. Throughout your career publishers and editors and sales people will come and go, but you and your writing will always be there. Concentrate entirely on the writing. Work harder than the other guy. Make it the most important thing in your life, and you will succeed."
Of course, many ups and downs have occurred since that dinner at the Prince home. But I have gone on to make a nice, solid, career for myself. I guess you could say, I have become established. But even after hitting two Amazon No. 1 Overall Bestsellers. Even after having spent 4 weeks in the Top ten (with The Innocent), and another three weeks with The Remains. Even after hitting the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. Even after winning the PWA Shamus Award (Moonlight Weeps) and the ITW Thriller Award (also Moonlight Weeps), even after selling hundreds of thousands, perhaps even a million, copies of my books over the past five years alone, things still sometimes don't go my way.
The novel that would become The Innocent
Just this past two weeks alone, I learned that one of the architectural trade publications I've been writing and editing for for ten years no longer needs my words now that a new owner has taken over. Add to that a two book deal my agent has been working on for months, which even included a rewrite for the acquiring editor, just went inexplicably belly up. Hmmmmm. Go figure.
There's no one to blame in all of this, since this is how the business side of the writing game works. Nothing is forever. But then, these events most definitely fall into "the things I cannot control" category.
Now, I've also been lucky these past couple weeks.
The novel that was supposed to be sold in said two book deal got immediately picked up by another publisher also in a two book "nice" deal. The book will come out in hardcover in Jan, 2018 and be found on every New Releases table in bookstores from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon, as well as on your favorite eReader. Lucky, yes, but in the end, I still had no real control over the deal. It just sort of happened and I'm happy for it.
But what I do have control of is my writing. No matter what happens on the business side of publishing, whether it be something positive or negative, one thing holds true above all others: My writing comes first. No one can take that away from me.
Tomorrow morning is Monday. The beginning of the working week. I'll wake up after the sunrise and like, Papa Hemingway used to say, I'm going to bite on the nail. Writing is the hardest work there is. But it is also something I have total control over. Thanks for the advice Richard. I'll never forget it.
https://WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
When Shadows Come
Vincent Zandri
A while back...actually a long while back now...my wife and I were having dinner with artist Richard Prince and his wife back when he kept a house in upstate New York. Prince was already a world renowned artist/photographer at the time and a mega success. But he was also a huge noir fan, a book collector, a rare bookstore owner, and also a writer. As we polished off a bottle of wine together while the girls chatted among themselves, he offered me up a bit of advice that I've never forgotten.
But before I reveal the advice, I should tell you that this was around the time I'd signed on for a big advance with Delacorte Publishing for a two book, hard and soft deal, and if I recall correctly, my first novel, The Innocent (As Catch Can, as it was titled back then), had already been published. So I'm guessing the year was around 1999 or 2000. I remember relaying to Richard about how anxious I was about the book's sales, which at the time, weren't exactly hot. Richard nodded, and listened, and then, sitting back in his chair said, "Listen, the only thing you have control over as a writer, is the writing. That's all you can do. Throughout your career publishers and editors and sales people will come and go, but you and your writing will always be there. Concentrate entirely on the writing. Work harder than the other guy. Make it the most important thing in your life, and you will succeed."
Of course, many ups and downs have occurred since that dinner at the Prince home. But I have gone on to make a nice, solid, career for myself. I guess you could say, I have become established. But even after hitting two Amazon No. 1 Overall Bestsellers. Even after having spent 4 weeks in the Top ten (with The Innocent), and another three weeks with The Remains. Even after hitting the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. Even after winning the PWA Shamus Award (Moonlight Weeps) and the ITW Thriller Award (also Moonlight Weeps), even after selling hundreds of thousands, perhaps even a million, copies of my books over the past five years alone, things still sometimes don't go my way.
The novel that would become The Innocent
Just this past two weeks alone, I learned that one of the architectural trade publications I've been writing and editing for for ten years no longer needs my words now that a new owner has taken over. Add to that a two book deal my agent has been working on for months, which even included a rewrite for the acquiring editor, just went inexplicably belly up. Hmmmmm. Go figure.
There's no one to blame in all of this, since this is how the business side of the writing game works. Nothing is forever. But then, these events most definitely fall into "the things I cannot control" category.
Now, I've also been lucky these past couple weeks.
The novel that was supposed to be sold in said two book deal got immediately picked up by another publisher also in a two book "nice" deal. The book will come out in hardcover in Jan, 2018 and be found on every New Releases table in bookstores from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon, as well as on your favorite eReader. Lucky, yes, but in the end, I still had no real control over the deal. It just sort of happened and I'm happy for it.
But what I do have control of is my writing. No matter what happens on the business side of publishing, whether it be something positive or negative, one thing holds true above all others: My writing comes first. No one can take that away from me.
Tomorrow morning is Monday. The beginning of the working week. I'll wake up after the sunrise and like, Papa Hemingway used to say, I'm going to bite on the nail. Writing is the hardest work there is. But it is also something I have total control over. Thanks for the advice Richard. I'll never forget it.
https://WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
When Shadows Come
Vincent Zandri
