AFTER MUCH AGONIZING, I CONFESS TO THE FOLLOWING SECRET VICE…

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Gulp! I collect economists. When I say that, I don’t mean that I have them hanging in neat rows – as in suspended by the neck from the ceiling, or perhaps from a line of hat-racks  (though some undoubtedly deserve such a fate) but more that I’m constantly on the lookout for economists that make sense of our current chaotic economic environment; and, better yet, who have ideas of how we can get out of the mess we’re in; and make some progress in the future.

Where are those guys?

The reason why this is seen as a vice – at least by the publishing business – is that authors are supposed to stay within genre; and stepping outside your label is frowned upon severely. Since I am best known as a thriller writer, I should stick to writing thrillers; or, at worst, write an economic thriller. Similarly, romance writers should stick to romance and so on.

I find this kind of mindset – this tendency to typecast people, and then to box them in - utterly frustrating, but it is all too common in this Great Nation. Perhaps we can only cope with such a large population if we label people; and we are certainly conditioned to respond to the concept of branding from an early age; and socially conditioned not to think out of the box.

My favorite story about such groupthink concerns a photographer in New York who had built up a very successful business photographing food, but now wanted to try photographing something else (intimate photographs of breakfast cereal can get monotonous). Though it was widely accepted that he was both creatively and technically brilliant, his efforts to diversify were entirely unsuccessful. Art directors had him classified as a ‘food man’ – and that was it. Eventually, he decided there was only one solution. He would, so to speak, clone himself, and set up another studio under another name. That rather drastic and expensive strategy succeeded – and he ended up being as successful in fashion as he continued to be in food. The irony here is that world of photography is small, so most of the art directors who commissioned work from him knew of his modest deception; but he still needed his two identities, and two studios, to achieve his breakout.

One of the truly alarming things about being limited to a genre relates to non-fiction. Non-fiction is typically sold to a publisher by way of a proposal a proposal, possibly accompanied by a sample chapter or two, but unless you are a celebrity or a have background specific to the field you are writing about, you haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of selling your work. The quality of your ideas and the elegance of your prose appear to have no value in themselves. I find that deeply troubling because often it is the very perspective that the non-specialist brings that finds the answer. A fresh mind is a wonderful thing.

In my own case, initially I started to collect data on this country shortly after I arrived in 2001 primarily just to learn about my new home – and I’m innately intellectually curious. Soon, I came to the view that the U.S. economy suffered from deep structural flaws. In 2004, I became convinced that we were heading towards a major recession. All of this research eventually lead to TITANIC NATION: How To Avoid Icebergs. The Case For Fundamental change In The American ay Of Life

I’m now convinced that unless we change our ways fairly drastically – which will require vastly more fresh thinking than we seem culturally able to either originate or absorb right now, our economic future will not be pretty.

But you’re not an economist I hear you say; so how would you know? Hmm! Well, of course I don’t know. I’m merely making an educated guess (otherwise known as an ‘expert opinion’). But, just to muddy the waters; as it happens, economists have a track record of being particularly bad at forecasting; and I confess I am one (courtesy of Trinity College, Dublin – plus some decades of subsequent study).

But, I write thrillers too.

 

Victor.

 

 

LET ME CONFESS TO A SECRET VICE. I COLLECT ….

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You may well be expecting me to confess to something akin to Congressman Wiener’s modus vivendi – but I fear I shall have to disappoint you (this time around). Perhaps in some cultures my minor obsession might be seen in a negative light, but I trust you will regard it with public tolerance – even if privately you think it is a little weird.

But what is “it” I hear you ask? What form of aberrant behavior are you going to confess to?

I’m overcome with a sudden burst of embarrassment. I’m positively choked. How can I reveal something so private?

I need time to think about all this.

 

Victor.

 

BUTCH ALLEN & SUNDANCE GATES–INFLICTORS OF CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT

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I’ve long been frustrated at the layout limitations of Blogger, so, fundamentally, this is a test of a program called Microsoft Live Writer 11 which is specifically designed for blogging. Actually, it is set up primarily to work with WordPress, but it has a setting which supposedly works with Blogger; so we’ll see. The illustration, courtesy of Zemanta, features Paul Allen and Bill Gates, back in the early Eighties, plotting to upset my tranquil writing world by introducing a series of lousy operating systems which dominated personal computing for the next quarter century (and caused me more delays, frustration and grief than I care to think about).

Finally, they have partially redeemed themselves with Windows 7, which works reasonably well, but is still inferior to Apple’s OS offerings; and I’m still waiting for compensation from Microsoft for cruel and unusual punishment.

To all you writers out there – and anyone else for that matter – go with Apple, and it’s related products, unless you are crazy. Of course, if you are a creative type, a degree of craziness just goes with the territory.

My main complaint with the Edit mode of Blogger has been that it doesn’t really do WYSIWYG whereas Windows Live Writer really seems to. What I hope that will mean in practice is that my text will consistently appear in both the font and size of my choosing instead of being somewhat erratic. I know one can correct such things by learning a little HTML, but so far I have resisted. I suspect I’m fighting a losing battle. Also, HTML 5 looks pretty good.

It was a grim and grizzly business being involved in the early days of personal computing – and I was actually involved from 1981 when IBM introduced their first PC. At the time I was living in Ireland, and the people who were marketing it knew so little about it that my first machine was delivered without an operating system. I should have taken that as a warning, and run out and bought a quill pen, but instead I persevered through more computer misadventures that I care to think about. Look for them in my memoirs, and buy some tissues before you read them. Jeremiah Johnson had it easy compared to my hunt for a consistently reliable computer.

Around 1984, I had the good sense to order one of the first Macs, but my supplier went bust so that went nowhere.  Then I tried out a NeXT computer in 1988 but couldn’t afford it – which was just as well because the Irish distributors couldn’t understand it, and NeXT, itself, went out of business. Nonetheless, it was a great machine and laid much of the groundwork for Apple’s stunning success. Steve Jobs, as doubtless you know, founded NeXT.

I’ll write more about MS Live Writer when I have used it longer. It pains me to say anything nice about Microsoft, but - so far - I’m encouraged.

 

Victor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - TO WRITE AS WELL AS ONE WANTS

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I’ve been trying to improve how I work recently. Given that I started as a a professional writer in 1986, a reasonable person might assume I would know how to write by now – but the truth is that I don’t think I’m there yet. True, I’m not without some skill, but I would like to be more than a technician. I would like to be able to touch people’s hearts – and that is no easy task.

It remains an ambition. My goal is to write with clarity, humor, style and empathy. It’s an exploration, a work in progress. It’s a deeply satisfying journey – but the goal is damnably elusive.

Did you know I was dyslexic (which covers a multitude)? I wasn't diagnosed until about 15 years ago. It is clear that the man who diagnosed me was on the button. Though I have no difficulty in reading now - and ended up top of my prep school (aged 12) - that merely proves the point that dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence. Some of the signs were/are:

·         Learning to read late.

·         Being unable to learn - and recite - by rote.

·         Having difficulty in remembering - and confusing - messages.

·         Compensating by remembering by association; and then learning to deduce from the data I have assembled.

·         Having serious and sustained short-term memory issues including being unable to read a telephone number and retain it long enough to dial it without great effort.

·         Having great difficulty in filling in forms.

·         Disliking corporate environments (very few corporate executives are dyslexic).

·         Being entrepreneurial (entrepreneurs are disproportionately dyslexic).

·         Being an out-of-the-box thinker.

I wish I had studied all of this earlier but, in truth, I'm quite proud of my mind and it never occurred to me that I was suffering from a cognitive condition. Instead I attributed some of my behavior to flaws in my character - and tried to conceal them accordingly. 

Perhaps I still do.

Victor.

ASHES & IRELAND

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Jo has finally departed.


She actually died on December 22 2010 after making use of Washington State's enlightened Death With Dignity law (she had terminal cancer and was in terrible pain) but her ashes stayed here until her daughter, Penny, returned to her home in Italy at the end of February - and even then a sachet of her mother's ashes remained for me to bring to Ireland to a location I won't name for the moment. I was far from her closest friend - I only really got to know here as she was dying - but I helped look after her towards the end - and I'm Irish.


Suffice to say that Jo, who had been a travel guide, and had visited most of the known world, had a great sense of humor; and the love of her life had been an Irish-American (Special Forces).  And she loved books.


She, herself was not Irish. She was originally from Yorkshire, England. She was bored stiff, knew she was different, and joined the British Army to see the world. That organization didn't manage to hold on to her long (despite sensibly using her in intelligence), but seeing the world - up close and personal - she certainly did.


My daughter, Evie, who is off to Ireland shortly, is going to deliver Jo. The sachet that I handed over to her (it looks disconcertingly like a drug buy in the movies) was in a small shiny black bag that I had thought been provided by the crematorium until I read the label just before the handover.


It read: TULLALIP CASINO.


Jo, who was a world class adventurer, and gambled many times with her own life, would have approved. She would also be pleased that Evie will be the courier. They were friends.


Jo christened Evie "The Wild Child" - an entirely appropriate nickname for my much loved daughter who, like Jo, believes in living life to the full. That may be an understatement.


I confess to have been quite shaken by Jo's death, not just because being present as she died was stressful in the extreme, but also because it was followed by another death in the condo building of someone I knew well (a difficult man but not without his good qualities); and those two deaths were accompanied by the passing of three other friends. The Angel of Death seemed to be having a sleep-over. It makes one think.


I'm not sure I believe that life is "solitary, poor, nasty and brutish" but it is certainly short.


In case you are wondering, Thomas Hobbes was the author of that display of seventeenth century positive thinking.


My editors in the past have long told me that Americans don't understand irony (I think they underestimate my readers) - but that, folks, is irony!


Perhaps in reaction I went down with something extremely nasty in March and felt akin to a dead eel in April, but now sunny May in Seattle has arrived (I jest) seem to be back to full energy.


So expect blogs again.  If there is one constant in my ecclectic world, it is this:


I love to write. 




VICTOR.

A FIRE THAT WILL CROSS OCEANS

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A culture of oppression (whether corporate or government), excessive income inequality, unemployment, and lack of social concern, tends to have consequences.
Could the fire for genuine democracy kindles in Tunisia and Egypt, travel here?

Reportedly J.M. Barry, author of Peter Pan, The Admirable Crichton and a slew of other books and plays, wrote half a million words a year – all by hand. Not sure that is literally true but either way, the man was impressively prolific – not to say successful.

Apart from sharing the goal of most writers, which is to write as well as my brain tells me I can – but which is all too often contradicted by my fingers (which, being Irish are of an independent cast of mind) - I have long been concerned both to be as productive as possible, and to compensate for my cognitive deficiencies. Regarding the latter, I was diagnosed as suffering from a form of dyslexia in my fifties and certainly my brain seems to work in unorthodox ways. Some are advantageous, in that I have an excellent strategic sense and am pretty good at deductive reasoning. Others are a menace and include an inability to remember strings of numbers which makes performing some very simple tasks like dialing a phone number extremely difficult for me. However, most of us have quirks, and since I don’t sprout hair and howl like a wolf every full moon (or certainly won’t admit the fact) I consider I’m ahead on points, albeit I need all the help I can get.

I have tried to work around my deficiencies in various ways with varying degrees of success, but have probably achieved the best results with computers. Now that is ironic given that I have no innate talent for that area, but I have stayed with it resolutely pending the arrival of a guardian angel with a perfect memory who can type at speed. Overall it has been a long and painful journey which got off to a false start in 1981 when the IBM PC I ordered arrived without even a BIOS, and where the company I subsequently ordered a Mac from subsequently went bust. In the end, in 1986, I was kindly given a PC clone by a friend and was thus started – doubtless with the best of intentions - like most of us who opted for cheaper machines instead of Apples, on a road to computer perdition. Bill Gates has a lot to answer for.

There were various reasons why I didn’t switch to a Mac at various times – normally to do with lack of money or too much of an investment in PCs – but there were also periods when the future of Apple looked dicey. However, the primary reason why I didn’t switch to a Mac was that I was entirely hooked on a program called askSam which is a free-text database that I have now used for an astonishing 25 years and which functioned for all that time as an extension to my memory. In fact, I still use it although now in conjunction with other tools like Evernote and Google Notes.

Back in June 2010, I made the decision to go Google as far as possible and then in mid July started an intensive investigation of the Internet (what I call the Digisphere) to try and ascertain where the book business was likely to go and how I needed to adapt. Little did I know what I was getting into. I knew and used the Internet, of course, but up to then I had failed to appreciate the sheer scale of the transformation taking place and, in particular, the evolution at high speed of software tools, most available to rent for a surprisingly low monthly charge. In effect we are being given access to the greatest increase in cognitive leverage since the Dawn of Man; and it’s only beginning.

I wouldn’t have come to this conclusion if I had continued my traditional approach towards – to learn only enough to enable me to write and keep track of my research material. Instead, this time I set off on a much more open minded voyage of exploration and put much more time into learning as I progressed. And I worked fourteen hour days and didn’t try and write while this was going on. It was a fortunate strategy because it yielded a much broader perspective than might otherwise have been the case.

It now seems to me that we need to rethink how we do pretty much everything; and that our traditional organizational models – whether they be government, religious, academic, social or religious - need overhauling drastically.

And yet our politics and very culture seem to be mired in greed, bigotry, partisanship, an indifference to the plight of the less well off – and something remarkably akin to business as usual.

Does that remind you of anything? Mubakek’s mindset comes to mind.

If those who run these United States of ours don’t begin to appreciate what is happening – and adapt accordingly – we’re going to see the fire that was lit in Tunisia and Egypt making a sea journey and coming here.

IN PRAISE OF THE APPROPRIATE LENGTH & THE REASONED ARGUMENT

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Department of Adequate Length.

One of the many good things about the current digital revolution that is sweeping the media world is that it seems is if long form journalism is making a come-back.

Personally, I have long believed in the notion that issues are worth exploring at adequate length, and that brevity, for its own sake, tends to be destructive; but traditional publishers were concerned about the cost of paper (and believed it should primarily be used for ads) and were decidedly unconcerned about informing their readers adequately; so short became categorized as ‘good,’ and long as ‘bad,’ virtually regardless of the complexity of the matter at hand.

Enter the decline in the quality of American life which has been such a feature since the Seventies; insidious and largely hidden at first, but recently glaringly obvious.

Is there a relationship between a sound bite approach by the media to a public that seems incapable of discussing and resolving most issues more complex than American Idol? I advance that proposition. Clearly it is not the only factor – blatant commercial manipulation, outright propaganda, ingrained prejudices, and the nature of our educational system play no small role, but the absence of adequate homes for pieces which could really get to grips with a subject has, in my opinion, long been a matter of serious concern.

Department of Good News: Kindle Single Store and The Atavist.

Apart from the intrinsic flexibility of digital content (such files cost virtually nothing to store and reproduce) two recent developments give grounds for optimism. First is the introduction of the Kindle Single Store which is publishing pieces between 10,000 and 30,000 words in length. Second is the launch of The Atavist Let me quote their own words:

“The Atavist is a boutique publishing house producing original nonfiction stories for digital, mobile reading devices. We like to think of Atavist pieces as a new genre of nonfiction, a digital form that lies in the space between long narrative magazine articles and traditional books and e-books. Publishing them digitally and offering them individually — a bit like music singles in iTunes — allows us to present stories longer and in more depth than typical magazines, less expensive and more dynamic than traditional books.

Most importantly, it gives us new ways to tell some inventive, captivating, cinematic journalism — and new ways for you to experience it.”