The Ghost of Richard Brautigan by William Hammett

I love the works of 1970s counterculture icon, port, and novelist, Richard Brautigan.  Brautigan (1935-1984) wrote short, quirky, surrealistic novels.  The best-known is his 1976 Trout Fishing in America.  Others include In Watermelon Sugar, A Confederate General from Big Sur, Sombrero Fallout, The Hawkline Monster, and So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away.

Over the years I've used many different prose styles and written in several genres.  I've always been partial to what literary agents call quirky fiction and really love the offbeat novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, and yes, Richard Brautigan.  Several years ago I had a rather outrageous idea for a novel and decided to use Brautigan's short chapter format and incorporate Brautigan himself into the story.  Agents failed to sell it, but a small press eventually published an earlier, shorter version of the novel, called Salamander Illusions.  I'm happy that Word Wrangler Publishing has given the work a second chance under the new title of The Ghost of Richard Brautigan.

The ad blurb is as follows.

"Lamont Bistro, a writing teacher married to Bourbon Street exotic dancer Jaguar Montaigne, receives regular visits from the ghost of Richard Brautigan, novelist, poet, and counterculture icon of the 1970s.

In this short, quirky, fast-paced novel reminiscent of Brautigan's dark humor and satire, Brautigan challenges Bistro to write a novel about his sexy young wife, snake-handling evangelicals, a swamp monster, Babe Ruth, a gaudy theme park named Gatorworld, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Gulf War, a deity named Bob, and a planet diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

As Bistro writes, however, he wonders if he himself has become a character in a surrealistic novel by the late great Richard Brautigan."

The book is available through Amazon.  All books recently published will also be available through the Word Wrangler Publishing online store.  Click on the book cover in the right sidebar to be taken to the book at Amazon.

Thanks for stopping by!

~William Hammett

Rimsky Rises by William Hammett

Rimsky Rises is a Young Adult novel (ages 13 to 18) that I published with Word Wrangler Publishing (Livingston, Montana) on February 16, 2015.  It is available in the Amazon Kindle store or you may access the book on Amazon by clicking the cover in the right column of this blog.  The promotional price is $0.99.

The book description is as follows:

Rimsky Mittendorf receives emails from God.  Are the messages genuine or the work of a sophisticated computer hacker?

In this Young Adult novel, Rimsky is a high school student whose life is split in two because of his parents' divorce.  His troubles are compounded when the teacher he despises most falls madly in love with his father, while his mother seeks to have his uncle--the only cool adult he knows--locked up in a psychiatric hospital.  Rimsky believes that his stressful life might just be bearable if he could only utter more than a few syllables to his classmate, the beautiful Sarah Petrovich.  That's when emails from the Almighty start to appear in Rimsky's inbox.

Rimsky Rises is a humorous yet penetrating look at a teen's search for meaning in a world in which sane people appear to be outrageously crazy, while crazy people seem to know the truth underlying the absurd, confusing, and often comic reality called life.

Adult novels under my own name (literary and genre fiction) will be published in March, April, and May of 2015.  Check back for further information on new books.

~William Hammett

Contact: wmhammett@aol.com

New Books by William Hammett

I'm happy to announce that out of print and previously unpublished books under my own name will now be available to purchase in the Amazon Kindle store.  The books will range from children's titles (middle reader and Young Adult) to novels in many different genres I have written over the years.  A minimum of six titles will be available in the next few months.  The books may be purchased by signing into the Amazon store or going straight to the Amazon site by clicking the covers in the right navigation column of this blog.

The titles are published by Word Wrangler Publishing (Livingston, Montana) and will be available on the publisher's new online store (coming soon).  The titles may also be reviewed on Goodreads starting on Monday, March 9, 2015.

Circling Goes the Wind and Rimsky Rises are now for sale.  Street Magic (thriller, suspense, horror)and The Ghost of Richard Brautigan (literary) will be available in March, 2015.

I hope you enjoy the books!

~William Hammett

Contact: wmhammett@aol.com 

How Long Does It Take to Write a Novel?

This is a question I get asked all the time, but it has no answer other than "It takes as long as it needs to take."  That having been said, it has taken me about three to six months to write novels, both under my own name or for ghostwriting clients.  Genre fiction usually requires less time than penning a literary novel or "the great American epic."  Romance novels are very formulaic, for example, and publishers have strict guidelines for characterization, plot, and pace of works in this genre.  While some authors rightfully disdain using specific outlines, crime fiction, thrillers, and science fiction dictate that the author have a strong sense of where the narrative is heading in order to foreshadow correctly.  This naturally facilitates the composition process.

Many authors of what we now call the classics took months or years to write their novels, and most usually let their fiction incubate for many months before beginning an arduous series of revisions that could take additional months or years. 

It is best to start with a guiding star--an idea of the overall plot--and then let the characters tell you (within certain parameters) what they would like to do.  Ideally, fiction should grow organically--should breathe.  Otherwise, it becomes an exercise, such as painting by the numbers.  How long such a process might take depends on the length and complexity of the plot.

When ghostwriting clients approach me, however, they are usually on a budget and have a clear idea of how they want their stories to develop.  When writing mass market paperbacks for such clients, it is possible to pen novels in three months for shorter works and four month months for longer books.  E-books, of course, may be any length, and some are short stories or novellas.  Thanks to electronic publishing such as Kindle, one can publish a fairly short work without having to shop it to literary journals and e-zines.

So how long does it take to write a novel?  It depends.  Ray Bradbury wrote the first draft of Fahrenheit 451 in seven days, although he labored for many months on the revision.  And then there is the NaNoWriMo contest each November (National Novel Writing Month) in which participants are expected to write a full-length novel in one month.  It's a bit unrealistic, but it teaches discipline.  That's the key.  To write a novel, one must sit down on a regular schedule and write, write, write.  That's when words start to flow.

~William Hammett

Contact William Hammett at wmhammett@aol.com

Index of Articles

Fifty Shades of Boring

Fifty Shades of Grey, an erotic thriller by British author E. L. James, was published in 2011 by Vintage Press.  It has been a huge financial success for its author and publisher.  The public still loves its vicarious sex in an age of "anything goes" combined with "I am so terribly bored with my life."

We have seen this tale before: older man initiates young virgin into the world of forbidden pleasures and sophistication.  Vanity, vanity, there is nothing new under the sun.  Christian Grey will escort young Anastasia Steele into a sordid world that is devoid of any real meaning, corrupting the innocence of his toy in the process.  The world in Fifty Shades of Grey is a depressing place, with no redemption possible on its existential stage.  One survives by submitting to pain or manipulating the body of a lover as one would a puppet or a rag doll.

What is troubling is that we not only have another book of BDSM--bondage, dominance, and sadomasochism--that makes sexual love voyeuristic rather than exciting or meaningful, but we also have sex that is codified by document.  Grey wishes Steele to sign a contract specifying that she will not reveal any of their physical acts, nor will these acts be construed as love.  Contractually, the sexual acts will be sex for the sake of sex, nothing more.  Given that is already the case in the age of the hook-up, forcing someone to sign a contract stipulating that sex will be meaningless is redundant, but it is yet another manipulative tool used by Grey on "Ana."

To sign a contract promising sex--sex under strict, limited conditions--is yet another way of degrading one's lover and robbing him or her of the status of "equal" or "other."  The grand concept of romantic love as a union of partners sharing their bodies and innermost selves with mutual respect and trust is trivialized in this novel of small-minded titillation and gratification of the ego.  Pain and dominance do not achieve worthy goals in any area of life, and we need only look at business and government to see obvious examples.  Pain and dominance have, in fact, fueled most of mankind's wars.  The subjugation of others through arbitrary law, rules, and violence bears no fruit, and it certainly does not enhance personal relationships.  Instead, it creates or reinforces severe dysfunction. 

S&M is nothing new, and for some couples it is a lighthearted role-playing game with "silken bonds."  So be it.  Fifty Shades of Grey, however, portrays BDSM in a more sobering light in which two conflicted souls will sell their integrity to unsuccessfully try to define their humanity and discover the meaning of human relationships.

Walker Percy wrote several novels about the spiritual malaise of the modern age.  He was especially interested in how people who are psychologically adrift will try new lovers, more lovers, and endless variations on the sex act in order to fulfill themselves.  They are, as he said, "lost in the cosmos."  It is obvious that Grey and Steele are among this number, individuals who have such little ego structure that they have no way to live authentically and truthfully.

The book, of course, is not literary fiction, nor does it really qualify as erotica either.  It is soft-core porn according to the definitions of most critics.  Author Sir Salman Rushdie said, "I've never seen anything so badly written that got published.  It made Twilight look like War and Peace."  In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd described the book "like Bronte devoid of talent."  Jesse Kornbluth of the Huffington Post said, "Fifty Shades of Grey is a sad joke, puny of plot."

It's trite.  It's been done before.  To paraphrase Dylan, it's "too much of nothing."  So what are we to make of such a literary success?  The answer is grim.  We want to read anything that will make us forget, however briefly, our own existential angst.  As Walker Percy said, sometimes the best thing a person can do is adopt a little humility and take up golf course maintenance.  Sadly, Ms. James didn't go this route.

~ William Hammett

Index of Articles

Writing a Novel

Almost everyone says at some point in their lives, "I want to write a book," or "I have a novel in me."  Because of time constraints and the demands of everyday life, few people ever realize this dream.

Writing a book of any type is hard work.  Writing a novel is especially challenging since it goes beyond "how to build a widget."  The novelist must create a compelling premise, realistic characters, and a believable world for them to inhabit.  It's hard work.

So how does one go about writing a novel?  There's no single way, and perhaps the muse guides us all differently.  One can always jump headlong into the process by accepting the challenge of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.  Participants are expected to produce a full-length novel, usually 90,000 words in length, in 30 days.  (November is when the challenge takes place each year.)  It's great practice, but can one learn to write a compelling work of fiction in thirty days?  Maybe.  Ray Bradbury said that he wrote the first draft for Fahrenheit 451 in seven days.  But not everyone is Ray Bradbury.

To produce a quality work of fiction--book-length--usually tales several months.  Sometimes, it takes years.  My ghostwriting clients give me outlines or synopses, which can be executed in about four to five months, give or take depending on the length of the novel.  And that's fine.  Some of these novels have done well.

Personally, I think that novels must, in a real sense, write themselves.  An author can have a distant guiding star to direct the plot, but it is dangerous to tell the characters what they're going to do.  They must tell the writer what they should be doing.  One can over-outline a novel, leaving the work without much life or energy.  Novels need to grow organically.

But perhaps this applies to literary fiction as opposed to genre fiction.  Genre fiction is easier to execute (this is a gross generalization) and might lend itself to outlines.

When writing under my own name, I allow a story to take me where it wants to go.  That's when the magic happens.

~ William Hammett  

Index of Articles