Orphans: A Short Story by William Hammett

[The following was originally published in the Rose & Thorn Journal in 2007 and is based on my personal experience in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.]  

The indifferent gray clouds had rolled away twelve hours earlier, leaving a blinding, blue, unreachable sky in their place.  I paddled slowly through the toxic soup, dipping the splintered oar soundlessly so as not to create even the smallest splash if possible.  Oil, gasoline, and a thousand chemicals normally kept under kitchen sinks created rainbow slicks on the floodwaters, horrible impressionist paintings lumped together on a canvas a hundred miles wide.  Katrina was gone now, but she had marched through Louisiana like a scorned woman, kicking in doors and uprooting trees with her high-pitched, demonic howls.

The steep pitch of roofs was evident everywhere, the homes they covered submerged in the smooth, new lake.  V-shaped gables jutted above the water like small black army tents.  Most were uninhabited, but a few arms waved lethargically from broken attic windows.  Occasionally, a man or woman could be seen sitting on the apex of a roof, balanced precariously as the sun beat mercilessly on the gritty tar and fiberglass shingles.

I kept my small wooden fishing boat, able to hold two more people, away from any signs of human life.  There were hundreds of stranded individuals, some clinging tenaciously to weeping willow branches, attempting to stay a few feet above the waters of Lake Pontchartrain, waters that had filled the gaudy, drunk, forsaken Crescent City as soon as the weathered, decaying levees had been breached.  But who would be saved and who would die from weakness, starvation, or dehydration?  I’d already seen a small pleasure boat attacked by a desperate family that had jumped from a third-story window of a suburban apartment building.  The six family members had ruthlessly thrown the three occupants of the boat overboard, swamping the craft in the process.  Flailing arms created wavelets as curses broke a silence palpable as the death that hung over the inundated city.

I drew my conclusion early on: salvation would be an arbitrary matter, and only God, assuming he still watched over the urban hell before me, would be able to judge whether my actions were righteous or cruel.  It was that simple.

My boat bumped into a corpse as I backed away from a row of homes where a dozen people, having chopped through roofs with axes to escape their windowless attics, urgently waved shirts to attract my attention.  The old black woman in the water had been dead at least thirty-six hours judging from the bloated condition of the corpse.  Her belly had already split open, her eyes rolled back in their sockets, lifeless white orbs staring at the sky.  I pushed the body away and twisted the paddle between the palms of my hands, as if starting a campfire, in order to shake the maggots from the broadest part of the wood.

I was moving into Chalmette—the ninth ward—where Katrina had slammed houses and businesses until they stood at a forty-five degree angle, like a stadium crowd leaning to see if the fullback has made it over the goal line.  Some structures were crushed altogether—billboards, fences, street signs, and tool sheds.  Ahead, the roots of an oak stuck out like a claw, the two-hundred-year-old tree having been plucked from the sod and dropped on its side like a feeble giant.

I paddled around it, and that’s when I saw the head of the waif: a red-haired girl, no more than seven.  Her dirty face protruded from the top of a chimney.  She said nothing, only stared as my skiff quietly glided up to the bricks that constituted her temporary home.

“Climb in,” I said. 

She stared at me blankly, saying nothing.

“Are you alone?” 

She remained silent, which was just as good.  I instinctively knew the answer to my question.  Answers were everywhere, written in rubble and debris and nine feet of water.  Of course she was alone.

“Get in the boat,” I instructed as I stood, my arms extended.  “You’ll be safe.”

The orphan didn’t move, so I gently lifted her from the chimney and placed her on the narrow rectangular seat behind mine.  She clutched a stuffed, waterlogged animal that could have been a teddy bear, a monkey, or a dragon.  It, too, had died.

“We’re going someplace safe,” I told her.

One hundred yards farther on, I saw an old black man sitting cross-legged on a wooden palette that had obviously drifted through the doors of a warehouse.  He played a cheap Stella guitar, and his gravelly voice sang of a woman who had left him for a rich man in New York City.

“Need a ride?” I asked, not intending to be glib.  He was free to join the girl or float along and play the blues, for which he was more than qualified.

“I suspect I might,” he said.  “Not much of an audience left.”

“No,” I said.  “Not much.”

He handed me his guitar and carefully climbed into the boat, sitting next to the girl. 

Overhead, a Coast Guard helicopter sped northward, its plump orange and white body plainly visible in the midday sun.  I knew it was headed for a rescue station up ahead, though its distance might be two miles or a hundred.

I paddled faster, passing more than a dozen people pleading for me to stop and offer them transportation.  A dog barked as he swam toward the boat.  The black man pulled him over the edge, where he shook his wet fir, sending a spray of foul water over my adopted crew.  He wouldn’t threaten our survival.  A metal urn flew over my head and landed in the water ten feet to starboard, commentary from someone I was forced to pass up.

Three hours later, the gray water grew shallow as I saw a hundred men and women planted on high ground, little fence posts forming an irregular line of survival.  The black man continued to sing his down-and-out blues as we approached a section of levee that had somehow withstood the twenty-foot tidal surge.  A woman in an orange life vest—unmistakably Coast Guard—helped the girl and the old man from the boat.  The dog jumped out and ran down the levee, disappearing in the odd assortment of survivors, their faces as blank and unfeeling as the girl’s.

Gently, I backed the skiff away from the levee.

“Don’t do it, mister!” the woman in the orange vest warned me.  “It’s not safe out there!”

No, it wasn’t safe, but life hadn’t had anything to do with safety since the cyclonic white clouds had swirled across the Gulf of Mexico two days earlier.  In less than a minute, I was twenty-five yards from the levee.  The woman turned away, uninterested in the actions of a fool like me.

Strains from the black man’s cheap guitar floated over the water while the little girl raised her hand and waved goodbye, her arm as limp as the appendages of her stuffed animal.

It was morning of the first day, and God had breathed over the abyss.  Dry land had yet to completely take form, and salvation was years in the future.  A new testament between the Creator and his people could not be imagined as I once again threaded my way through cypress trees and people waiting to be born.

~William Hammett

Copyright William Hammett 2007, 2026

Index of Articles

Ray Bradbury's ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury is the best book on writing I have ever read.

The advice Bradbury gives? Sit down and start typing. If you don't have an idea, just tap the keys at random. Sooner or later, you will form words, sentences, and paragraphs.

Get in the flow, the zone. Eventually, you will have written a short story or a novel. It's simple, but it works.

Writer's block doesn't have to happen. Engage the gears in your brain, and good things will happen.

All the time. Really.

Lovingkindness: The Most Beautiful Word in the English Language

This is a really short post because the word says it all.

The word is lyrical, beautiful, soothing, and rolls off the tongue.

It’s technical definition? The word naturally connotes a combination of love and kindness, but there is a synergy between the two concepts when they’re joined into “lovingkindness.” It represents a totality of compassion, mercy, kindness, love, forgiveness, and understanding.

 

To me, it’s almost mystical in meaning. Suffice it to say that if the world practiced lovingkindness, we would all be living in paradise by tomorrow.

 

It’s the only mantra anyone ever needs.

~William Hammett

Index of Articles

Lucid Dreaming: The Pathway to Creativity

Paul Simon dreamed his latest album, titled Seven Psalms, into existence. It’s a great piece of music.

He had a dream during the pandemic in which a voice told him that his next project would be called Seven Psalms. He got up every night for ten months and wrote down words and music that came to him between 3:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. Simon’s dreams were normal, not lucid, but lucid dreams are even more exciting.

 

Robert Louis Stevenson usually got his ideas from dream incubation. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the best-known example.

 

Lucid dreaming is the next step in learning from dreams.

 

Lucid dreaming happens when you become aware you’re dreaming, and that’s when the dreamscape becomes as real as waking reality. It’s an altered state that is within everyone’s grasp.

 

If you want to know what you should be writing or harvest characters or ideas from your subconscious, use lucid dreaming. In lucid dreams, you can interact with situations and people and have perfect control over the dream.

 

Try out a plot, ask what the next chapter should be, or allow the dream to show you possibilities you hadn’t thought of.

 

Explore. You are, after all, a writer. It’s what we do.

~William Hammett

Index of Articles

The Relationship Between Music and Writing

 Listening to music is one the ways that I tune my brain into the creative centers of my cerebral cortex. I especially like to listen to classical music—symphonies, string quartets, and trios are the most helpful—since there are so many things going on at once. (This why so few people listen to classical music. It’s demanding and calls for attention unless one turns it on as background music.) The main melody interacts with several other melodies at any given time, and both give way to the melodies of the next movement.

There is also a complex interplay between the various instruments. In a string quartet, for example, there are two violins, a viola, and a cello. They sometimes work with each, while at other times they “play off of each other”—supporting each other, if you will—and yet they all end up in the same place in the end. From diversity comes harmony and a unified theme.

 

When writing a novel, an author must juggle subplots and orchestrate (pardon the pun) the interactions of the many characters. And then there are the issues of foreshadowing, flashbacks, planting red herrings, description, narrative style. Everything must support the novel as a whole and come together in just the right fashion.

 

Music and art of any kind go hand in hand. That certainly holds true for music and writing. To write a novel is to compose a score.

 

Of course, I can get inspired by listening to the Beatles simply because their music makes me happy.

 

~William Hammett

Index of Articles

Smashwords

While Kindle Publishing is perhaps the most popular format for those who want to reach a wide market with their eBooks, Smashwords is one of the largest and most effective eBook distributors in the world.  Smashwords' biggest selling point (and one that is very valid) is that it does not make money by selling services to authors, but rather makes a profit on selling books to readers.  Remember that POD companies make money on formatting and cover design, not book sales.  Anytime an author approaches a print-on-demand or eBook publisher, he or she should also be aware of endless package deals that attempt to upsell the customer on extra services, usually promotional in nature, that are generally worthless.  Smashwords has a straightforward and successful business model that is a viable option to Kindle (although one can format for both).  The company is also utilized by literary agents and conventional publishers as a distribution tool.

The eBooks found on Smashwords are compatible with platforms such as Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, Barnes and Noble Nook, iPhones, iPod Touch, and more.  Smashword distributes titles to major retailers, including Apple, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Kobo, Diesel eBook Store, and others.

Authors receive 85% of net proceeds and 70% through affiliate sales.  This is a lucrative arrangement for authors and rivals Kindle Direct, which gives authors 30% to 70% royalties.  Smashwords' percentages allow authors to charge less for their titles, which ostensibly results in greater sales.  Authors also receive free marketing tools, such as author pages, bios, and headshots.  Smashwords makes serious attempts to market titles since, as stated above, its profits are generated from sales, although the company expects authors to take the lead in promoting their books, which is standard in today's world of self-publishing.

As with most self-publishing operations, Smashwords authors are free to sell their works to mainstream publishers.  With more and more literary agents reading self-published books and taking their authors on as clients, what have you got to lose?  It's a brave new world in publishing.  Write a great book, have it properly edited, and get it into the literary marketplace.  You can't catch a fish unless you throw your line into the water.

~ William Hammett

Contact wmhammett@aol.com

Index of Articles

You Own the Copyright to Your Literary Property

As soon as you write anything on paper or commit your story to your hard drive, you own the copyright to your work according to the U.S. Copyright Office.  You don't need formal registration even though that is certainly wise once you get the work published.

The fastest way not to get published is to ask agents, editors, publishers, and ghostwriters if it is safe to send them samples of your work or to request that they sign non-disclosure or con-compete documents.  We get thousands of queries a year (in some cases, tens of thousands of queries a year).  If we had to sign such documents every time we received a query, we'd live at the Post Office.

No one in a reputable position in the publishing industry is going to steal your work.  If you ask whether it is safe to share your ideas, you are guaranteeing that your query will be ignored.

~ William Hammett

Contact wmhammett@aol.com

Index of Articles

The Quest for Literary Representation

Querying an agent has always been a numbers game.  If you wanted a response from an A-list agent (and hopefully a request for a manuscript), you had to send out dozens of queries.  It was okay to send along a sample chapter or two, which was great if you had a snappy style and a great opening.  Response times were reasonable, with most agents responding in one week to three months.

These days, many agents want only email queries, while many still want a single page sent via snail mail (but often without any sample chapter).  If an agent is interested, you might get a request for three sample chapters.  If these pass muster, you might be asked to send the first one hundred pages.  Only then might you be asked to send the entire manuscript.  There are, of course, exceptions.

Worse still, more and more agents simply aren't responding at all if they aren't interested in an idea or proposal, even when a query or sample pages are sent with an SASE.  I once got a request for sample pages one year after I had queried an agent.  I'd already forgotten about the submission.  I sent the pages.  Another year passed, and I was asked for another hundred pages.  A year after that, I emailed and asked if the agency was interested.  I was promised a response within three months.  Six months later, I emailed again and never received a reply.  That was three and a half years down the drain.

Is it any wonder that more and more authors are self-publishing and taking their literary works straight to readers and doing their own promotion?  There are great agents out there, but it's harder than ever to land one.

~ William Hammett

Contact wmhammett@aol.com

Index of Articles

George Clayton Johnson: Fictioneer by Vivien Kooper

George Clayton Johnson: Fictioneer by Vivien Kooper is the engrossing memoir of a writer of short stories, novels, and screenplays. Johnson, however, is best known for his screenplays or screen adaptations of his short stories. Most people don't pay much attention to the credits flashing across their screens after a show has ended, but the chances are pretty good that you've seen one of Johnson's stories. Why? The answer is simple: George Clayton Johnson wrote for some of the most popular shows that have appeared on television, episodes of which have become iconic. Johnson developed plots or wrote screenplays for such shows as Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Kung Fu, Route 66, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Additionally, he co-wrote, with William F. Nolan, a novel that was later translated into the film Logan's Run. Johnson, together with Jack Russell, also developed the story that would evolve into Ocean's Eleven (both the original 1960 movie and the later series of films starring George Clooney).

The first chapters of the book detail Johnson's early life, the most pivotal event of which was when he fell into a twenty foot pit that had been dug for a septic tank. With a splintered thigh bone, he spent lonely months recovering in a hospital, much of the time being chloroformed when it was time for the doctor to make an adjustment to the weights applied to his mending leg. The chloroform filled his head with "fuzzy cotton ghosts," and it was at this time that Johnson first began to develop a keen imagination, one that would always be most concerned with the future.

As Kooper describes the childhood of Johnson, who would suffer from a broken home and later run away, we learn that this fascination with the future will remain with him for a lifetime, a belief that what "might be" is more real than present events. By skillfully using the present tense, the author places the reader directly inside Johnson's life so that we may walk with him through seminal events that will help him use this developing imagination to become a "fictioneer." The present tense also merges seamlessly with Johnson's own recollections of how he became an avid reader and paid his dues while observing some of the greatest writers in the twentieth century, men such as Ray Bradbury, William F. Nolan, Rod Serling, and Charles Beaumont.

At the beginning of chapters, Kooper frequently uses historical and scientific "place markers" (e.g., the rise of Fascism or the invention of the modern television set) to delineate the world that Johnson explores in early life. It is a world that he will study and later write about, thematically examining ideas such as freedom, death, aging, and technology.

Of special note is the author's ability to know when to use Johnson's own voice and observations to highlight his artistic and personal maturation, as well as the work that he is best known for. This wise use of source material in Kooper's narrative, and its logical, thematic organization, is the mark of a professional biographer who knows exactly how to best portray the many facets of the book's subject.

The memoir's truly engaging quality is in how it chronicles Johnson's ability to create magic from the ordinary, to infuse his stories with the willing suspension of disbelief. His greatest talent, we learn, is to have readers become willing participants in the alternate realities he has invented. If you have wondered how writers get their ideas or what compels them to practice the craft of writing--or if you are an aspiring artist of any type yourself--you will, in these pages, metaphorically sit at the feet of a master storyteller, a man whose stock in trade is to take almost any situation, turn it on its side, and then say "what if ..."

This is a fascinating book and highly recommended for anyone who wishes to learn about the creative process of one of the most remarkable writers of the twentieth century.

~ William Hammett

Index of Articles

Daily Public Transit Ridership by Peter Felton

Daily Public Transit Ridership: The Inside Scoop  (Daily Public Transit Ridership: The Inside Scoop at Amazon) is a book that appealed to me on several levels.  First, it is the story of Peter Felton, who became fascinated with the transit system, called Muni, in the San Francisco Bay area.  We learn in the opening pages that Felton, when old enough, was able to make his first trip on Muni and felt exhilaration at finding that he could, to paraphrase an old saying, “get there from here.”  His enthusiasm is palpable when he describes the sights and sounds he encountered when riding the Muni routes, a world teeming with energy and life, all available to anyone who had a few coins or a pass and was willing to ride the extensive public transit routes in San Francisco.  With knowledge gained as he got older, he further learned that, with a simple transfer, he could explore the metropolitan bay area and go almost anywhere.  I was fascinated by the author’s enthusiasm since so many people take the ability to travel for granted and don’t take time to really observe their surroundings.  That is who we see in the opening pages of this book: an explorer.

The next chapters of the book explain in great detail the various routes in San Francisco and surrounding areas, as well as list the specs for the numerous kinds of electric cars that have been in the Muni system.  They also explain how they operated and evolved over the decades.  As someone who grew up riding the streetcars of New Orleans and later became interested in trains (to the point of collecting magazines on locomotive and diesel specs and taking endless pictures of railway cars), I applaud the author’s efforts to explain and preserve the proud history of rail transportation, including the technical side of the Muni cars and how they affected ridership ease (or occasionally the lack thereof).  The chapters even talk of stations, platforms, signs, and seating capacity.  Do you wish to know about the legendary BART system or learn of the fabled Embarcadero route?  You’ll find the information in these pages.  As the subtitle indicates, the book provides the inside scoop.

I also enjoyed the book because it reminded me of how eco-friendly public transit can be.  This is not to say that public transit is without its flaws or has no negative impact on the environment, but public ridership does indeed cut down on the number of cars crowding streets and freeways, plus many municipalities are working hard to cut harmful emissions from their transit vehicles.  The book reminds us that comfortable and efficient public transportation is overlooked in too many communities. 

The passages in which the author describes his great wonder at being able to share the driver’s compartment, both as a youth and as an adult, with a Muni operator, even to the point of actually operating a car, brought back memories of when I yearned to drive a streetcar or diesel engine, an opportunity I never received.  Through Felton’s eyes, however, I vicariously got the chance.

Ultimately, this book is about odyssey and opportunity.  We don’t need to climb mountains to find adventure and exploration.  As a kid, Felton saw a world that others lived in but were blind to.  Muni was (and is) not just utilitarian transportation, but rather an exciting way to travel and make discoveries.  The book is a coming of age story in which the author learns to navigate a small part of the world that, through his eyes, isn’t really small at all.  Rather, it is filled with the pulse of life and a million sights that are waiting to be noticed.  As a child, I sat in streetcars and looked at mansions and rural vistas one minute, only to pass through gritty streets lined by brick buildings the next.  I learned a lot about the larger world by investigating the microcosm of New Orleans.

This book reminded me that the simple way of doing things is sometimes the best.  For the price of a simple token or pass, one can board a trolley, bus, or subway, and, like popping in and out of a black hole, discover new places and people—or maybe even the backyard that is the city where you live.

~ William Hammett

Kindle Direct Publishing (Select)

Established authors, as well as self-published authors, are now finding that Kindle Direct Publishing offers many advantages over Print-on-Demand, or POD.  In fact, many authors are not even trying to get their eBooks onto other platforms, such as Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, or iTunes, nor are they interested in producing paperback editions.  At first glance, this would seem to be counterproductive since one would think that sales would increase by also increasing the number of sales outlets for a title.

Kindle Direct Publishing Select offers many advantages, however.  First, Amazon's Kindle store outperforms all other online eBook outlets.  Also, several authors have found that Amazon does a better job advertising titles on their site when authors promise exclusivity.  Sales are definitely generated by Amazon's trademark ads that state, "Customers who bought this title also bought . . . ."

That having been said, it is advisable to follow a few rules of thumb.  Kindle Direct Publishing Select offers an author the option of offering a book for free for a limited number of days for promotional purposes.  Nothing boosts sales more than giving away something for free.  People like to download free books, and this can result in increased reviews on the Amazon site.

In turn, positive reviews result in customers going to the promotional websites of a book or author, sites where the book is also offered for sale by a link back to Amazon.  This is when an author may choose to offer the book for .99 cents for a period or time, after which the price may be increased.  Sales are usually optimal at $2.99 per title regardless of the length of the book, although many authors move up to $3.99.

The book must be well-written, of course, but if an author has a quality product, Kindle Direct Publishing and Kindle Direct Publishing Select offer a great deal of opportunity in this new age of publishing.

~ William Hammett

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

Short Fiction

I grew up reading the short stories of Arthur C. Clarke.  Short story collections still exist, but most authors who write short fiction do so for literary journals.  Short stories don't reach the larger reading public to the degree that they used to.

Writing short fiction takes a lot of talent and discipline.  One must work on a smaller canvas, and that means plot, characterization, and pacing have to click off with great precision.  Most great writers from decades past began by writing short stories, and I am left wondering if so many very successful writers today have rambling, poorly constructed plots because they never cut their teeth on short fiction.  Maybe they simply haven't put in the hard work and discipline that it takes to write a really great short story.

Short stories were generally practiced by authors of literary fiction, and with literary fiction falling into the midlist (with notable exceptions), short fiction may be suffering because fewer writers wish to explore these traditional waters.  And then there are the millions of aspiring writers who want to pen the blockbuster novel.  They want to write thrillers and haul in millions of dollars.  They have tunnel vision and don't want to learn their craft and pay their dues.

It's a pity more people don't spend time writing short stories.  A real pity.

~ William Hammett 

Index of Articles

Is Journal Writing Worth the Effort?

Before blogs, many people jotted down their daily musings in a notebook, finding the act of writing with a ballpoint pen to be relaxing.  People also kept journals to simply stay in the habit of writing.  I personally don't keep a journal, but for some people it keeps the muse flowing, and that's never a bad thing.  It is the idea behind Ray Bradbury's advice to keep the connection strong between your brain and fingers, regardless of what you're writing about.

It is also a good idea to keep a journal if you think you might be interested in writing your memoirs one day.  A journal can be an invaluable source of information on events, times, and your emotions through the years.  Many people approach me to write their memoirs but have no source materials to draw from, relying only on their memories.  Keeping a diary or journal ensures that you know exactly what transpired in your life, and it provides important motivations for what you are doing at any given moment.  You can also create powerful and vivid descriptions of scenes that might otherwise fade from memory.

But maybe we should write more often for the sheer sake of writing.  One need only read the beautiful, almost lyrical, letters written by young soldiers during World War II.  These eighteen-year-old men, with only high school educations, wrote some of the most poignant letters I have ever read.  There was a greater emphasis on language and the written word in previous generations, and it's sad that this emphasis is slowing being eroded by terse emails and tweets. 

Is journal writing worth the effort?  I'd say yes.

~ William Hammett

Index of Articles

Print-on-Demand

Print-on-Demand ( or POD) is very popular since people can now publish their work without having to worry about rejection slips from agents or publishers.  This is a healthy trend since a lot of books are published every year that shouldn't see the light of day, and many worthy books are passed over.  To restrict the flow of ideas is almost Orwellian in nature.

But there are a few caveats when approaching print-on-demand publishers.  The basic price from iUniverse, which helped start the POD revolution, was only $99 ten years ago.  Today, prices from POD publishers range from $400 to $1600.  Always check out sample books from the publisher you are approaching to verify that its production values are high and that the cover art is professionally done.

The biggest problem with POD publishers is that they attempt to upsell you with package publishing deals--services that you really don't need.  Their sales reps attempt to get you to buy extra services to promote your book, put you in contact with agents, take you to the next level of publishing, and, in general, position your book to become a bestseller.

Here's the reality about these packages.  The promotional services usually include sending out a one-page press release about your book.  The book is also sent to reviewers who will allegedly help get your title some visibility.  The problem is that the press releases and advance review copies are sent to people, newspapers, and magazines that have little, if any, interest in your topic or genre. The POD companies have a generic list of publications and reviewers that they send all books to.  In the long run, you may get a brief review (which may be more of a summary of your book than a review) and a few lines in an obscure publication.  The reality is that few sales are ever generated by these publicity packages.  The average POD title sells 148 copies to family and friends unless the author, as is sometimes the case, has some advertising and promotional savvy, as well as a platform and credentials to more effectively create interest in the title.

The companies sometimes charge an additional fee to list the book on the Amazon or Barnes and Nobles websites, but any POD fee should include this service as part of the basic plan since anyone can put his or her book on Amazon for free.

In terms of putting you in touch with literary agents, most respectable agents have nothing to do with print-on-demand companies.  If you self-publish your book, agents will become interested in your title if you sell 10,000 copies or more.  If that happens, you will have no trouble getting a return email from an A-list agent.  For a fee, the POD company may indeed send your book to an agent, but don't expect to get representation.

In short, there is nothing in these add-on packages that you can't do more effectively yourself.  Print-on-demand companies take advantage of their customers' lack of knowledge about the publishing industry.  Work hard, but work smart.  Don't pay for unnecessary and ineffective services.

~ William Hammett

Index of Articles

Literary Agents

There was a time when an author could submit novels or nonfiction directly to a publisher.  As recently as the early 1990s, it was possible to send material to a particular editor at a major publishing house.  In the past fifteen years, however, direct submissions have been closed to almost all mainstream publishers with a few exceptions, such as Tor/Forge and some independent presses.  One now needs a literary agent.

Literary agents have been the gatekeepers as to what gets published and what doesn't for many years.  Even when direct submissions to publishers was still possible, the vast majority of books acquired by publishers were the result of agented submissions.  Agents knew where to submit a manuscripts and could secure a better, more profitable contract for their clients.

Getting agent representation has never been easy--rejection rates have hovered between 95% and 98% for many years--but it is now even harder to land an A-list agent.  With the advent of computers and word processing, it became somewhat easier to produce a manuscript.  Typing several revisions on a typewriter was a daunting, time-consuming endeavor, but MS WORD now allows the process to go a bit faster.  People also want to write books because they see how successful genre fiction has become.  The result is that agents receive more queries and book proposals than ever, and even with junior agents combing through the slushpiles, it is difficult to read every single submission in a timely fashion.  Many queries, in fact, go unanswered if the query shows no promise, and many agents just don't have time to return thousands of queries via snail mail regardless of whether return envelopes with postage were included.

Agents are also focusing more and more on seeing who is "breaking through" in self-publishing since many authors have been able to sell tens of thousands of copies of eBooks on Amazon, Smashwords, and other sites that offer books for electronic readers, such as the Kindle, Nook, and other digital platforms.  If an agent can find an author who has already gained an audience, it makes selling that author to a mainstream publisher that much easier.

Agents are an important part of the literary marketplace.  They work tirelessly to secure contracts for their clients.  More authors are turning to options such as Kindle Direct Publishing, but for those writers still seeking agents, it is imperative to send a great query letter with an irresistible hook, one written flawlessly.  There's a lot of competition out there. 

~ William Hammett

Index of Articles

Promoting Your Book

How does one promote a book in an age when even large mainstream publishers are cutting back on promotional dollars, allowing even excellent books to sink to the midlist?  In an age when people self-publish eBooks or use POD, the question of promotion is important for all authors.

First, I can tell you what not to do.  There are many Print-on-Demand companies and ghostwriting firms (really POD companies) that will try to upsell you on "package deals," such as promotional kits.  The promotional services amount to a company sending out press releases, securing reviews for the book, and making the book available online.  The press releases and reviews are ineffectual and usually result in no sales at all since they are sent to people around the country who have no real interest in your book's topic or genre.  They're just on the payroll of the company and get some money tossed their way for a quick review or a mention at the bottom of some obscure publication.  And anyone can put a book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble for free.

You need to take matters into your own hands.  Make an email list to announce your book, making sure you don't spam anyone.  It's crucial to have a website for your book, a personal author website, or both.  Creating a blog to talk about your book and its topic or genre is also mandatory if you expect people to notice your title.  Interact with other bloggers.  The above sites should all be linked so people can navigate from one to the other.

It's also imperative that you use social media to promote your book.  Talk about the title on your Facebook page and create a separate Facebook "author fan page."  Create a twitter account and send out tweets about your book and your other promotional activities.  Give away free copies of your book, and, if possible, get endorsements from other authors (or celebrities).  Make sure you have an online presence on appropriate sites, such as Goodreads.

If possible, arrange book signings at local and indie bookstores.  These days, your book's success is pretty much in your hands.  And that's not such a bad thing.

~ William Hammett

Index of Articles

What Is Developmental Editing?

Most people are aware that books are edited before they are published.  Editing is usually regarded as proofreading to correct basic grammatical mistakes or spot omitted words.  And this is certainly one valid definition of editing.  It's called line editing, and is a basic proofing without much thought of a book's content.

Developmental editing, on the other hand, is far more involved.  A developmental editor must deal with issues of pacing, characterization, plot, believability, and style, to name just a few areas that are addressed in the process.  Sections of a book are "massaged," often rewritten to smooth out the bumps and any awkward sections.  Additions are made (or suggested to the author), and frequently large sections of text that slow the pace of the book, or which are simply unnecessary, are removed.  Editors call this "trimming the fact." 

Almost all successful books go through some degree of developmental editing, and this applies to even the work of the most famous authors in the literary marketplace.  Acquiring editors at major publishing houses get out their fabled blue pencils and litter the margins of manuscripts with thousands of suggestions and changes.  Often, developmental editors are hired to actually execute these changes.

There has always been a tug of war between authors and editors, but the reality in mainstream publishing is that all books get edited.  Wise writers acknowledge that they may be too close to their work and accept constructive criticism--and the editing that goes with it.

~ William Hammett

Index of Articles

Writing as a Full-time Job

The average book published by a mainstream press sells only 14,500 copies nationwide.  Not a way to get rich, right?  Many people who ask me to ghostwrite their books think that they have a blockbuster and movie deal on their hands.  Regrettably, getting a book into print doesn't ensure fame or fortune.  Most books no longer receive a great deal of promotional money from publishers, and titles sink to what publishing houses call the mid-list.  It's for books that break even or make less than expected.  Sometimes books lose money.

Only about five percent of all writers in the United States can make a living and pay their bills through the occupation of writing.  I'm lucky to be in that small percentage.   I write under my own name as well as ghostwrite fiction and nonfiction.  I was a teacher for many years, and while it was a rewarding career, there came a point when it was time to move on.  I have written full-time for fifteen years now.

It's not easy earning one's living as a writer.  For me, it took many years to hone my skills, and I collected a lot of rejection slips.  I eventually published short fiction and poetry in literary journals and then published novels with small and independent presses.  I still do.  I also ghostwrite and edit.

It keeps food on the table.  I'm one of the lucky ones.

~ William Hammett

Index of Articles

Writing as a Mystical Process

Is writing simply sitting at the computer keyboard and putting words on the screen and then printing them out or uploading them to an eBook site?  Do authors simply get ideas, outline them, and then pound out the words?  The answer is yes--they very often do--but I humbly suggest that when artists in any medium are doing their best work, they are channeling what it is that wants to be written or expressed.

This is not a new concept.  Writers, painters, and musicians have said this for thousands of years.  Noel Paul Stookey, the "Paul" of Peter, Paul and Mary, refused to accept royalties for "The Wedding Song," which he wrote for Peter Yarrow's wedding.  Stookey claimed that the song was given to him in answer to prayer and that he was simply the vehicle for what God wished to express.  Accordingly, he put the song into the Public Domain.

I was pleasantly surprised when I read the same philosophy in the preface of Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents.  This powerhouse agent said that after all is said and done, a writer needs the humility to get out of the way of the story and allow something larger to come through the writing process.  I think Herman has it right.

Humility doesn't come easy to any human being, and when we create something of great meaning, we naturally want credit for it.  There's nothing wrong with copyrights and royalty checks.  After a certain point, however, we must admit that our skills and aptitudes are given to us at birth.  At our best, we are expressions of greater truths.  This is why it is so thrilling to find and read a book that truly inspires the reader.  We see something that we never saw before, or we see it in a new light.

Not everyone will accept this.  It takes faith, but without faith that my words come from a greater source of wisdom than my own brain, I don't think I could do what I do.

~ William Hammett

Index of Articles