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Anthony Alvarado

Tag Archives: quotes

The writing on my wall

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by Alvarado in Uncategorized

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Tags

Diogenes, inspiration, Picasso, quotes, Yeats

photo-29

I have 3 quotes that I keep up on the walls of my work space. I thought I’d share them because, well they work for me. Taken together they work as a whole ethic for work and creativity. I would recommend anyone do this: of course you can use any quotes. No need to get fancy. It can be as simple as scrawling the quote in sharpie on a sheet of paper. Just having the idea there on the wall serves as a reminder. . . and it slowly seeps deep into your self. Here are my 3.

picasso

Inspiration exists but it has to find you working.

— Picasso

I love this because it reminds me that no matter what you have to work to accomplish what you want to do. Even if you are Picasso you have to show up every day, and roll up your sleeves (or if you’re Picasso just take your shirt off) and get started just doing the work. You have to work at it everyday, and then sure, sometimes you get lucky.

yeats

The Daimon is our destiny; who would ever set us to the hardest work not impossible.

— Yeats

The Daimon is your tutelary spirit. A good teacher knows that you must be challenged to learn beyond your comfort zone. It is that voice that pushes you further. Whatever you are afraid to tackle, maybe that is exactly the thing you should be working on.

diogenes

Solvitur Ambulando

— Diogenes

This is posted over my door. It reminds me that when I get stuck it is good to leave and go take a walk.

Twelve things you need to know after you sell your first book

16 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by Alvarado in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

aspiring authors, david lynch, DIY Magic, getting published, new authors, platform, quotations, quotes, twitter, writer's platform

This post is for everybody out there that wants to write a book someday, but doesn’t know what happens after you land that first book deal. If you are like me you imagine the scenario goes down something like this: you get a call from your agent “hey we sold your book, now you are famous!” Then you have a big party, with clowns and champagne. And after that you basically become Hemingway and spend the rest of your days going to bullfights and marlin fishing of the coast of Cuba.

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Ok, maybe my imagination ran away a bit. But honestly, I didn’t have a clear picture of what happens after you sell your book to a publisher. It turns out that getting your book accepted is just 50% of the battle. You still have a lot of work to do between when the ink dries on your book contract, and when your book (hopefully) climbs up the best seller list and does what it is supposed to: sell books!

So, here is my list of top 12 things I have learned recently about what you have to do once you do sell a book. And if you are an aspiring author I recommend checking this out now, because you can actually start building a lot of this stuff now, and it will make you and your book more attractive to prospective literary agents and publishers. Hell, I wish someone had told me this stuff 3 years ago!

 

1. You need a platform. (Try blogging)

What’s a platform? Well, the ultimate platform is being famous. If you are named Shakira or Justin Bieber you can already skip to  step 12. Indeed, if you are Justin Bieber you could probably write a book called “101 Recipes for Plain Oatmeal” and sell about a million copies.  If you don’t happen to already be famous, you need a platform. A platform is anything that gets your voice out there. It can be a blog, a podcast, a radio show, appearances, interviews, twitter. It is ways that people can see you on the media.

Think of it like this. The equation that a lot of publishers are going to be thinking is:

A x P = book sales.

Where A = Awesomeness of book. And P = Platform. We writers often tend to just think about one half of the equation.

Don’t know where to begin with building a platform? Here is my recommendation try blogging. It’s free, it’s fun, it will build your platform slowly. Perhaps best of all, it is a great way to practice your writing on a small scale in front of a live audience. Think of it as practicing your scales. You know what made John Coltrane the best sax player of all time? Hours and hours of practicing scales in his garage! Start practicing now.

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2. If you are a fiction writer you don’t need a platform quite as badly as a nonfiction writer. If you are writing nonfiction YOU NEED A PLATFORM!

 

I really don’t know why this is. It’s not fair, but that’s how it is.

 

3. You need to know how to position your book.

 

What’s position mean? Think of it this way, when you look your book up on Amazon, what’s going to be the “customers also looked at these titles” books that also appear? Or try this, walk to the place in the bookstore where your book is going to be shelved. Now, what’s the competition? Now, just because your book is going to be next to some other books that are super-famous-big-sellers is not a bad thing! That just means you are writing about a popular subject. That said, you don’t want to position your book so that it is the less sexy book on the shelf. You want it to be the sexiest thing 20 feet in every direction!

You also don’t want your book to fall in the shadow of any other books. I was talking to a guy last night who has a dream to one day write the go-to book on Apple Orchards. I talked with him about positioning his book idea. Apple Orchards is obviously way too broad a topic. “You want something that fits in a unique niche,” I told him. With a little bit of brainstorming, we were able to tweak his Apple Orchard idea to make it unique, sexy even. We gave it a good position, so it stands out from the other gardening books. (Obviously I can’t tell you what that is, but I think he has a much better chance of impressing a publisher now.)

4. You don’t get paid right away

Sold your book? Congratulations! Now think twice before you quit that day job as a barista or whatever. I’m not saying that you can’t, but just look at the facts. You don’t get your lump sum all at once. They (the publisher) pay you 4 times. First when they buy the rights to the book. Second when they accept the manuscript (after it’s been edited). Thirdly when the book actually get’s published (which in many cases is 1-2 years after you sell the book!) and fourth, if you’re lucky, when you sell the foreign rights to the book. I’m just saying, those checks are pretty spaced out . . . a part time barista job might not be the worst thing in the world . . .

5. Get comfortable with the idea of public speaking

Sold your book? Congratulations! Now guess what’s in your future: readings, conferences, interviews on television and radio, podcasts, cold calling book store owners to set up events. If the idea of speaking in front of a crowd makes you jumpy, you might want to practice getting comfortable in front of others now, so you’re ready when the time comes.

6. Get comfortable with new media

When I was younger I thought I could like, write books on a freaking typewriter and they would be genius and that’s all I needed. If I had a time machine I would go back to my younger self and say “PShhhhaw, yeah right kid!” Twitter, Facebook, podcasts, blogs, the internet as a whole; these things are not going away, my friends. And they are terrific ways to get your name out there.( See principle # 1 building your platform.)  I am telling you this now, because no one is more guilty of ignoring this stuff until the last minute than I am. I have held out against Twitter for years. It wasn’t until my wonderful editor at Perigee books told me I should really try out Twitter that I finally succumbed. And guess what, it’s actually a lot of fun! Duh. So what are you waiting for, it’s just another way to write! It’s not like we should pretend to be Shakespeare and write with just ink and a giant goose quill. Trust me, if William Shakespeare were alive today, not only would he be tweeting, (@billshakestweeter) he would have 9 million tweet followers.  Get with the times! (Oh, btw you can follow me @anth_alvarado)

7. Know who you wrote the book for

Ask yourself; who is my ideal reader? Figure that out and get to know your ideal reader.

Now you just have to figure out how to connect with that ideal reader. That’s going to be different for different demographics.

For example I wrote DIY Magic for a younger version of myself. I wanted to write a book of tips, tricks and wisdom that is all the stuff I wanted to learn in college  but nobody was teaching. You know, the really cool underground ideas that you have to go digging for? Because of this, I now want to really make an effort to reach out to University and college campuses etc., to make sure that my book is available in the local campus book store, and to do as many appearances at colleges as I can.

 

8. Get a decent author photo taken.

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“C’mon Shel, smile for the birdie! . . .”

“No. I will not.”

“Uh, ok, it’s your face.”

 

9. Hold off on that celebration party until you actually send in the manuscript.

You sold your book? Congratulations. But guess what, you still have a lot of work to do on the manuscript before you send it off. So if you are planning a vacation or a celebration you might want to wait awhile.

10. Using quotes in your book can be a real pain in the ass.

When the first edition of DIY Magic came out, I used a ton of quotes without bothering to get permision. I quoted Built to Spill, David Lynch, MC Chris. Turns out you can really only quote stuff freely like that if it is from 1922 or earlier. In retrospect this is kinda obvious, but I just didn’t think about it. Yeah, you can try to get permission from everybody you quoted. Good luck getting David Lynch on the phone! I ended up just cutting some of those quotes, or finding older (and better) quotes to use.

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10. Your Bio actually matters.

It’s your life story in a paragraph! Originally I sent in something dumb for my bio, like ” I live in Portland with a cat and a dog.” Ugh. That’s the bio for half the books ever written: “Lives in Portland with a cat and a dog.” I’m working on making that a more compelling bio now.

11. At the end of the day, it is really the quality of your book that matters.

I know, I know, I’ve been telling you about platform, and Twitter, and your author photo, and so on. But guess what, when it comes right down to it none of this stuff is going to make a difference unless you wrote an out-of-the-ballpark, awesome book! That is what comes first, and don’t forget it. The writing!

 

12. Have fun with it!

If you have gotten to this stage you are already incredibly fortunate. You should enjoy yourself. When I first sold my book to Perigee Books, I kinda freaked out and got stressed out for awhile. All of a sudden I felt a lot of pressure because it felt like my writing was now on a bigger level than it had been. I went through that experience, a sort of dread of success, for a couple weeks, than I realized that, hey, If I ‘m not going to loosen up and enjoy this, I might as well go back to my boring old job! Screw that! Since then I’ve tried to loosen my grip, and approach the whole thing as a game, and I’m having a lot more fun, and enjoying the whole experience. Writing is the best job in the world. It is hard work, and challenging, of course it is, if it wasn’t it wouldn’t be the best job a person could hope for.

How to Write

19 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by Alvarado in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Haruki Murakami, quotes, Stephen King, writing

The best books I have read on how to be a writer are the memoirs of Haruki Murakami, and Stephen King.

Here, jumbled together, are my notes on how to write, gathered from King’s “On Writing” and Murakami’s “What I talk about when I talk about Running”.  These are not high-falutin’ puffed-up pieces about the noble art of the craft. They are roll up your sleeves, this is actually what you gotta do, declarations. They are the sort of notes a plumber might leave to his son before passing along the family business. If you are serious about writing follow the advice of these two masters and you can’t fail. (These quotes are taped on the wall next to my desk. Just memorize and apply these words of wisdom, young grasshopper, and you won’t need to spend $40,000 on an MFA. You’re welcome.)

Murakami’s Schedule

HM-Monkey

I got up before 5 a.m. and went to bed before ten p.m. People are at their best during different times of the day, but I’m definitely a morning person. That’s when I can focus and finish up important work I have to do. Afterward I work out or do other errands that don’t take much concentration. At the end of the day I relax and don’t do anymore work. I read, listen to music, take it easy, and try to go to bed early. this is the pattern I’ve mostly followed up till today

Stephen King’s routine

king600span

My own schedule is pretty clear-cut. Mornings belong to whatever is new—the current composition. Afternoons are for naps and letters. Evenings are for reading, family, Red Sox games on TV, and any revisions that just cannot wait. Basically morning is my prime time for writing.

Quotes: (See if you can tell who said what.)

“I came to feel strongly that a story is not something you create. It is something that you pull out of yourself. The story is already there, inside you.”

“I want you to understand that my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow (and to transcribe them of course). . . stories are like found things, like fossils in the ground.”

“Stoked on cup after cup of tea, I drank it by the gallon when I wrote.”

“A strong enough situation renders the whole question of plot moot, which is fine with me. The most interesting situations can usually be expressed as a What -if question.”

“Whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or husband) I smile and think, There’s someone who knows. ”

“If you want to be a writer you must do two things above all else: read a lot and write a lot.”

“I believe the first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season. Any longer and—for me, at least—the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public affairs.”

“Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot.”

“The key to good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing, the kind of writing that employs fresh images and simple vocabulary. I began learning my lessons in this regard by reading Chandler, Hammett, and Ross Macdonald.”

“The structure of  A Wild Sheep Chase was deeply influenced by Raymond Chandler. I am an avid reader of his books and have read some of them many times. I wanted to use his plot structure in my new novel.”

“Raymond Chandler once confessed that even if he didn’t write anything he made sure he sat down at his desk every single day and concentrated.”

“You’ll naturally learn both concentration and endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point.

“Basically I agree with the view that writing novels is an unhealthy type of work. To deal with something unhealthy, a person needs to be as healthy as possible.”

“The sort of work second drafts were made for are symbolism and theme.”

“Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create a sense of artificial profundity.”

“Now let’s talk about revising the work—how much and how many drafts? For me the answer has always been two drafts and a polish.”

“2cnd Draft=1st Draft minus 10%”

“Boredom can be a very good thing for someone in a creative jam.”

“If there is one thing I love about writing more than the rest, it’s that sudden flash of insight when you see how everything connects.”

“On some days those 10 pages come easily and I’m up and out doing errands by eleven-thirty in the morning, perky as a rat in liverwurst.”

“When the reader hears strong echoes of his or her own life and beliefs, he or she is apt to become more invested in the story.”

“Write what you like, then imbue it with life and make it unique by blending in your own personal knowledge of life, relationships, sex, and work. Especially work. People love to read about work. God knows why, but they do.”

“Every time I begin a new novel, I have to dredge out another new, deep hole.”

“I generally concentrate on work for three or four hours every morning. I sit at my desk and focus totally on writing. I don’t see anything else, I don’t think about anything else.”

“Your schedule—in at about the same time every day, out when your thousand words are on paper or disk—exists in order to habituate yourself, to make yourself ready to dream just as you make yourself ready to sleep by going to bed at roughly the same time each night and following the same ritual as you go.”

“I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day’s work goes surprisingly smoothly. I think Ernest Hemingway did something like that. To keep going, you have to keep up a rhythm. This is the important thing for long-term projects. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow.”

Picasso on creativity

10 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by Alvarado in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

art, creativity, Painters, Painting, Picasso, quotes

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The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.

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If there were only one truth, you couldn’t paint a hundred canvases on the same theme.

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Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

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Computers are useless, they can only give you answers.

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I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.

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Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.

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Love is the greatest refreshment in life.

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I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

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God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.

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Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.

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Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.

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Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

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