Trunk novel? What the hell is a trunk novel?

Trunk novel. Somehow I had never come across the term, only seeing it for the first time these last few days. Don't know how it eluded me. If you've never heard the term, you'll certainly be familiar with the concept.

A trunk novel is an old, unpublished manuscript stuffed away in a trunk (or drawer, or closet, or box, or whatever), in most cases because it's terrible. You pull out your old trunk novel, read it, and remember how bad you were.

I can relate to that!

My trunk novel -- and dear god I hope I don't build up more than, say, three of them -- was an epic fantasy, the first book in (naturally) a trilogy. The delightfully bland title was The Fortress of Stone, and in a shocking twist it involved a young man being forced to leave his comfortable little village and travel with a group of mix & match companions, their quest key to stopping great evil from coming into the world.

Yes, it was that stunningly original.

Even better was the overblown purple prose, laborious descriptions of every tree and rock on their journey, painfully stilted dialogue, and complete lack of real characterization. And that's not even considering the boring, uninteresting story.

It currently rots away in a box ... which is right where it deserves to be. It's never been read or pitched, and it never will be.

Calvin & Hobbes was the greatest thing ever

Is there anything in the world that was better than Calvin & Hobbes? I'm not sure there was. Sure, sure, there is eating and sex, but Bill Watterson's masterpiece of a comic strip is right up there. Far more than three panels of humor each day, the full scope of the work will long stand as one of the great achievements of sequential art.

And no, I don't think I'm overstating the case.



In 10 years, Watterson evolved his strip from a quirky and funny comic strip that was a slightly edgy, modern version of Peanuts into something wholly unique. Something with a pretty amazing range. Something that could be risque one day and charmingly quaint the next; dealing with childhood antics on Monday and making serious political and social commentary on Tuesday. (Just look at this prophetic strip.) Calvin & Hobbes has made me laugh, cry, think, snicker, and more. I don't think any strip has had the range of delights that C&H had. It was smart and funny and juvenile and a thousand other things.



Calvin & Hobbes is one of the great treasures of the 20th century. For real.

As my proof, I present to you the snowman series of strips. If that's not brilliant, nothing is.

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Lost - On Locke and faith

WARNING: The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the television show Lost. If you have not caught up through season 5, do not read this. It will spoil your enjoyment of the show.

Indulge me for a moment while I write about Lost, in my estimation one of television's greatest dramas and something with which I an currently obsessed.

Of all the overriding themes of Lost, one of the most powerful is that of faith. Or more accurately, the struggle between faith and reason. The belief in fate and external forces beyond our comprehension, and the disregard of those concepts in favor of accepting only that which we can see and touch.

Representative of this is the sometimes overt, sometimes spiritual conflict between John Locke, a man of faith, and Jack Shepard, a man of science. Jack believes in reason, in using logic and sound thinking to overcome the obstacles fate (which he does not believe in) has put before. Locke, on the other hand, believes in fate, and even more importantly, he believes in the Island as a guiding hand in his life. It is an entity unto itself that has granted him the opportunity to experience what amounts to a kind of illumination.

Locke, you see, was born again upon coming to the Island. Or at least that is the message the show imparts to us.

After the traumatic birthing experience of Flight 815's crash -- what else is it for the survivors other than the pain of labor and then a birthing? -- Locke is essentially reborn. He begins his second life, but now as the man he wanted to be rather than the man he was. The Island, he believes, has given him the power to be that person. Throughout most of the season we see him place an ever greater amount of faith in the Island as something special, important, and maybe even benevolent. It delivers a guitar to Charlie, allows Locke to once again walk, and most significantly, gives him a purpose by handing him the Hatch, first as a puzzle to be unlocked and then as a task he must do. These among many examples that reinforce his faith in the Island.

But Locke, as is often the case when upon a spiritual journey of this sort, begins to experience a crisis of faith. Here it comes after the Hatch has been opened and he has devoted himself to entering the mysterious numbers, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. After a time, Locke's previously unshakable faith in the need to enter the numbers begins to waver, as does his faith in the Island itself. Locke doubts his purpose and the things to which he devoted himself. He once considered the Hatch of great importance, but this is called into question after we explore DHARMA Station 5: The Pearl, which (falsely) reveals the Hatch to be little more than an elaborate psychological experiment. It is the final blow to Locke's faith.

Yet Locke's faith is validated in the season 2 finale, "Live Together, Die Alone," when the Hatch implodes on itself after the numbers are not entered.

Locke, it seems, should never have lost faith.

This validation of faith continues not just in Locke's experiences -- following the events at the Hatch, Locke is increasingly painted as a chosen one, the next person in which the Island will place trust and power -- but also in Jack's experiences.

Jack is the man of science. Of rationality. Despite the fantastic things he has seen and experienced, up to and including interacting with his dead father, he refuses to be taken in by the allure of the Island. He does not want what it has to offer. He does not believe. In the ultimate rejection of the Island, he escapes and returns to the real world.

Jack's reward for snubbing the Island is to lose his love, his job, and his very soul to drug addiction. He is stripped of everything, right down to his dignity. The once clean-cut, stoic Jack ends up an unkempt, unstable and haunted man searching for a way to return to the Island.

Lose faith and lose yourself, or so seems the message. And thus is the man of science foiled.


But is he? As it does repeatedly, Lost again turns everything we know upside down as Locke's shocking story continues to unfold. Following the implosion of the Hatch, Locke's faith in the power of the Island is repeatedly reinforced and validated. The Island's power to help him achieve a kind of human perfection, a oneness with the world around him, is maybe most dramatically displayed in Locke's ability to recover from wounds with remarkable quickness. What better way to underscore the power of Locke's faith than in the healing hand of the Island? Whenever Locke wavers, he is given a new reason to believe. A new miracle. A new affirmation of the power of his faith.

Eventually, Locke makes the ultimate sacrifice for the Island. So deep is Locke's faith in the rightness of the Island and the sense of purpose it gives him that he chooses to die when it demands his death. Had Ben Linus not taken action, Locke would have died by his own hand. Though by Ben's hand rather than his own, Locke does indeed die for the Island. That's how strong his faith in its unfathomable purpose.

And indeed, we are led to believe in the Island's amazing power now, too, as we see the greatest miracle of all. Locke's resurrection. If ever we had reason to doubt, it is wiped away in the most uncompromising of ways.

But Lost is not a show content with satisfying viewer expectations. In the stunning season 5 finale, "The Incident," we discover -- or think we discover; by now we should know not to take things at face value -- that Locke had not been resurrected after all. He is dead, truly dead, and the post-resurrection Locke we've been seeing was merely an ancient being that had taken his form in order to trick an old adversary, the elusive Jacob.

In stark contrast to all we had come to believe, Locke's reward for his faith was death. Meanwhile, Jack, the man of science and reason, may be on the path to breaking the chain of events that led to the crash of Flight 815.

So what are we to take from this? Faith, it seems, was a false road. A will-o'-the-wisp that leads the unwary to a bad end.

Maybe. Given Lost's history of defying our expectations, it's impossible to predict where this clash of faith and reason will end. Jack's unwavering adherence to reason got him off the island, but also ruined his life. His sudden faith in the Island and fate, which was found during his darkest days, restored him to the heroic figure he was, yet as season 5 came to a close it was once again his reason that drove him forward. The question we're now left with is, did his decision to detonate the hydrogen bomb accomplish what he sought to accomplish? Did reason win out over faith, or was it again a trap?

And what of Locke, the One True Believer in the Island and all it offered? Are we really to believe that his story ends here? That he is dead, dead dead, and such was his final reward for his loyalty to the Island?

Ultimately, I think we'll find that neither will be the "correct" viewpoint. Rather, we'll see that strict adherence to either results in blind spots in our vision, an unwillingness or inability to see all that there is to see. Lost being Lost, there will be no easy answers. No neat and tidy and clean judgments.

Just like in the real world.

Balancing enjoyment and WORK

I write because I love to write. But sometimes I write because it provides a check.

I don't apologize for that. We all need to eat. Still, taking assignments you don't love can be a slog. You take a freelance assignment because it will make you a few extra bucks -- always welcome in this economy -- but if it saps all the joy out of being in front of the keyboard, is it worth it?

I don't have an answer to that.

I still throw my all into each project, even if it bores me to tears. I always strive to do my best work. And hey, I must be doing something right or I wouldn't get hired for this stuff, right?

But let me tell you, it rips out my guts to be working on something about the latest medication for incontinent senior citizens when I could be working on my dystopian science fiction novel. Paying work has to come first every time, too, which only makes matters worse.

I wonder how other people balance the desire to write the things they want to write and the need to write the things they HAVE to write. Someone tell me!

Keep going, keep going, keep going

When it comes to writing, I obsess a lot about keeping productive. I do this because at heart I am a lazy, unmotivated person. People who see my list o' projects might think otherwise, but believe me, if I could lounge around all day I would. That, and I am a horrible, horrible procrastinator. It's not that I don't love writing -- I'm absolutely passionate about it -- it's that I'm allergic to work and obligation. I can jump into something with great vigor and tear through a project like it's the only thing in the world, but once I decide it's a Real Project and not a Fun Distraction it becomes work, and I don't like to work.

So needless to say, I struggle with staying productive. Managing the trick can be a real slog, but you've absolutely GOT to do it. I do this through routine and a healthy dose of momentum. They are the two most essential ingredients in keeping myself working. Without them, it's all too easy for me to lapse into spells of inactivity.

Routine - This is self-explanatory, isn't it? Every night I sit down in the same place at the same time and I write (or edit, which is a major part of the writing process). What I write or edit doesn't really matter, as long as I'm working. Sometimes I'm doing some PR stuff I do on the side. Sometimes a novel. Sometimes something else. The key is, I'm working. Fingers on the keys, head as far in the game as I can get it. When you make writing part of your routine there is no waiting for "inspiration" or struggle to drag words out of yourself. You just sit down and DO IT. For me, I manage to fit about 90 minutes a night into my life. It's not enough to accomplish all I want to accomplish, but it's what fits.

Find how much you can fit, turn it into a routine, and your productivity will soar. If all you can get out of your day is an hour, make that hour count. But more importantly, make it your routine. Treat it like exercise. You're going to sit down in the same place, at the same time, and you're going to WORK. Every day. It will take a few weeks, but before long it will become second nature. No "inspiration," you'll just sit down at the appointed time and the words will come out.

Momentum - This goes hand-in-hand with routine. Once I get rolling on a project, it's important for me to keep steaming ahead. A break can grind me to a halt. And when I halt, well, I'm often halted for good. Just ask my wife. I'll spend the entire day doing some big household project, falter at the 85 percent mark, and never look at it again. This is death for a writing project. How many unfinished novels do you have sitting around in your files? The answer is probably "too many." That's certainly my answer. In order to avoid building an ever greater pile of stuff I'll never finish, I have to keep up the momentum on my project of the moment.

One of the ways I do this is to keep a brief journal of each day's writing -- and a journal for other people to see. The idea is to put pressure on myself. After all, who wants to fall on their face in front of other people? In my case it's on a private message board, where friends can scold me if I skip a few days. "Day 23. Worked on X, Y and Z tonight. Hope to wrap up the first draft by Monday." That sort of thing. Maybe post samples once in a while. You can do the same on your blog, or Facebook, or wherever. The point is that by regularly logging what you're doing, you're both establishing your routine and helping maintain your momentum.

These minor adjustments in how I look at writing helped me go from eight years working on my first novel (now in a drawer) to about two months on my second, or about six months if I account for the differences in length.

If you want to write but are faltering, take a look at how your work. If writing is not something you're doing every single day the same you see that same jogger on that same stretch of road at the same time every day, well, consider changing your approach.

My short fiction at Boston Literary Magazine

I penned a flash fiction piece last year called "Storms," a brief war story about a man's experience on the front lines of World War I. The story is now available at Boston Literary Magazine. Surf over here and give it a read. It's short. Won't take you but a few minutes to read.

My thanks to editor Robin Stratton, who forced me to take a hard look at the story and pare it back to its most essential elements.

Check out this artwork while I relax

Been a bit busy lately with this, that, and the other thing, so I've had to set aside my little distraction of a blog for a while. Keeping up with family and work and writing projects and podcasts is a killer ... and now that summer is here, well, a man needs his relaxing time in the backyard, damnit. What's the sense of a backyard if you never use it?

So while I continue to chug through my projects (now 10 chapters into my dystopian science fiction novel), have another preview of my upcoming comic anthology. Artist Rich Hannah adapted a short story I wrote called "The Last Shot". This is a sneak peek.



My part will be adapting my own story, rewriting it for the comic version. Should be an interesting challenge.

The anthology should be ready for release by August. I hope you'll support the great work these artists have done and buy a copy.

Stanley Lieber art, now

Stanley Lieber, the excellent artist and musician working with me on my upcoming comic anthology, has just posted some sample art on his blog. Go check it out.

Aspiring writers, avoid bonehead moves

If you hope for writing to be more than a hobby, it's a good idea to have a good sense for what is and is not good practice when it comes to dealing with editors and agents. Those people will be your doorway into the world of getting paid for your work and having readers who are not friends and family. It's helpful to know what approaches work and, more importantly, what approaches DON'T. That's one reason why I pay attention to their blogs.

Literary agent Jessica Faust shares a story about a writer who got defensive when she asked for more information about the author's manuscript. Way to shoot yourself in the foot! I've mention being overly defensive before and it's worth repeating: you will only hurt yourself.

Janet Reid, also a literary agent, shares a similar story. I feel her pain on this one. In my day job as an editor I'm often on the receiving end of those calls -- when I say "send me more information," that is NOT an invitation to pitch your amazing news feature to me over the phone -- so I take great pains to avoid being That Guy.

That doesn't mean you act like a timid mouse, unable or unwilling to assert yourself. Be aggressive in pursuing your dream at all costs! Just try to avoid these simply boneheaded blunders. Speaking as an editor myself, trust me, those creative gimmicks you think will grab attention will not help you, they will hinder you -- but that's another blog post entirely -- and being pushy rather than aggressive is a surefire way to get editors to ignore you.

Don't be That Guy.